2 DSL lines...any benefit?
I have Verizon DSL in my office, I put DSL in about a year ago for $29.95 month...I added a new phone line recently and it was cheaper to actually get it bundled with DSL so now I have two DSL lines...my plan was to shut the first one off when my 1 year contract comes up (in September).
A couple of times DSL has gone out on one line so I just used the other, which is a nice redundancy to have - but it doesn't happen often. (I unplugged one line and plugged in the other)
Question is, is there any way to use both DSL lines together so that
- Increase bandwidth and effective speed might increase (is that possible?)
- have them both on and connected someway so that traffic on my network would just use either one, and if one went down the traffic would route automatically?
If I can either increase speed by having two, or at a minimum get some automatic redundancy, I see no reason to keep both on....
Solution 1:
There are "multi-WAN" or "dual WAN" routers that can perform some rudimentary load-balancing and failover using multiple Internet connections. There are a variety of price-points and feature sets, so you'd do well to shop around and compare reviews.
You'll never get the full bandwidth of both Internet connections to be "shared" for a single TCP connection (a single download, etc) w/o cooperation from the ISP on the other end. W/ consumer / prosumer "multi-WAN" routers the best you can hope for is that the router would try and intelligently send new outgoing TCP requests over the less-congested link.
I've seen a couple reviews of these Peplink Balance routers just doing a rudimentary search. They're not inexpensive, but they appear to be fairly solid. There a load of possible candidates, though. Head over to Google and get to searching.
Solution 2:
Sounds like a good use case for pfSense http://www.pfsense.org/. With pfSense you should be able to accomplish what you want using a MultiWAN setup.
Here are a few links from the pfSense wiki to get you started:
Extensive Howto: http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/MultiWanVersion1.2
Loadbalancing different speed WAN links: http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/How_Can_I_Load_Balance_Uneven_WAN_Connections%3F
Multi-WAN Troubleshooting: http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/CARP_and_Multi-WAN_Troubleshooting
If you have any trouble, check out their "Routing and Multi WAN" forum for additional help: http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?board=21.0
Solution 3:
I'm kind of being redundant here... as a few people have already mentioned this. However, I definitely recommend Peplink's devices. I mentioned this in another answer but we were recently looking around for a multiple wan solution and we first tried the Barracuda Link Balancer as we are happily using their Email and Web filtering solutions. However, the barracuda link balancer is a new solution and wasn't flexible enough to do what we wanted. We bought the Peplink Link Balancer (the 380 version, if you're curious) and we couldn't be happier. It's really versatile and great for our needs. It ended up being a lot cheaper as well. Just looking at the online demo of their interface should give you an idea of all the options you have with it.
We also have a cradelpoint cellular (CRT-250) router hooked up to one of our WAN ports, so in case our primary and secondary internet connection goes down it will switch over to our cellular backup. We even have the peplink configured on this interface with a bandwidth quota, so we won't go over our 5GB allowance on the cellular card and be charged excessive fees.
Of course, depending on how critical the internet is to your business, you may be able to find a cheaper solution that does not have as many bells and whistles.
Solution 4:
I have a similar set up, except I use a cable modem and DSL line. From personal experience I would recommend buying a ALIX.2D3 board(quiet/low power) and enclosure. And then install pfSense which among the many features offers load balancing, failover, multiple WAN. pfSense offers one of the most flexible and complete web interfaces, it should have no problem accomplishing what you want.
Solution 5:
There's a nice product that handles your sort of setup. I have a friend who uses one in his small business and he's pretty happy with it, last I heard: Peplink Balance multi-WAN routers. (http://www.peplink.com/)