[mithun]

One of my friends is having 2 BSNL Home 500 connections at his home and he wants to combine the two so that he'll get approx. 4 MBPS connection. He knows about Load Balancing and is not interested because of the disadvantages associated with it.

How can he do it ?

So which is the best cost effective way to combine 2 ADSL connections for a home user ?

How much is the cost involved ?

[vasoo]

I too have both BSNL and Airtel connection at home. Apparently it is not very easy to get combined faster connection. Load balancer seems to helps a lot. See the link below,

Can I combine two internet connections to get a faster connection?

One thing I do is to use both lines for different tasks. For example in my case both modems are connected to my wifi router. One is connected in a bridge mode and another in a PPOE mode. I first connect bridge mode and start one of the download ooperation using that connection. Then I dial in using thr PPOE and use it for other browsing activities. This seems to work well for me. Though this is not exactly a single 1mbps+1mbps = 2mbps connection, it atleast provides me two links which works at 1 mbps each. You can try doing this and see if it works. Let me know if you need any help.

Make sure that you dont connect both lines at the same time as the wifi router may use only one one ofthem for all you requests. Enable them one after another.

[tsk1979]

As vasoo said, it will be like 2 links.
So if you start a download, it will work of 1 link.
you will get benefit if you start 2 downloads.
Other option is to run a proxy server with traffic shaping on your machine.
So clients will connect to this proxy server, and it will direct packets depending upon the load on each line.
However its a very complicated solution.

[sgiitk]

Agreed. Given the asynchronous nature of the connections load balancing is neither easy nor constant. Once you start a download then (if you check) the rate changes wildly. Thus either manually or automatically distributing individual downloads on the two connections appears to be the only reasonable way to go. Earlier when IIT had connections from both VSNL and Reliance we essentially set up two proxies and distributed users on one or the other. The very fact that the guru's never tried to combine the two speaks for itself.

[jkdas]

Get an F5

Mithun, its not a simple job if you meant to use both at a time for load sharing for home use.

[mithun]

How about these :

Hardware : Hawking Dual WAN 4-Port Firewall Router - H2BR4 - Buy.com

Software : Features

Are these practical in India ?

Any other better & low cost options ?

[srijit]

mithun, have a read through this old thread of mine.
Link

I dont think you can combine the 2 x 500kbps connection to get 1mbps connection. Expect more like 750-800kbps speeds when you join them together.

[greenhorn]

D-Link 4-Port Load Balancing Router
but discontinued, and IIRC it was buggy and kept dropping connections , according to reviews

[mithun]

Any idea about the price of D-Link 4-Port Load Balancing Router or similar ones ?

mithun, have a read through this old thread of mine.
Link

But, I want to work it in Windows ?

[srijit]

Mithun, 6th post in that thread gives you the name of Linksys RV042.
Router costs about $180 in Amazon.

[san9jay]

I recommend the Linksys RV042. Great router and has been working well for me for nearly 5 years.

[mithun]

Originally Posted by san9jay

I recommend the Linksys RV042. Great router and has been working well for me for nearly 5 years.

Are you using it for home ?

[CRV2010]

Originally Posted by san9jay

I recommend the Linksys RV042. Great router and has been working well for me for nearly 5 years.

I have using Linksys RV042 from past few months its very good and even the signal is not bad. I have combined Airtel & RIL Broadnet

[mithun]

Originally Posted by CRV2010

I have using Linksys RV042 from past few months its very good and even the signal is not bad. I have combined Airtel & RIL Broadnet

What's the price that you've paid ?

[cpyder]

Originally Posted by mithun

One of my friends is having 2 BSNL Home 500 connections at his home and he wants to combine the two so that he'll get approx. 4 MBPS connection. He knows about Load Balancing and is not interested because of the disadvantages associated with it.

How can he do it ?

So which is the best cost effective way to combine 2 ADSL connections for a home user ?

How much is the cost involved ?

What you are asking for is technically called Multi Homing. It is possible but only if you are a geek. Aaand it is practical if you want to do it as a project or to prove a point. Because the end result will not be 1+1 = 2, it will be somewhere 1.5 or less (just arbitrary examples) because what sgiitk said above is true.

Now, if you really want to do it, the easiest way to do it via Linux. And if you are not comfortable with Linux, 'the easiest way' is sort of same as easiest way to climb Everest! Because even the easiest way is pretty difficult and near impossible for most humans.

Considering that you would still be adventurous enough, opt for Ubuntu Linux, and yes you 'might' need to designate one comp as a dedicated server.

There are some routers available as can be seen in the discussion above, but most of them do not give you what you actually want. (basically, you dont get 1+1 = 2!)

Ergo, its better to go for a higher bandwidth of 1Mbps or keep one of the connections as backup.

P.S. - I setup an entire network from scratch on Linux, both wired and wifi with 50+ computers sharing a single 1 Mbps satellite line. I spent a whole two months trying to figure out the best possible way to combine it with existing 500kbps line. Did not find it cost and effort effective.