Connecting to both DSL & Cable simultaneously

  • Thread starter Thread starter Gary Richtmeyer
  • Start date Start date
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Gary Richtmeyer

Is it possible to use *both* a DSL and a cable Internet connection
*simultaneously*?

I have a customer who is really impacted by any outage over 10-15 minutes.
They currently have both a DSL and a cable Internet account and they switch
between the two if one has an outage. For example, if their router is
connected to the cable Internet account and cable has an outage, after 5
minutes they physically disconnect their router from the cable modem, attach
it to the DSL modem, "tweak" the router (the two providers require slightly
different router setups, plus a WAN release/renew is needed) and
everything's back to normal. The client PCs don't even have to be
restarted.

There are still some issues with this technique (e.g. what if it happens at
2am?) so they're asking if it's possible for BOTH connections to be active
at the same time -- in essence, dynamic load balancing between the two ISPs.

I've never done this type of thing before and not sure if it's even
possible.

Has anybody done this or know of way that it could be done? Is an extra
piece of hardware required between the router and the two modems, or maybe a
specialized router with two WAN connections?

Thanks for any help you can provide,

Gary Richtmeyer, Tampa, FL
 
do a search for "dual wan router" and you'll find them in several
price ranges.

Is it possible to use *both* a DSL and a cable Internet connection
*simultaneously*?

I have a customer who is really impacted by any outage over 10-15 minutes.
They currently have both a DSL and a cable Internet account and they switch
between the two if one has an outage. For example, if their router is
connected to the cable Internet account and cable has an outage, after 5
minutes they physically disconnect their router from the cable modem, attach
it to the DSL modem, "tweak" the router (the two providers require slightly
different router setups, plus a WAN release/renew is needed) and
everything's back to normal. The client PCs don't even have to be
restarted.

There are still some issues with this technique (e.g. what if it happens at
2am?) so they're asking if it's possible for BOTH connections to be active
at the same time -- in essence, dynamic load balancing between the two ISPs.

I've never done this type of thing before and not sure if it's even
possible.

Has anybody done this or know of way that it could be done? Is an extra
piece of hardware required between the router and the two modems, or maybe a
specialized router with two WAN connections?

Thanks for any help you can provide,

Gary Richtmeyer, Tampa, FL
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Barb Bowman
MS Windows-MVP
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/meetexperts/bowman.mspx
http://blogs.digitalmediaphile.com/barb/
 
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