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Working With 2 ISPs For Home Networking?

Posted by timothy on from the you-failover-is-better-than-you-fail dept.

An anonymous reader writes "This is, I think, a simple question — but one which I can't get the answer to. As a typical, but perhaps high-demand home user I would like to use 2 separate ISPs. ADSL is pretty cheap nowadays, and 2 x ADSL seems a better value than one fast one — especially in terms of reliability. If one breaks, at least the other will work. Using an old box as a router/firewall, how can I configure a system to use two completely separate ISPs in a sensible manner? Ideally, I'd like the load of my browsing to be balanced, but at the minimum, I'd want some kind of 'fail-over.' If I leave torrents running over night, I'd like the router to use whichever connection doesn't block the traffic — and preferably for it to reset the errant connection. Ideas?"

6 of 356 comments (clear)

  1. Point of failure by tepples · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ADSL is pretty cheap nowadays, and 2 x ADSL seems a better value than one fast one â" especially in terms of reliability. If one breaks, at least the other will work.

    When your DSL is down, it's likely that your neighbor's DSL is down too. Consider cable + DSL, not cable + cable or DSL + DSL.

    1. Re:Point of failure by mikkelm · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's because you're in Sweden, and the infrastructure there, especially urban infrastructure, is typically much less vulnerable than here in the southeastern US, for example. We frequently have last mile outages due to storms, flooding and lightning, and when a tree hits a phone mast, you lose your DSL, no matter how many different providers you have.

      It all depends on the local conditions, so suggesting separate last-mine access technologies as a way to optimise your redundancy is not such a bad idea.

    2. Re:Point of failure by farnsaw · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, the main reason is that Japan has a total area of about 375,000 sq km.

      https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ja.html

      The USA has about 9,200,000 sq km, or about 30 times the area. Now we (the USA) have covered this out to supply power, telephone, cable tv, and internet but have not been able to cover every single residence with redundancy on these services.

      Japan is slightly smaller than California, a large state, but still only one of 50.

      --
      "Computer Scientists can count to 1024 on their fingers" (non-mutant, non-mutilatated, human computer scientists)
  2. Re:DSL+Cable by HalAtWork · · Score: 4, Insightful

    probably "Roll your own" solutions, but as most of us know, that can provide months and months of aggravation!

    Ah, but also fun and learning. "You must be new here" ;)

    --
    Twinstiq, game news
  3. From the "I am not giving a useful answer dept" by fliptout · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Great, so you googled some shit. Maybe he wants to get some people's experiences with them? What is good or bad?

    --
    A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
  4. Re:From the "I don't use google" Department. by kannibal_klown · · Score: 5, Insightful

    God, not another person saying this.

    Slashdot articles aren't just posted for the question, but for the discussion. Yes, anyone can find an answer to anything they want with Google+Wikipedia+etc.

    The point here is that maybe someone will take an interest in it that never thought of it before or cared enough to dig around Google.

    Obviously from the author's point of view, multiple viewpoints by the readers would be helpful. However from the Slashdot mods (and community in general) it's an interesting enough topic to read on their own.