Dual ISP internet bonding simple solution?!

[Anannyo]

I have been researching a lot lately and thinking about a simpler and cost effective way to bond 2 broadband connections from different ISPs to increase the bandwidth. There are many different complex solutions (SD-WAN, MPTCP, OpenMPTCProuter) and expensive paid services but as a home user I am looking for something simpler and cost effective. The main obstacle in internet bonding is with issues occurring from packets distribution over 2 different networks and that is why a VPN is needed as gateway to combine the bandwidth and transfer the packets. So, after watching and reading so many stuffs; I have a curious question/idea:
I have ExpressVPN setup in a Linksys router. So what if I use Linux or a WAN Aggregation router(Asus AX56/Netgear AX12) to agreegate the WANs from 2 ISPs and connect the LAN to my Linksys ExpressVPN router to trnasfer all packets via ExpressVPN? Won't the bandwidth bonding with dual ISP work as PC, TV, etc. receiving everything from one IP and the packets are being distributed in packets from ExpressVPN server via 2 ISP connections?

[_crazy_crazy_]

pfsense would be my go to in this scenario
https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/howto-configure-dual-wan-load-balance-failover-pfsense-router/

[Anannyo]

34 minutes ago, _crazy_crazy_ said:

pfsense would be my go to in this scenario
https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/howto-configure-dual-wan-load-balance-failover-pfsense-router/

Pfsense only does load balancing, not the bandwidth bonding. Plus pfsense load balancing has issues; same issues that happen with all load balancing: for example: you are visiting a website and the packets were sent via one ISP connection; and if the next packets from that site is sent via second ISP connection; there will be error as the second packet is received via different IP. Also load balancing is not good for streaming for same reason as the packets from a stream is sent via only one connection and the stream will break down when it will keep switching packets over 2 connections; the bandwidth bonding/aggregation of 2 connection doe not actually happen with the load balancing.

[Donut417]

1 hour ago, Anannyo said:

omething simpler and cost effective.

Doesn't exist from my understanding. The methods you listed are the only solutions. If you need a faster connection then pay for you, if you cant pay for one then make use with what you have. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

4 hours ago, Anannyo said:

Pfsense only does load balancing, not the bandwidth bonding. Plus pfsense load balancing has issues; same issues that happen with all load balancing: for example: you are visiting a website and the packets were sent via one ISP connection; and if the next packets from that site is sent via second ISP connection; there will be error as the second packet is received via different IP. Also load balancing is not good for streaming for same reason as the packets from a stream is sent via only one connection and the stream will break down when it will keep switching packets over 2 connections; the bandwidth bonding/aggregation of 2 connection doe not actually happen with the load balancing.

I do not believe streaming would work like that as a constant flow of traffic would just get tied to a single WAN.  If not, you'd find the IP range of the servers you are uploading to, put a manual policy route in to do so, then direct all other traffic out the other WAN so that streaming wouldn't impact gaming traffic.

Load balancing is ideal for downloading game updates if you can't get a single faster connection.

 

Bonding is never an ideal solution as anything latency sensitive could get tripped up by out-of-order packets.

I admit I've never tried streaming but otherwise I've had no problems with load balancing.  Gaming seems to work fine though I don't generally play FPS so again not sure the implication, but I think it just randomly picks a WAN to use then sticks with it.

[Falcon1986]

@Anannyo

 

Linus did this in a video several years ago. Unique to his setup was that he got 2 connections from the same ISP, who also supplied the bonding appliance.

 

It worked well in this scenario because the connections went to the same data center using their equipment and were likely to have identical latency. Attempting bonding with 2 or more different ISPs and different latencies is likely to be impossible using the same appliance. You'll more than likely need to pay for a service that does this specifically, but high cost and no availability in your city might be prohibitive. A single higher tier connection would cost significantly less.

[Alex Atkin UK]

15 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

@Anannyo

 

Linus did this in a video several years ago. Unique to his setup was that he got 2 connections from the same ISP, who also supplied the bonding appliance.

 

It worked well in this scenario because the connections went to the same data center using their equipment and were likely to have identical latency. Attempting bonding with 2 or more different ISPs and different latencies is likely to be impossible using the same appliance. You'll more than likely need to pay for a service that does this specifically, but high cost and no availability in your city might be prohibitive. A single higher tier connection would cost significantly less.

I honestly would have tried it myself when I had two VDSL connections, but I didn't like adding another point of failure BEFORE my router plus like you said the two connections had different latency and bandwidth.

 

I like the flexibility of policy routing the WANs instead, you generally only miss out on combined upload speed.  Plus once 5G went live, as I don't really play online gaming I just set my gaming PC to use that for fast downloads, just a few mouse clicks on the router if I want to move it back to DSL for reliability.

There's a regular on forum.kitz.zo.uk who has ISP bonded ADSL because he lives in an extremely rural location, he had issues with Zoom calls breaking up due to the lines performing inconsistently with each other.   I'd imagine it could be quite bad for gaming.