Best way to manage 2 internet connections

_Jimlad_

_Jimlad_

_Jimlad_

Soldato
Joined
5 Jun 2005
Posts
20,890
Location
Southampton
Well i have a 100mb virgin line, which is utter crud for gaming, constant packetloss and lag. However web and downloads are normally fine.

So decided to get a BT internet package. the issue is, i can only get 2mb where i am as junction box is miles away. However for gaming that is fine.

Just wondering how to manage the connections, i was going to have 2 network cards and then disable/enable, but im guessing there our better ways :D
 
im losing the will to live... virgin line broke until the 16th, and BT line not fitted until the 17th... mobile 3g might be my best option!
 
well not sure on that, will have to call BT. but in the mean time, what about these two connections and how to manage them?
 
_Jimlad_ said:
Well i have a 100mb virgin line, which is utter crud for gaming, constant packetloss and lag. However web and downloads are normally fine.

So decided to get a BT internet package. the issue is, i can only get 2mb where i am as junction box is miles away. However for gaming that is fine.

Just wondering how to manage the connections, i was going to have 2 network cards and then disable/enable, but im guessing there our better ways :D
Click to expand...

My 100MB VM connection is fine. I get better pings than most and it's perfectly stable - as it should be.

If you're having packet loss and lag then you need to contact VM who will fix the issue for you.
 
dbmzk1 said:
My 100MB VM connection is fine. I get better pings than most and it's perfectly stable - as it should be.

If you're having packet loss and lag then you need to contact VM who will fix the issue for you.
Click to expand...

lol have you called "VM india" this year i have called 30+ times had 7 call outs and the line replaced. currently there is a fault in my area until 30th Jan.
 
Run a pfSense firewall?

Make the BT line your default route for all traffic and setup the Virgin line for anything on HTTP(s), FTP, DNS, etc...
 
_Jimlad_ said:
lol have you called "VM india" this year i have called 30+ times had 7 call outs and the line replaced. currently there is a fault in my area until 30th Jan.
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Yes, but if you ask to be put through to retentions they are UK based and will help you. Though if there is a fault in your area then I guess that's nothing to do with the call centre. Strange I know a few people in Southampton who have no issues at all, guess you're just unlucky!

EDIT: I think 0800 0520137 is a UK only number. 0333 000 3101 used to be but think it diverts along with the 0845 number now. If you're having that much trouble ask them and they will give you a direct number :)
 
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dbmzk1 said:
Yes, but if you ask to be put through to retentions they are UK based and will help you. Though if there is a fault in your area then I guess that's nothing to do with the call centre. Strange I know a few people in Southampton who have no issues at all, guess you're just unlucky!

EDIT: I think 0800 0520137 is a UK only number. 0333 000 3101 used to be but think it diverts along with the 0845 number now. If you're having that much trouble ask them and they will give you a direct number :)
Click to expand...

ok will give that a try, but yeah been using my neighbours VM and has the same issue. but all in all i get 100mb download, but the jitter and packetloss is terrible for gaming.

you are one of the lucky ones, check out the virgin media thread, and there nataioal rating of 3/5 stars... terrible service up and down the country for anyone who likes to game.
 
dbmzk1 said:
Strange I know a few people in Southampton who have no issues at all, guess you're just unlucky!
Click to expand...

When I lived in Southampton (Shirley) I had NTL/Virgin for a while and like Jimlad it was complete turd, during peak hours massive packetloss and erratic pings although usually less when an engineer came round i.e. during the day. There are/were definitely some overloaded areas.

Final straw for me was when one engineer I booked never showed up having booked a day off work for the visit. They increased their price so I used that as a get out clause from my contract.

Call centre generally had no clue, they didn't even know what packetloss was, you had to jump through so many hoops that I'd already done (plugging directly in, rebooting machine, trying different machines, testing downloads which wasn't the problem etc etc). So you had to fight your way through to 3rd line support or whatever and even then fundamentally I don't believe Virgin view erratic latency and the odd bit of pl as a problem, it is all about download speeds for them which I never had any problems with. From their point of view if you are pinging say 7-40ms that is no problem; from a gamers/purists point of view, latency should only fluctuate by around 5ms maybe.
 
@OP

As suggested (amongst all the white noise), a router distribution like pfSense (installed on an old PC) is likely your best bet, unless you want to invest £££ in a dual-WAN router.

With pfSense, you will need 3 network ports in the box (2 WAN, 1 LAN) and you can assign which traffic goes over which WAN line. You will need to put your Virgin Superhub in modem-only mode, to let the pfSense box do the routing. If your BT line is FTTC, then you also connect the pfSense box to the OpenReach modem. If your BT line is ADSL, then you will need to put your ADSL modem/router in modem-only or "bridge" mode, similar to the Superhub.

If you don't have a spare PC, you could put two Ethernet cards in your main PC, connect them up as outlined above and then run pfSense in a virtual machine, assigning it the two WAN interfaces you've just installed.

Hope this helps. :)
 
Subliminal Aura said:
Does pfsense offer that level of granularity ?

Is it easy to set up multiple routes that are external not physical interfaces ?

Cheers
Click to expand...

It is that granular. It's easy enough if you know what you are doing, luckily there is decent documentation and many helpful people in their support forums.
 
_Jimlad_ said:
i wanna merge my virgin and bt line? any ideas?
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I understand your pain buddy, we have had dreadful issues in norwich with virgin media. Last year we had 6 months of appalling internet from them.

50mb we were getting 4mb download and 0.02mb upload if we were lucky. It playing up again at the moment as well. You can get them to admit there is a fault eventually and then you have to wait till they bother to fix it.

We had the fix date pushed back 4 months in total so I wouldn't hold your breath. All the time they were delivering such a poor service they were putting leaflets through our door to try and get new customers in the area.

Low and behold, we have had a load more virgin media routers pop up in the wireless list recently and its back to being dire. I have no idea how they are allowed to get away with it honestly. The most you can do is to claim some money back on your bill.
 
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