[WXC/VFX] Line bonding

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tombrdfrd66

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Topic # 30235 2-Feb-2009 13:56

We're a small, non-profit community-run organisation which links our remote, non-broadbanded rural community by wireless to a larger conurbation where dsl is available.

We've been using an Xnet flood plan for over a year perfectly satisfactorily - downhill with the wind behind me on a good day I can achieve download speeds of 5MBps - but our little network has grown to the point where we are having to consider a second dsl link at our gateway, particularly as the use of VoIP to supplement or even replace our chronically bad, incredibly expensive Telecom landline service is growing fast.

We have a second line available and I enquired of Xnet tech. if it would be possible for us to take out a second dsl account with it, and for the two connections to be bonded giving us one connection with around 13MBps down and >1MBps up, and it is the upload bandwidth that is now limiting the number of VoIP accounts we dare create.

No, Xnet couldn't.

I gather from elsewhere that interface bonding is something ISP can do if they choose, and must therefore assume Xnet choose not to do it for their customers.

I can understand why. After all, there's nothing in it for them.

Except that we now might as well have the second dsl plan with another provider to give us fail-over if there are problems with Xnet's network, and it will probably be Slingshot as it's VoIP plans are superior to Xnet's. And as Slingshot doesn't set VoIP traffic against its data cap I suspect most of our subscribers will have Slingshot VoIP accounts running over the Slingshot account. Maybe to the point we'll have to switch from Xnet to Slingshot on our existing plan to cope.

So I can well understand Xnet not bothering to cater for their customer's needs when there's nothing in it for them.

Except a satisfied customer, another account and maybe not losing the account they already have.

tonyhughes

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Reply # 193406 2-Feb-2009 13:59

No other ISP is offering this on a commercial basis that I am aware of.

Get yourself a nice dual WAN router, with basic load distribution functionality, and you should achieve what you are looking for in a roundabout kind of way.

Ragnor

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Reply # 193421 2-Feb-2009 14:53

Actually I remember the guy from Snap, was it Raph? posting about a bonding solution they offer.

Otherwise you can get two naked dsl lines, or two phone lines + 2 adsl connections and use cheap server box running a linux or bsd based firewall distribution to load balance over the two links. It's a bit of work to setup but is probably the ideal solution.

richms

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Reply # 193432 2-Feb-2009 15:36

dual wan and voip is problematic from the tests a friend did - for things that are connection oriented it was fine, but the udp mapping was changing between wans all the time, and if a call came in after it had changed but before reregistration it wouldnt work.

Richard rich.ms

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Reply # 193467 2-Feb-2009 17:37

Hmm in that case you could make all voip traffic always go over one connection.

nate

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Reply # 193484 2-Feb-2009 18:52

tombrdfrd66: So I can well understand Xnet not bothering to cater for their customer's needs when there's nothing in it for them.

Hit the nail on the head with that one. Xnet would suggest an upgrade to a superior technology such as Araneo wireless or fibre if a customer was look for great than ADSL speeds.

Snap do line bonding, enquiry on their website - it is expensive to setup (I think around $2k)

tombrdfrd66

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Reply # 193550 2-Feb-2009 23:01

Trouble with all the load balancing 'solutions' is that they only balance connections, not traffic: ie if someone requests an ftp download of the latest Linux distribution they get Line A, someone does a five minute check of an empty mail server they get Line B and then someone decides to download a CD's worth of music and they get line A.

nate:

Hit the nail on the head with that one. Xnet would suggest an upgrade to a superior technology such as Araneo wireless or fibre if a customer was look for great than ADSL speeds.

And I'd tell Xnet that if either were available, we would. But we've already had to jump though numerous hoops and lay out considerable capital just to get basic adsl. ADSL2+? Telecom say it's scheduled for our exchange in March 2011. VDSL? Fibre? They'll have it in outer Zimbabwe before our rustic corner of New Zealand does.

nate:

Snap do line bonding, enquiry on their website - it is expensive to setup (I think around $2k)

Expensive to set up? No. If we had a friend on fibre somewhere upstream who would run a web-proxy for us they could do it with a 400MHz i386 box. However it sounds as though it ought to be expensive so why miss the opportunity to fleece the flock.

Worth a look into Snap, tho'. Thanks.

nate

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Reply # 193556 2-Feb-2009 23:13

tombrdfrd66: Expensive to set up? No. If we had a friend on fibre somewhere upstream who would run a web-proxy for us they could do it with a 400MHz i386 box. However it sounds as though it ought to be expensive so why miss the opportunity to fleece the flock.

I think we're talking about two very different things. What I think you are after is two separate ADSL connections which are paired together to gain speeds as though they were one connection.

If we are both on the same page, you need equipment at both ends - at the ISPs core and at your end. I believe Snap use Cisco gear, just mentioning the name is expensive.

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Reply # 193570 3-Feb-2009 00:15

nate:
tombrdfrd66: So I can well understand Xnet not bothering to cater for their customer's needs when there's nothing in it for them.

Hit the nail on the head with that one. Xnet would suggest an upgrade to a superior technology such as Araneo wireless or fibre if a customer was look for great than ADSL speeds.

araneo wireless, fibre, uns broadband all tend to offer increased reliability and lower latency as well as the increase in upload speeds. for a company/organisation relying on VoIP services instead of POTS services and relying heavily on email/web/rdp/ service sI would think that something more solid than a residential grade adsl connection would be sensible.

another option would be to look at hosting some services in a data center where high quality network and power are always available

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tombrdfrd66

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Reply # 193779 3-Feb-2009 19:46

nate:

I think we're talking about two very different things. What I think you are after is two separate ADSL connections which are paired together to gain speeds as though they were one connection.

If we are both on the same page, you need equipment at both ends - at the ISPs core and at your end. I believe Snap use Cisco gear, just mentioning the name is expensive.

Yes, that's what I'm talking about and I don't think it needs expensive gear - a $250 Mikrotik router running Mikrotik's RouterOS at the upstream end can NAT odd-number packets down one connection and even-number packets down another. The ones reaching the 'foreign' modem are port forwarded to the proxy that made the original request and, hey presto, a download at the combined speed of two connections.

Ragnor

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Reply # 193868 4-Feb-2009 01:07

I would get in touch with Ralph from Snap and find out what's involved cost wise.

Fraktul

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Reply # 193961 4-Feb-2009 12:32

You can skin that cat a number of ways, mppp is probably the most robust solution you can implement under ubs/uba etc. You need to be aware that if you are looking at things like VoIP you can end up with some out of order packet issues in which case are per flow load balanced solution may be more appropriate.

Edit: oo my little flag updated, cool! :D

raytaylor

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Reply # 194634 7-Feb-2009 13:25

Where is this project based?

Ray Taylor
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