Using 2 Ethernet Cards

With 56K, there was a way to use 2 modems in conjunctioon with each other, from US Robotics I believe, referred to as "Shotgun". This allowed a user to effectively double their connection rate using 2 phone lines if I'm not mistaken.

My question is, can this be done using 2 ethernet cards with two different broadband connections? I'm sure it can, but am unsure how you bind the two cards together to make the system use both connections at the same time. I know it should seem easy, but I'm drawing a blank on how it would be done.

I've seen at least one router that allowed two cable modems to be plugged into it.......but I can't find it anymore.

while cool, what you don't get is the ablilty to "shotgun" them. for example if you had two modems with 512kbs download you wouldn't be able to combine them to pull over 1mbs on one download process. you could load balance though routing requests to the least congested pipe. So you could download a huge file and surf away at the same time without either of the two activities affecting the other. I could see this type of thing being handy in a small business with mulitple users and you want to keep their internet connections snappy.

just like your shotgunning modem example, your ISP would have to support "shotgunning" cable modems or ADSL connections, and why would they when they can simply bump you up to a plan with more bandwidth, or in the case of the phone company try to sell you a t1 or t3

I don't know if this is an original name, but this is called (or has been called) "Multilink," and it had to do with using two modems with two accounts on one ISP to increase the combined data throughput to something above 56k. (Note, you never really got 112k. Only 70k or so.)

This is/was more than simply chaining two modems together. It had to be supported on the ISP end with equipment that could treat the incoming connections as one connection.

I do not know of a way to do this with cable/dsl modems, but it would have to be supported on the ISP end as well.

In a LAN, one can do this with multi-port NICs. A four-port card, for instance, can act as one 1000-T card, but this doesn't do anything for the throughput to the cable/dsl service, only internally.

m

I understand about the ISP having to support this on their end, and know that totally makes sense. BUT, I'm wondering if it can be done using two different ISP's. If I were to have one NIC connected to my DSL provider, and the other connected to, say, cable. How do you go about linking the two, or can you without another piece of hardware? Can it be done using JUST the two ethernet cards, binding them together?

It's an interesting question. I don't know the real answer, but my best guess is "I sincerely doubt it."

[edit: I did a little poking around and while I still don't think this is possible with different ISPs, it seems like the idea of multilink DSL is pretty doable.]

Cheers,

m

I am in a unique situation where my neighbors are our great friends, and we have run cat5 cable undergrounnd to allow our computers to be on the same network. make it greaet for playing games, printing to each others printers-- gives whole new meaning to "network neighborhood".

We both have broadband, supplied by the same cable company, but we are in JUST the right location where they are hooked up from one street, and we are from the next-- it just happens to be an area where we ended up on two different 'nodes' or whatever they call it.

We discovered quite by accident, that when only one of us is using the connection to the internet, we are able to download twice as fast---- without realizing it, we are shotgunning our connection.

Quote:

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Originally posted by joelen
We discovered quite by accident, that when only one of us is using the connection to the internet, we are able to download twice as fast---- without realizing it, we are shotgunning our connection.

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How can you be sure that this is what is happening?

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Originally posted by joelen
I am in a unique situation where my neighbors are our great friends, and we have run cat5 cable undergrounnd to allow our computers to be on the same network. make it greaet for playing games, printing to each others printers-- gives whole new meaning to "network neighborhood".

We both have broadband, supplied by the same cable company, but we are in JUST the right location where they are hooked up from one street, and we are from the next-- it just happens to be an area where we ended up on two different 'nodes' or whatever they call it.

We discovered quite by accident, that when only one of us is using the connection to the internet, we are able to download twice as fast---- without realizing it, we are shotgunning our connection.

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that's just the way cable modems work. each node has so much bandwidth available and each modem subscription is capped to a certain bandwidth limit up and down.

Unless you are exceeding your capped bandwidth limit for your account (256kbs, 512kbs, 768kbs, 1mbs etc) then this is no great feat.

If no one else is on my node (like in the middle of the night) my download speed increases as well, but I never get speeds aboved my capped limit. you're just not sharing your assigned bandwidth with others on the node like you do when there is a lot of congestion.

I know that is what is happening, becuase my download speed doubles-- tested it repeatedly.

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Originally posted by kato2274
that's just the way cable modems work. each node has so much bandwidth available and each modem subscription is capped to a certain bandwidth limit up and down.

Unless you are exceeding your capped bandwidth limit for your account (256kbs, 512kbs, 768kbs, 1mbs etc) then this is no great feat.

If no one else is on my node (like in the middle of the night) my download speed increases as well, but I never get speeds aboved my capped limit. you're just not sharing your assigned bandwidth with others on the node like you do when there is a lot of congestion.

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I AM doubling my capped width.

also "shotgunning" would mean that you are also USING his modem in conjuction with yours to download the same file and the two modems are joining together to form one big pipe.

this is not the case you simply are getting a little more "sugar" kicked your way because there aren't as many people on the node - which as stated before is how cable modem access works, (and is one of the big DSL advertising points, that no matter how many people are on the speed is consistent)

Quote:

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Originally posted by joelen
I AM doubling my capped width.

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then you aren't really capped :D
and that's a good thing. I've seen that before. people order the lowest bandwidth subscription like 256mbs and can consistently get 1mbs when traffic is low. It's not really capped.

it IS capped. the limit would no double if it wasn't.

Quote:

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Originally posted by joelen
it IS capped. the limit would no double if it wasn't.

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:confused: :confused:
the limit would ONLY double if it wasn't capped. If it was actually hard capped at 512kbs then you would only get a maximum of 512kbs even when you were the only one on your node. if it was hard capped no matter what you did you would never be able to change your maximum bandwith.

if I have a container with 1 cup of water in it and put a cap on it and seal it up. I can not put anymore water in it no matter how much extra water I have available to pass out. Now if I give you 1 cup of water in glass and leave the lid off then see that no one else is using any water, I can toss you some more. but if it's capped and sealed I can't . . .

Just because they tell you that your subscription is capped doesn't mean it actually is.

I think you are missing the point.

I am using 2 NICs, 2 connections, double speed.

both pcs are capped, but the total rate doubles, as these are pulling from 2 different connections. I am not on the same network zone as my nieghbor, or this would not work. as it is, I am on a different zone, so it DOES in fact work.

Using your water analogy, I am getting water from 2 different water companies.