Two Internet Connections, One House?

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Earbanean

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#105864 12-Jul-2012 14:52

We now have two sets of users in our house. My family on one floor and tenants in a flat in the basement. We have one Modem/Router (a Vodafone Broadband Complete (Huawei)). Upstairs we have high volumn clients (streaming video) connected via ethernet and a few lower throughputs connected via WiFi (Airplay music straeming, occasional iPhone/iPod browsing).

Our tenants are using their mobiles as their only phones and we are letting them connect to the internet through our Wifi (for a fee).

Since they are on the Wifi and most of our stuff is ethernet, there doesn't appear to be a clash there. Also, I'll probably upgrade to a dual band router with guest network, so I can keep them ringfenced in the 2.4 GHz guest network and use the 5.0 GHz for any higher volume Wifi we might need. Also, the guest network will give more security.

I'm confident the arrangement above will mnean we have no bandwidth clashes on our network, even when we are both streaming video. However, it seems that there is an obvious bottleneck at the modem, if we were both streaming in from the internet at the same time.

So (finally) my question. Will the bottleneck be the modem? If so, what can be done to improve that? i.e. could we have two modems and one (or even two) routers? But would that just shift the bottleneck from the modem to the line between the modem(s) and the street?

Note, the tenants have a phone line, but it is dead. I think it comes into the main house and then is split off, but while our line is live, their's is dead.

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#654802 12-Jul-2012 21:02

You will probably want some form of QoS to prioritise and shape traffic to prevent one user hogging the bandwidth.

Most residential modems/routers don't do this very well so many geek/gamer households use two devices: a modem that can bridge to a router running something like TomatoUSB, pfsense, Gargoyle Router.

A popular combo is Draytek Vigor 120 (~$90) in PPPoA to PPPoE passthrough to a TP Link TL-WR1043ND flashed with Gargoyle Router (~$90).

However this obviously requires some tech savy to setup.

Alternative option:

Most houses have 2 pairs (2 lines) in the phone cable to the house, you could get a tech to wire up the 2nd currently unused line to the tenants flat/basement then they could get their own separate connection.

Earbanean

937 posts

Ultimate Geek

#655067 13-Jul-2012 14:02

Thanks, that's good info.

Would a higher cost router like Linksys EA4500 or Netgear WNDR4500 (paired with a Vigor 120) have the sort of features you mention? If we do keep them using our Wifi, then I'm keen to get a dual band router with guest network functionality.

Is it likely, that if they have a dead phone line in the flat, that it would be the second line from the street?

Also, is it feasible to have two modems on one line? Or does that just make the line the bottleneck?

ubergeeknz

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Vocus

#655083 13-Jul-2012 14:24

Earbanean: Also, is it feasible to have two modems on one line?

No :)

sidefx

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#655090 13-Jul-2012 14:34

ubergeeknz:
Earbanean: Also, is it feasible to have two modems on one line?

No :)

Well hang on there, don't the lines coming into most houses have 2 pairs but only one in use? So technically if you get the second pair activated and wired (by chorus or someone else) you sort of can... possibly not in the way the OP was hoping though as you would need to pay for a second connection\broadband plan.

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Zeon

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#655100 13-Jul-2012 14:41

For the price of 2 lines, if you can get it it may be worth upgrading to VDSL2 which will give you much more bandwidth. Couple that with the gargoyle router as suggested above and you and the tenants will be better off.

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ubergeeknz

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Vocus

#655133 13-Jul-2012 15:24

Zeon: For the price of 2 lines, if you can get it it may be worth upgrading to VDSL2 which will give you much more bandwidth. Couple that with the gargoyle router as suggested above and you and the tenants will be better off.

+1 for this. Or UFB (if you can get it).

Earbanean

937 posts

Ultimate Geek

#655150 13-Jul-2012 16:12

It seems that there are a few ways to skin this cat. However, alongside the technical considerations, there are the issues that:

1. I've already agreed that they can use our Wifi, which they may not be happy about me withdrawing.
2. The money I'm getting from them more than offsets the cost of increasing my data cap (specially as caps have increased anyway), so the extra per month is funding upgrades to modems, routers etc.

So upgradin the modem/router as suggested looks like the way forward.

I guess I still don't have a great grasp (obviously :) ) around relative bottlenecks though. e.g. even if I had faster UFB or VDSL2, could one modem and one router handle streaming two HD video streams at the same time?

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trig42

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#655168 13-Jul-2012 16:28

I guess I still don't have a great grasp (obviously :) ) around relative bottlenecks though. e.g. even if I had faster UFB or VDSL2, could one modem and one router handle streaming two HD video streams at the same time?

A decent ADSL2+ connection should be able to (just) handle that - assuming you are streaming from somewhere like Quickflix or iTunes with a local source. Your experience may vary, and it may take a bit longer to buffer. VDSL can give you 2-5 times the bandwidth of an ADSL connection, so if you are in an area it is offered, it is certainly something to look at.

How much are your tenants paying for WiFi access? They could get Naked BB setup on the currently dead phoneline.

Earbanean

937 posts

Ultimate Geek

#655197 13-Jul-2012 17:48

To be clear though, if I did get the pick up to VDSL or UFB, could the wireless router handle the extra throughput? i.e. it would be no point getting the extra speed to the house, if the router was then the bottleneck.

They pay $15 per fortnight ($32.50 per month) for up to 20GB per month. I guess a bit of step up to naked broadband, as well as connection costs/hassle.

Zeon

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#655211 13-Jul-2012 18:46

802.11n would probably not be the bottleneck with a full speed VDSL2 connection but would be with a 100/50 UFB connection. Considering you have provisions for this adna re rounning lots of wires this shouldn't be an issue?

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nakedmolerat

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#655213 13-Jul-2012 18:53

Can you trust the tenant(s) not to download illegal stuff?

Ragnor

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#655326 14-Jul-2012 02:01

Earbanean:

Would a higher cost router like Linksys EA4500 or Netgear WNDR4500 (paired with a Vigor 120) have the sort of features you mention?

I haven't seen any consumer router have features as good as Gargoyle Router, pfsense or TomatoUSB for managing the sharing of a connection between multiple users at home..

webwat

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#655363 14-Jul-2012 09:54

sidefx:
ubergeeknz:
Earbanean: Also, is it feasible to have two modems on one line?

No :)

Well hang on there, don't the lines coming into most houses have 2 pairs but only one in use? So technically if you get the second pair activated and wired (by chorus or someone else) you sort of can... possibly not in the way the OP was hoping though as you would need to pay for a second connection\broadband plan.

Ragnor already suggested wiring the second pair to the downstairs room, and thats the best way for a tenant — or even family members or flatmates that seem likely to dispute/over-use their allocated data too often. That means paying for a second line but eliminates negotiations about how to split the phone bill payments and what type of usage is going to add faster.

Time to find a new industry!

Earbanean

937 posts

Ultimate Geek

#655383 14-Jul-2012 10:43

nakedmolerat: Can you trust the tenant(s) not to download illegal stuff?

I'm pretty sure I can, based on knowing them well enough. Also, I guess for piracy, I would get a warning from my ISP first, at which point I could withdraw the Wifi.

Earbanean

937 posts

Ultimate Geek

#655387 14-Jul-2012 10:53

Thanks Ragnor and others. I think the way forward is to upgrade the modem/router as suggested, but if conflicts still end up occurring, then I can withdraw the Wifi and the tenants can get the second line connected. I would have upgraded the modem/router for our family alone anyway, so really no extra hassle or cost there. I may have further queries/issues around the hardware/firmware that I go for.

I guess if the tenants or us were just browsing the web, sending emails etc, then none of this would be an issue. However, as it seems both of us aim to be streaming video, then I need to get it sorted.

Thanks, as usual the knowledge and advice here is impressive.

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