2 Cable Modems

[chaoflux]

I just setup 2 Linksys Routers, and 2 Surfboard Cable Modems both with seperate feeds from difrent cable companies. I have a A7N8X Deluxe with the dual NICs. I've setup everything....but I'm not sure if my bandwidth is concurrent.

First NIC
192.168.1.100
SurfBoard 3100
Cox Communications
2.4 Mbps(Stand Alone)

Second NIC
192.168.15.100
SurfBoard 5100
Road Runner
2.5 Mbps(Stand Alone)

2.5 Mbps Cumulative


Which IP addres takes priority?

Am I actually getting better throughput?

Am I just a greety sucker who wants more speed?

[Bobby]

You'd need to bond the channels to benefit from 2 connections.

Easiest way to find out is to go to a bandwidth test site and test your connection. www.dslreports.com has a pretty good one.

-Bobby

[L_P]

ah yes this question,
no you not getting any more speed with that setup.
all that will happen is if the one line is bogged down the other will take the load, like a dual CPU system.
however they make a router with special software that will use both modems and combine them for DL and UP.
Its Nexlands Pro800Turbo Router, however they where just recently bought by Symantic, so I am not sure if they will be produced anymore.
its a awsome router. here is a link to a review.
http://www.cputweak.com/rev/archives/00000007.shtml

Other wise on your system you can combine the NIC's but I think Win 2000 and server can do this. not 100% its been a long time since I had to do somthing of the sort.
-L_P

[NookieN]

With two cable modems you can get twice the total throughput, but you can never double the speed of a single transfer. That means that if you can download a file in 5 minutes with one modem, you will not be able to download that file in 2.5 minutes with two modems. However, you can download two of those files in 5 minutes.

In order for this to work, you need some way to do dynamic load balancing. That Nexland Pro 800T certainly does it. And linux can if you configure it right. I'm not certain if Win 2k/XP has that functionality though.

[su root]

You can set up a proxy server with 3 NICs, 2 for internet, and one for LAN. Some proxy software (i know wingate will) will round-robin the connection for you, meaning every new outgoing connection will be on the other modem.

To take advantage of the extra modem, you would need to use download accelerators, like getright that will open more than one download connection (on the other modem).

A router that supports dual modems would be best. Make sure that it supports round-robining or load-balancing across them, and not just failover.