2 providers existing on one network?

[GuruOfNothing]

I had had a satellite provider for internet for awhile now and it sucks balls. The local DSL provider... and the only even remotely competitively priced option in the area, just did some updating and has 54 new aDSL ports in the area and can get me a whole WHOPPING 18M service!!! Woohoo! Pfftthhh.But that beats the crap out of the (guaranteed)25M that actually works out to be about 1.5M most of the time.

 

I am stuck in a contract (or pay $800 fee for early termination) for 7 more months so am keeping it for now AND getting on the aDSL train while the ports are hot (and sooner than later to be upgraded to local fiber). Here is the magical question... CAN I plug both providers into my home network and utilize that bandwidth together for now? I understand that I could go buy a stupidly expensive enterprise grade router that does some sort of bonding (or maybe not) but that isn't an option ATM. I don't care about getting more speed out of them, just gonna be paying for both and I would like to at least use them both to some degree. I know... what's the point?

 

Correct me if I am wrong, as I often am, in that I can put them both on seperate subnets... 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.1.1 and assign appropriate IP's to things to point them at specific gateways but still access them on the same network by address? So, my desktop (addressed as 0.100) connected to 0.1 with fast(er) internet and still SSH in to my RPi MQTT server (addresed as 1.100) on the 1.1 net by calling for that specific address? I m a little foggy on the whole subnet jazz. As long as the device is pointed at it's assigned gateway for internet, it should stick with that, correct? Oh yeah, and BTdubs as well, I have wired the crap out of my entire property, am running Ubiquitti mesh routers (but not a gateway) and I have a dedicated PfSense box in the mix...that is currently bypassed because I did some seriously gnarly changes in configuration to it and bricked my internet access and will need to totally reinstall the OS to fix it. I know plenty enough to create a monster but not enough to keep it from eating me. Go figure.

 

The idea is to put my home automation stuff on the same subnet which uses the satellite snail-trail-to-the-internet connection for it's updates and what not and point all the rest of the gear... desktops, laptops, smart TV, etc, on the aDSL line for streaming and access to the NAS and the other crap on the network.. It is my understanding I can't selectively tell a device which IP to use for each task/app... it just uses what it has as a gateway. Like I want you to use slow-net for your updates and fast net for Netflix...

 

Or am I just out in left field and I should just shut the satellite modem off and toss it in a closet for 7 months and forget I ever made THAT fated mistake?

[Enderman]

You could team networks to get more speed, which linus did many years ago, but if one network is much slower than the other even though you may get better transfer speeds your ping will be bad due to the slower network.

I would recommend using the two networks separately since they are both crappy and slow.

[GuruOfNothing]

Quote

I would recommend using the two networks separately since they are both crappy and slow.

That's what I was figuring. so... I need to split my systems up and tell them which gateway they will be using to utilize whichever provider I deem more appropriate for their purpose. And I can still access those devices by their IP's, even though they are on different subnets, correct? I feel stupid even asking that kind of question!

[Electronics Wizardy]

What router do you have? Id just get a dual wan router, and let that handle it. You can have all the devices on one subnet, and route traffice between the isps as you see fit. You can do failover, round robin, split between hosts or servcies.

[GuruOfNothing]

24 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What router do you have? Id just get a dual wan router, and let that handle it. You can have all the devices on one subnet, and route traffice between the isps as you see fit. You can do failover, round robin, split between hosts or servcies.

I have the modem/router that the satellite provider supplies and a handful of switches with Ubiquiti AP's for mesh WIfi. The satellite router does my DHCP and everything else in the network is fixed IP's. I do not have any managed hardware. I do have the PfSense box with 4 NIC ports on it. Didn't know if I could configure anything in that (once I get it reloaded with non-bricked OS) and port in both providers WAN connections through the PfSense box. That would be slick if that was an option.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, GuruOfNothing said:

I have the modem/router that the satellite provider supplies and a handful of switches with Ubiquiti AP's for mesh WIfi. The satellite router does my DHCP and everything else in the network is fixed IP's. I do not have any managed hardware. I do have the PfSense box with 4 NIC ports on it. Didn't know if I could configure anything in that (once I get it reloaded with non-bricked OS) and port in both providers WAN connections through the PfSense box. That would be slick if that was an option.

yea pfsense will do this just fine.

 

Just setup the 2 wan interfaces, then you make make a load balancer group.

[GuruOfNothing]

Perfect! I am certain I can screw that up:-) Looks like it's time to rebuild the PfSense box!

 

Thanks!

[Alex Atkin UK]

Does the satellite latency suddenly climb during use on those bad days when it slows down?  That can be a real pain and why I found it unusable to even have 4G as backup, let alone balancing between 4G and DSL.

Hopefully its not as bad, but I had issues where under use latency would climb to 2000ms which naturally would cause pfSense to mark the gateway as down, but then as its no longer in use the latency dropped to normal, so it would mark it back up again.  Every time this happened the firewall restarted and as it happened constantly I lost all connectivity until I just gave up on 4G completely.

This isn't guaranteed to happen, it was a particularly bad case of congestion on my local tower.  But its something to look out for when trying this out as it can be confusing to see all connectivity die when the DSL line seems to be fine.

You're also going to have a hard time balancing well if the speed fluctuates so wildly on one connection.  Even when 4G was working, my speeds weren't as good as expected.  When I switched to dual-DSL lines, I easily get the combined speed of both as the speed and latency is consistent between the two so it can balance properly.

Again, I'm not trying to discourage you from trying, its always worth a go.  Just pointing out some potential pitfalls so it doesn't come as a nasty surprise.

[GuruOfNothing]

Yeah... I have been pondering that possibility. I doubt that connecting a 1.5m connection with a 600 or so ping to a 18m with 4 or so ping. Cant see how integrating the 1.5 into the mix would be of any value at all. Even when it is working ok. The high ping makes that line pretty much worthless