Load balancing router + Multiple ISPs

[GM Rod]

Hello!

I have an interesting question.

Internet sucks in the UK, so I’m working my way around it.
After some consideration and research, I’ve stumbled upon the concept of a load balancing router.
Now the idea is to get two ISPs service here (long story short, I had to get both Sky 23mbps and a business Virgin Media 350mbps connections).
Now, I understand I can have it set up one of two ways:
- Have the router use the weaker link as backup for when the other one fails
- Have it handle both connections so it effectively sums them.

Now, I have a caveat. Sky is ADSL and Virgin is cable.

To do this, I will need to use both the ISP routers and then the load balancing one after them, correct?
I want to have everything I use here on the same wifi and/or wired connection but taking advantage of both links.

Is this possible with two different technologies?
What are some pros an cons of load balancing vs. failsafe mode?

[LienusLateTips]

 

[BubblyCharizard]

21 minutes ago, GM Rod said:

Now, I have a caveat. Sky is ADSL and Virgin is cable.

I've done MLPPP on DOCSIS and VDSL before, It worked well until the throughput hit around 70Mbps, as the asynchronous lines started with different latencies causing some slowdowns at the aggregation end

 

the video @JDE posted is MLPPP, I'm sure that as routers get higher specs, they might get better at the aggregation part, but anything like VOIP that is latency sensitive, doesn't usually benefit

 

something more like an edgerouter from ubiquiti would be better, and allow for faster initial connections

 

If you want the highest possible upload/download for 1 connection, go MLPPP, if you want redundancy and high availability, go with load balancing

[GM Rod]

So, I've watched that video before.

 

It was still good as a refresher.

But:

- Linus is talking about two identical connections. Not my case. He mentions different ones but only in SPEED. I'm talking different speeds AND different technologies.

- His solution involves a bonder from the ISP which I doubt is available in my case.

- Basically the video says a load balancing router is not a good idea for me then? So then what IS a good idea?

[GM Rod]

Ok reading up a bit more, I'm finding out I need a BONDING router.

Unless a load balancing IS a good idea for me because one of the connections is so slow...

 

I'm talking a 350Mbps + a 27Mbps connection.

 

The 27 is so pitiful that maybe load balancing could be a good idea if like, the router is smart enough to say, keep 4k, twitch, etc etc streaming going on the strong one, and browsing etc etc on the weak one... Any more thoughts?

[GM Rod]

Also, my full setup is looking something like:

 

2 ISP modems -> load balancing or bonding router -> Second Wifi router

 

Right?

 

Or is there a bonding/load balancing router that can also do WiFi?

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, GM Rod said:

The 27 is so pitiful that maybe load balancing could be a good idea if like, the router is smart enough to say, keep 4k, twitch, etc etc streaming going on the strong one, and browsing etc etc on the weak one... Any more thoughts?

You can do this yes, also why do you even have the 27Mbps connection at all when you have a 350Mbps connection, data cap on the faster link? Just seems easier to me to decommission the slower connection completely.

[GM Rod]

It's a whole thing:

 

I was trying to get the 300mb here. Residental version.
But the building is being renewed so Virgin didn't cable here yet.

It's not a totally new building though, and I know for a fact they had Virgin here before, this was an office building now turned residential.

The only wiring already in here is Sky so I was forced to get that, it was either that or NO internet. They do offer 76mb but apparently, in this exact spot they can't go higher than 27, which is weird since Sky has a building RIGHT NEXT TO ME, literally my neighbors.

So I signed up for that on a 12 month contract.

AFTER this, I found out I can install a BUSINESS version of the Virgin connection, for not a lot (£55 a month) and get 350mb.

So, I'm stuck with the 27mb for a year but now I'm also getting the 350mb.

Hence why I want to take advantage and make the best use of both.

[leadeater]

6 minutes ago, GM Rod said:

AFTER this, I found out I can install a BUSINESS version of the Virgin connection, for not a lot (£55 a month) and get 350mb.

So, I'm stuck with the 27mb for a year but now I'm also getting the 350mb.

Hence why I want to take advantage and make the best use of both.

Just brake contract and pay the fee? Will be a lot easier/less hassle and you won't have to buy any fancy networking equipment, shouldn't think there would be much cost difference.

 

Edit:

Also when you play the I'm leaving card new options almost always suddenly pop up so it's worth playing that game anyway.

[GM Rod]

That isn't helping though.

 

Virgin might still back out or their connection might still not work for some reason. If that happens then I'll get another 27mb to double it at least, so my original question is still relevant.

 

Even if I don't do it at all, I want to learn about how and why, I'm sure this will be useful at some point if not now.

[leadeater]

8 minutes ago, GM Rod said:

That isn't helping though.

 

Virgin might still back out or their connection might still not work for some reason. If that happens then I'll get another 27mb to double it at least, so my original question is still relevant.

 

Even if I don't do it at all, I want to learn about how and why, I'm sure this will be useful at some point if not now.

Ok, no problem. There's a few ways it can be done without having to rely on ISP co-operation, there are consumer routers that can do it along with the more expensive business options and you can also use an own built solution using Sophos XG Home or pfsense.

 

 

Business/enterprise equipment tend to have more options and flexibility in how to balance traffic compared to devices such as the TP-Link shown, Sophos and pfsense have comparable features to enterprise equipment.

 

I use to balance traffic across a 9Mbps (no cap) and 100Mbps (capped) connections using a FortiGate 60D but that is very expensive, would not recommend that model or likely anything from them unless you have more requirements than load balancing. I used to send all youtube, steam and netflix traffic down the 9Mbps connection. Sometimes if I wanted a game faster I'd just push it over to the 100Mbps connection.

[GM Rod]

Ok now we're getting somewhere. I've found routers with load balancing from TP Link, Netgear and Linksys. But I haven't found anything from them that does bonding.

 

The searches for "bonding router" have yielded catastrophically complicated results, it's NEVER clear if this is what the routers do, and 99% of the time there's no pictures of the device.

One thing seems certain though: None of them offer Wi-Fi at the same time. So I'd be looking at two routers either way, right.

[mynameisjuan]

9 minutes ago, GM Rod said:

Ok now we're getting somewhere. I've found routers with load balancing from TP Link, Netgear and Linksys. But I haven't found anything from them that does bonding.

 

The searches for "bonding router" have yielded catastrophically complicated results, it's NEVER clear if this is what the routers do, and 99% of the time there's no pictures of the device.

One thing seems certain though: None of them offer Wi-Fi at the same time. So I'd be looking at two routers either way, right.

You cant bond two different technologies. Looksl like you are trying to bond a DSL and a fiber/cable service. You can only LAG those together, cannot bond.

[GM Rod]

17 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

You cant bond two different technologies. Looksl like you are trying to bond a DSL and a fiber/cable service. You can only LAG those together, cannot bond.

Are you sure?

Because once the connection leaves the ISP modems, it's just network data via RJ45.

Whatever is after these modems, shouldn't care how data got into them.

 

To make it clearer, the setup would look like:

 

SKY ADSL modem───┐

                                     ├─────► Bonding router ──────► Wi-Fi router

Virgin Cable modem──┘

[GM Rod]

Then an expanded setup could go like this:

 

SKY ADSL modem───┐

                                     ├─────► Bonding router ──────► Wi-Fi router ──────► Cellphones and other mobile things

Virgin Cable modem──┘                           └───────────► PC

                                                                  └───────────► Other fixed things

 

Because via cable I get a 1Gbps network, WiFi not so much.

 

[mynameisjuan]

39 minutes ago, GM Rod said:

Are you sure?

Because once the connection leaves the ISP modems, it's just network data via RJ45.

Whatever is after these modems, shouldn't care how data got into them.

 

To make it clearer, the setup would look like:

 

SKY ADSL modem───┐

                                     ├─────► Bonding router ──────► Wi-Fi router

Virgin Cable modem──┘

Bonding is essentially matching channels to combine two ports together on a card, equipment that is on the ISPs side. For example if I do it with a DSL customer I have to provision two ports on the same card to bonding mode and them connection essentially doubles speeds. 

 

Its not possible with other technologies because they work in different manners. 

 

All you can do is LAG them together which is essentially combining two different connection. This is different than load balancing in some aspects but with the difference in pings and error corrections this project will almost make your connection worse than not combining them.

[GM Rod]

11 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

Bonding is essentially matching channels to combine two ports together on a card, equipment that is on the ISPs side. For example if I do it with a DSL customer I have to provision two ports on the same card to bonding mode and them connection essentially doubles speeds. 

 

Its not possible with other technologies because they work in different manners. 

 

All you can do is LAG them together which is essentially combining two different connection. This is different than load balancing in some aspects but with the difference in pings and error corrections this project will almost make your connection worse than not combining them.

What you're saying doesn't make any sense to me. How can bonding ONLY be on an ISP side, if I'm talking about bonding data AFTER they come out of each of the ISP's modems?
In a reverse way, it would be the same thing to say you can't split a connection after it's gone through the router, like with a network hub. But we know that CAN be done, except in this case, every device connected to the hub will share the one connection.

 

The bonding device will only care about how fast the data comes from each instream, and both will just be "regular" network data. By the time the signals leave the ISP modems, they're no longer different.

[mynameisjuan]

3 minutes ago, GM Rod said:

What you're saying doesn't make any sense to me. How can bonding ONLY be on an ISP side, if I'm talking about bonding data AFTER they come out of each of the ISP's modems?

Yeah thats not bonding, thats LAG (link aggregation group). Thats what I have been saying. Bonding is literally striping channels on a connection. Even if it was possible that would mean that the 350mbps connection would now be 27mbps because it has to match channels of the DSL. Bonding is a layer 1 protocol which means you need the same medium. Networking is very very time based and with two unstable and non-consistent flow of data this would wreck your speeds.  

 

LAG is a form of load balancing where it can utilize two different connections but the fastest it can be is based on the fastest single connection. Its preferable but in this case not worth the time. 

 

Bottom line is I wouldnt bother with this. The speeds your would get would be worse and the benefit of an extra 27mbps would be unnoticeable. 

 

 

[GM Rod]

AH HA!

 

So it's just the TERM that's wrong. Ok gotcha!!!

 

Hmm yeah it might be better to like, dedicate the 27mb for the TV area (Apple TV, Nintendo Switch etc) and bring the 350 to the PC and do the heavy stuff on that. Hmmm

[mynameisjuan]

1 minute ago, GM Rod said:

AH HA!

 

So it's just the TERM that's wrong. Ok gotcha!!!

 

Hmm yeah it might be better to like, dedicate the 27mb for the TV area (Apple TV, Nintendo Switch etc) and bring the 350 to the PC and do the heavy stuff on that. Hmmm

I would highly suggest that. I just want to save you time and headaches for in the end making it worse than you were hoping for. Trust me, this is my job, I need to deal with this daily. 

[GM Rod]

All right then! BUT...

 

If things are on separate connections, how can I have them also in the same WiFi network? I'll need that.

[paddy-stone]

4 hours ago, GM Rod said:

All right then! BUT...

 

If things are on separate connections, how can I have them also in the same WiFi network? I'll need that.

Just name the SSIDs the same with the same security and passwords, and set one of them to channel 3 and the other to channel 7/8/9 whatever, for instance, then it should switch between the connections itself based on the strongest signal... doesn't always work out that great, but have had mine like that for a while now with no problems swtiching between areas of the house.

You're not planning on having them close together right? as that may cause problems... they can have some overlap so that you don't drop signal completely, but I wouldn't recommend having them really close together, although I haven't tested that.

 

[edit] doing it the way you're suggesting you won't know which wifi receiever is being used though, so unless the traffic doesn't matter whether it goes down the 27Mbps or 350Mbps, I'd keep them named differently so you can choose which one you want your devices to use.

[GM Rod]

My entire place is a room, so yes they will be close lol.

[leadeater]

16 hours ago, GM Rod said:

All right then! BUT...

 

If things are on separate connections, how can I have them also in the same WiFi network? I'll need that.

 

10 hours ago, GM Rod said:

My entire place is a room, so yes they will be close lol.

Best case scenario is one of the routers for either of your connections has 2 WAN ports or one that can be converted to an additional WAN port. If you do have this just connect the additional WAN port to a LAN port of the other ISP router. What this will do is give the WAN port an IP address for the internal address range for that network which will then allow the router to send traffic from local network 1 to local network 2 but any internet traffic will only go out it's ISP connection (Unless the connection goes down then it'll go out to the other router and it's ISP connection, bonus redundancy)

 

The reason to do it this way is so both networks can use DHCP and automatically get IP addresses and the correct gateways. Similar to the image below but they are not using WAN port for the connection between the routers and are sharing the same local address range, but it demonstrates the point well enough.

 

 

You can also do the exact configuration as depicted in the above image but that does require manual configuration of any device that needs to use the alternate ISP connection.