Can I use 2 internet connections at once?

ritcH · 20 Apr 2008 at 11:38

I'm connected by a wire to my router and I get 8Mbit/1Mbit and I'm also connected by wireless to my neighbours wireless network which gives me 7Mbit/0.5Mbit.

Question is, can I setup my computer so that these connections are combined to give me 16Mbit/1.5Mbit?

In my street people have started opening up their wireless networks, mainly because I'm running 3 open networks

so was wandering if there is a way to benefit from this arrangement? Ideally it would be nice to combine all networks and have 50Mbit+ internet connections!

Craig321 · 20 Apr 2008 at 11:45

Oooh, RAID 0 internet

As far as I know it's not possible in Vista, but there may be some other software available.

http://www.ezlan.net/loadbalance.html

Mp4 · 20 Apr 2008 at 11:52

^ from the linky above

Unfortunately Combining Bandwidth can not be done without the ISP providing such a specific service.

Computers are Not mind readers. If the two connections are not synchronized at the source your computer would know how to combine it to a coherent page.

Any if and but about it is just Wishful thinking.

The price of such a service (if available) is usually much more expensive than upgrading your connection from the basic service to a faster business or corporate service.

ritcH · 20 Apr 2008 at 11:57

Yes I see that's a shame but still load balancing is still good. When I connected to both connections I was just running 1 speed test maybe I should try running 2 speed tests!

But that is probably too simple? So you are saying load balancing is not possible with Vista? I have a spare computer I could install linux on..?

Mp4 · 20 Apr 2008 at 12:00

I dont use Vista so couldnt say! I didn't think it was possable

Vai · 20 Apr 2008 at 12:20

You would need a machine running a firewall which can do load balancing, such as pfSense:
http://www.pfsense.com/

You would then need to connect the wireless networks to pfSense. I don't know if pfSense would allow you to connect to wireless networks like that, the easiest way might be to buy a cheap wireless router, connect it to their wireless network then plug an ethernet cable from the router into a port on the firewall machine.

The only problem is that it wouldn't be a true bonded connection, it would round-robin requests down multiple connections, so only good for downloading if your client uses multiple connections, like Usenet, bittorrent, but not IE or Firefox (unless you use an external download manager).

ritcH · 20 Apr 2008 at 12:25

too much hassel think I'm going to wait until June when I move to Be =] thanks for the replies though.

Dist · 20 Apr 2008 at 12:29

Are you sure your neighbours wifi connection is ment to be open? If they intended for it to be secure and you are using it without their permission then you could get into a lot of trouble.

Also i would be carefull what sort of router the other people are using if you are going to use their connection. Some of the more advanced routers could track your internet activitys.

ritcH · 20 Apr 2008 at 12:32

Yeah you're right I got scared and went back to my connection.

ANDARIAL · 20 Apr 2008 at 16:32

ritcH said:
Yeah you're right I got scared and went back to my connection.

Yeah Right

MAllen · 20 Apr 2008 at 22:35

Technically, the stupidity of the current UK law makes it illegal to connect to your neighbours wireless network. Even if it is open and your laptop auto-connected. Stupid UK law makes this "theft of services". :rolleyes:

Dist · 21 Apr 2008 at 00:03

MAllen said:
Technically, the stupidity of the current UK law makes it illegal to connect to your neighbours wireless network. Even if it is open and your laptop auto-connected. Stupid UK law makes this "theft of services".

unless you have their permission.

MAllen · 21 Apr 2008 at 09:51

Dist said:
unless you have their permission.

Well... err... obviously

But OP implied he didn't.

titaniumx3 · 21 Apr 2008 at 15:10

btw, what happens when you have two internet connections on the same PC. How does windows decide which one to use?

MAllen · 21 Apr 2008 at 16:05

titaniumx3 said:
btw, what happens when you have two internet connections on the same PC. How does windows decide which one to use?

I guess: It would be down to the order in the routing table.

Bring up DOS prompt (cmd)
Enter the command route print

Highly techy... but will let you see which NIC is being used to direct packets. Look for the address listed on the right - and that will help you spot which NIC is being used to route data to the Internet.

(If on Vista - look for the IPv4 table... just spotted on my newly installed OS that there is a lot of other carp in the response now....)

route print /? will list a few more arguments and options.

uvarvu · 21 Apr 2008 at 16:14

You can combine broadband lines but at a price:-

http://www.sharedband.com/

errata · 22 Apr 2008 at 14:16

Dist said:
unless you have their permission.

ISP terms and conditons usually would not permit any such sharing to another address, with or without permission, though how they ever would know (short of using detector vans) is moot.

FrenchTart · 22 Apr 2008 at 14:21

Bonded ADSL is nice but hideously expensive :/ There's a Be reseller that does two line bonding for a reasonable price iirc. Not sure who it is but Dan Harris on the adslguide/be forums would know (once again, iirc).