2 infinity lines multiple users

DataVampire · 30 Oct 2017 at 14:03

Hi guys we got offered a deal by sky, we are basically getting sky fiber max for £5 a month(went from sky fiber unlimited), We already have BT business infinity 2 unlimeted.
Both lines are 80mb down 20mb up up, with sky having a better ping for gaming.

So we have
5 pcs--cat 6 wired
3 tablets-wifi
6 mobile phones-wifi
LG smart tv -cat 6 wired
Sony smart home cinema system-cat 6 wired
Logitech harmony remote hub-wifi
philips hue-wired
Nest smart thermostat-wired
Nest security camers-wifi
3 games consoles-wifi
Media server-cat6 wired
synology nas -cat6 wired
xternal 4tb hd connected to synology(usb3)

Bt is connected to a white (bt open reach) modem via a cat 5 modem rj11-Asus rt87u router then a cat 6 cable going to a 8 port 1gb tp link switch

Sky fiber max is connected to the sky q hub -cat 6 to a netgear prosafe 8 port 1gb smart switch.

is there anyway to combine the wife from sky and bt so people on sly can see the media server on bt ? same for lan?

For instance can i set it all up better ?

Thank you for reading

bremen1874 · 30 Oct 2017 at 14:23

What's the media server? Does it have/can it handle dual network ports.

BigT · 30 Oct 2017 at 14:24

On the basis you don't fundamentally mind everyone sharing and seeing everything, and even if not that can be worked around, then what you need is a router that supports dual WAN. I'm not that familiar with Sky and I think there's something peculiar about it that someone else may comment on, but fundamentally you put two modems in front of a router that has to WAN inputs and do all your routing on the one network from within the router's interface. In its simplest form you have one local network and you use either load balancing, failover or policy based routing to determine which devices use which internet connection, but they all see each other on the local network. You can make it more complicated than that and partition things up locally if you desire.

Depending on your budget and experience, your choices for a dual WAN router include:

- Something form Mikrotik (best bang for buck but hard to configure)
- a home brew pfSense box or similar
- a prosumer device from the likes of Draytek

Some of the above routers don't do wifi like an ISP router so you'd need to add access points. Almost everyone will tell you Ubiquiti are the best for that at consumer level.

DataVampire · 30 Oct 2017 at 15:02

bremen1874 said:
What's the media server? Does it have/can it handle dual network ports.

i think i may have a spare 1gb pcie lan card somewhere

DataVampire · 30 Oct 2017 at 15:08

BigT said:
On the basis you don't fundamentally mind everyone sharing and seeing everything, and even if not that can be worked around, then what you need is a router that supports dual WAN. I'm not that familiar with Sky and I think there's something peculiar about it that someone else may comment on, but fundamentally you put two modems in front of a router that has to WAN inputs and do all your routing on the one network from within the router's interface. In its simplest form you have one local network and you use either load balancing, failover or policy based routing to determine which devices use which internet connection, but they all see each other on the local network. You can make it more complicated than that and partition things up locally if you desire.

Depending on your budget and experience, your choices for a dual WAN router include:

- Something form Mikrotik (best bang for buck but hard to configure)
- a home brew pfSense box or similar
- a prosumer device from the likes of Draytek

Some of the above routers don't do wifi like an ISP router so you'd need to add access points. Almost everyone will tell you Ubiquiti are the best for that at consumer level.

I was hoping there was going to be a simple soloution not costing any money tbh, i might have to rethink this.

ATM i have 3 pcs and some wifi on the the BT line and 2 pcs and some wifi on the sky.

Tbh i just could not turn down the cheap sky net and was hoping i could make more use out of the both.

I already new about channel bonding and the cost is prety high for the modem/router so i already knew that was out of the question.

Thank you for the replies

bremen1874 · 30 Oct 2017 at 15:29

If you're willing to assign static IPs to some of the devices you can manually load balance to some extent.

Configure the two routers so they're using the same subnet (different management/gateway IPs) and disable the DHCP server on one of them. Connect them together on the LAN side. You've now got a single network with two gateways.

All of the devices configured to use DHCP will use the gateway/connection of the router with DHCP enabled. They won't know anything about the other gateway/connection.

For any devices that you want to use the other gateway/connection assign a static IP using the other gateway address.

crinkleshoes · 30 Oct 2017 at 15:40

Your Asus router is dual-wan capable.

Connect sky router to whichever lan port you configure as second wan port and setup in the interface how you want it to behave. From memory there are a few load balancing options in Asus kit.

Turn the WiFi signal off on the sky thing. Then you have one signal and one LAN.

skyripper · 30 Oct 2017 at 15:43

Channel-bonding is for joining two connections and making them one.
Which is never going to work when one connection goes to BT, and one goes to Sky.

Right now, you have two WAN connections, and two LANs, one connected to each of them.

DataVampire said:
I was hoping there was going to be a simple solution not costing any money tbh, i might have to rethink this.

You're trying to create something more complicated than the average businesses

You already have one Fibre modem (the BT one). If the Sky Hub can be put into Modem-only mode, then you could ~~run pfsense (or something else free like that) with three Network interfaces, or a draytek router with multiple WAN capability~~ use your Asus router for it. You'd have 1 connected to your LAN, one connected to BT, and one connected to Sky.

~~You would need something to do the wifi for your LAN.~~

crinkleshoes · 30 Oct 2017 at 15:46

skyripper said:
Channel-bonding is for joining two connections and making them one.
Which is never going to work when one connection goes to BT, and one goes to Sky.

You can, actually, bond connections from different providers - but it requires a third party to be involved which adds both cost and latency.

You're trying to create something more complicated than the average businesses

Most I know have some sort of load balanced connection, even if it's simply for failover reasons

You already have one Fibre modem (the BT one). If the Sky Hub can be put into Modem-only mode, then you could run pfsense (or something else free like that) with three Network interfaces, or a draytek router with multiple WAN capability. You'd have 1 connected to your LAN, one connected to BT, and one connected to Sky.

You would need something to do the wifi for your LAN.

The Asus already has dual-wan

skyripper · 30 Oct 2017 at 16:01

crinkleshoes said:
You can, actually, bond connections from different providers - but it requires a third party to be involved which adds both cost and latency.

Which presumably means ISP a and ISP b are just carriers to the third party... or whatevs.. its not really in the home networking cheapie arena.

crinkleshoes said:
Most I know have some sort of load balanced connection, even if it's simply for failover reasons

Maybe I should have said small business. As in coffee-shops and hairdressers. Anyway, whatevs...

crinkleshoes said:
The Asus already has dual-wan

Saw that, and editted my post based on yours.

Anyhow I am going to take my pedantic hat and bow to superior knowledge

crinkleshoes · 30 Oct 2017 at 16:41

skyripper said:
Which presumably means ISP a and ISP b are just carriers to the third party... or whatevs.. its not really in the home networking cheapie arena.

Yes exactly... you need a bit of hardware that connects to both lines which is about £200-300 to support up to 4 lines (on top of the modems) and then it's about £20-30/month per line on top of the line cost... so it can get a bit pricey and definitely not what the OP will be wanting - just thought it was worth mentioning for your info

Maybe I should have said small business. As in coffee-shops and hairdressers. Anyway, whatevs...

Click to expand...

I'll be a picky barsteward for the heck of it hehe - many coffee shops now have 2 lines as it's so integral to their business (people often go there for the free wifi).

Hairdressers... OK... I'll give you that one

Click to expand...

DataVampire · 30 Oct 2017 at 18:56

crinkleshoes said:
Your Asus router is dual-wan capable.

Connect sky router to whichever lan port you configure as second wan port and setup in the interface how you want it to behave. From memory there are a few load balancing options in Asus kit.

Turn the WiFi signal off on the sky thing. Then you have one signal and one LAN.

Ah i knew my router had dual wan but from memory it says in the book its for connecting say a 4g modem via usb lol , unless they changed it or i missed something ofc.

DataVampire · 30 Oct 2017 at 18:59

crinkleshoes said:
You can, actually, bond connections from different providers - but it requires a third party to be involved which adds both cost and latency.

Most I know have some sort of load balanced connection, even if it's simply for failover reasons

The Asus already has dual-wan

I am sure i read somewhere you can indeed turn of the dhp and wifi and use it as a modem, but doesn`t sky have some weired protocols or something i am pretty use i read it comes with problem

DataVampire · 30 Oct 2017 at 19:05

As for load balancing, if i understand this correctly.

when user a is downloading or saturating one of the lines say BT for example, does the sky line take over the rest ? so other users dont feel bogged down? when they are streaming or playing games ?.

Also because the sky has better gaming pings than BT (i have no idea why this is happening i would have thought a business line would have been far Superior) would i be able to set it up so for gaming it uses the sky line for everything else uses the bt line ?

Also would all switches have to be connected to the Asus router since the sky q hub was just acting as a modem ?

Thank you so much for the help guys.

MissChief · 30 Oct 2017 at 19:31

DataVampire said:
I am sure i read somewhere you can indeed turn of the dhp and wifi and use it as a modem, but doesn`t sky have some weired protocols or something i am pretty use i read it comes with problem

It is possible to turn DHCP and WiFi on the Sky router, yes.

bremen1874 · 30 Oct 2017 at 20:00

Sky use MER authentication so any third-party device would need to have support for it.

Disabling DHCP and wireless wouldn't turn the Sky router into a modem, it would just be a router with DHCP and wireless turned off. You can connect the LAN of the Sky router into the WAN of another router and have it work but you'll be double NATing. Whether double NAT would matter will depend on what the connection is used for.

If the Sky router was connected to the WAN side of a another router then everything on the network would need to be connected to the LAN side of that router.

If you're load balancing with two connections of the same speed you'd expect them to be used fairly equally.

crinkleshoes · 30 Oct 2017 at 20:29

DataVampire said:
Ah i knew my router had dual wan but from memory it says in the book its for connecting say a 4g modem via usb lol , unless they changed it or i missed something ofc.

No, that's extra... you have the standard WAN port + you can change one of the LAN ports into a secondary WAN - this is where you would plug in the second router (Sky thing).

If you setup a teamviewer session with access to the Asus router - I will show you - just drop me a trust message.

crinkleshoes · 30 Oct 2017 at 20:31

DataVampire said:
I am sure i read somewhere you can indeed turn of the dhp and wifi and use it as a modem, but doesn`t sky have some weired protocols or something i am pretty use i read it comes with problem

You should be able to turn dhcp and wifi off in the web interface.

If setting it to WAN2 in the Asus, you can leave DHCP on to make things a little easier if you want - but I'd recommend turning off WiFi... it can add confusion to other members of the household / guests + it adds noise unless on a non-interfering channel.

crinkleshoes · 30 Oct 2017 at 20:40

DataVampire said:
As for load balancing, if i understand this correctly.

when user a is downloading or saturating one of the lines say BT for example, does the sky line take over the rest ? so other users dont feel bogged down? when they are streaming or playing games ?.

Also because the sky has better gaming pings than BT (i have no idea why this is happening i would have thought a business line would have been far Superior) would i be able to set it up so for gaming it uses the sky line for everything else uses the bt line ?

Also would all switches have to be connected to the Asus router since the sky q hub was just acting as a modem ?

Thank you so much for the help guys.

It depends on the options available. I can't remember the options available on the Asus devices - it's been a while since I've used one.

There are a few options:
1. Round Robin = 1st session goes to WAN1, 2nd session goes to WAN2, 3rd session goes to WAN1... etc - irregardless of bandwidth in use
2. There is a type which will balance bandwidth
3. There is a type which will balance total number of connections
4. There is a type which simply offers HA (will only use 2nd when 1st is unavailable)
5. There is a type which will offer priority to certain profiles / devices / users (highly unlikely this type exists on a consumer router like your Asus)
6. There is a type which will prioritise ping to the request - the lowest ping to destination wins, irregardless of throughput
... there are more I'm forgetting and I'm useless with names

The simplest and most readily available is the round robin type.

You can set one to be the primary (in your instance, the Sky as it has a ping) - you can choose this primary, you don't have to rely on the router.
But for the type of customisable load balancing you're after - it's highly unlikely the Asus supports that. For that option, the best thing to do would be something along the lines of the scenario of 2x independent gateways that someone mentioned above. This way the default gateway would be the slower one and you would set the lower ping option as your default gateway for your gaming use... this requires a bit more static configuration - rather than just using the built in dual-wan option of the Asus router. It is reasonably simple to do - but requires a little knowledge / research / someone to help you.

Yes, the switches would have to be connected to the Asus router - otherwise you could have Asus Router -> Switch 1 -> Switch 2... daisy-chaining is OK.

DataVampire · 31 Oct 2017 at 17:45

Thsi has defiantley given me pause for thought and how best to move forward.

Things i need to look at and confirm.

Sky Q hub

Sky q hub can be used as just a modem and thus connected to my asus router 2nd wan port.
Turning the wifi off, turning the dhcp off.
Sky use MER authentication so any third-party device would need to have support for it.
Find out and read about the above and how it will effect

Asus router

The type of load balancing the Asus router supports and which one will be the best to use in my situation.
I will have to do this iether very early in the morning or jsut turn it all off and do it on a weekend where i have plenty of time to sort stuff out

Thank you very much for the replies much to still read up on