Router with 2xWANs (for load balancing)

Xon

Xon

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Hey all

I've recently had the opportunity to get myself 2x8 mbit adsl connections on two different telephone lines (PPPoE or PPTP service).

Now I need a router with a dual WAN connection and load balancing capability... something not too expensive that does the job well (heard of a d-link 604? that's apparently really really bad keeps restarting etc)...

You guys know any? Remember don't link to competitors just give me model names if you know any! Thanks!
 
Ste said:
Wonder if NTL would let me have 2x20mb :D

if you pay for it don't see why not, but ........... they will ask why them speeds probably.
 
I have a Sonicwall TZ170 wireless. Mine is NFR so much cheaper than you normally pay. But realistically you're looking at £500+ for it.
Mostly because you need the enhanced OS on it for this feature and this is more expensive.

Yes you can have failover by round robin, percentage or by spillover, we don't really configure loadbalancing for our customers though so I can't really say how much of an improvement it gives.
 
effective load balencing over ADSL is pretty difficult without using the same ISP for both connections and them setting up some form of balencing, in short, not an option at home. Personally I have a 24mb LLU service shared with my flatmates and an 8mb from work thats mine (addressed for management so i can work from home)

I use a cisco 2800 to route traffic to each connection depending on a set of access lists and qos sets (ie, management, voip and other important stuff goes by my work line, downloads and such goes by the shared line)

expensive and requires a fair bit of knowledge though, various companies do load balencing in their firewalls, sonicwall as mentioned, zyxel do as well and might be a bit cheaper.
 
To be honest, if you're going for £200+ for a Sonicwall i'd personally recommend a Cisco 2600 box.

You've got brilliant expandibility via the WICs, so if you need an interface in the future, you just need to buy the WIC Card, and pop it in the router.
It's ADSL compatible, again, through WIC so setting up shouldn't be a problem.
You can get dual ethernet versions to create two LANs
You can add up to four serial interfaces to create four LANs and interconnect routers
The only down side I can think of is you'd need to, or find out how to set it up via console on the Cisco IOS.
 
acctually yeh a 2600 series might be ok as they can handle 2 adsl wan wics.

erm but its pretty pricey cos brand second hand for the router alone will cost you around 60/110 even off ebay.

and the wics will cost you around 100/300 off ebay.

If you look at my setup I have one adsl wic in mine.

image-upload-36-722835.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I've tried quite a lot of dual wan routers and so far the best I have come accross are from tenda . I got mine shipped directly from the manufacturer by DHL at a very good price. I would say the next best after that is the xincom range (there are many clones of the xincom range which can be had much cheaper... pheenet etc). A cheaper alternative would be the Linksys Rv042 which from my experience is pretty reliable.

If you are going for the "software" alternative, look at pfsense.
 
zen62619 said:
acctually yeh a 2600 series might be ok as they can handle 2 adsl wan wics.

erm but its pretty pricey cos brand second hand for the router alone will cost you around 60/110 even off ebay.

and the wics will cost you around 100/300 off ebay.

If you look at my setup I have one adsl wic in mine.

image-upload-36-722835.jpg

yeah, if you can get hold of one this would do, though it'll need to be a 2600XM as the original 2600s only had 10mb LAN ports. The 2600XMs even will struggle for throughput beyond a certain amount (not an issue at this point but if you went to 24mb DSL it would be)

Don't know where you're pricing your WICs from, I've just sold 4 good as new WIC1-ADSLs in MM for £175...
 
bigredshark said:
Don't know where you're pricing your WICs from, I've just sold 4 good as new WIC1-ADSLs in MM for £175...

£175 each??

I bought mine on ebay for £110 brand new from London.

I have seen them for £250/£300 brand new from cisco.
 
just checked our price lists for Sonicwall,

TZ170 wireless with 25 nodes is £497. Tz170 is minimum for the Enhanced OS.
Enhanced Os upgrade for it is £343.

Damn I got a good deal on my NFR :p
 
Pint said:
just checked our price lists for Sonicwall,

TZ170 wireless with 25 nodes is £497. Tz170 is minimum for the Enhanced OS.
Enhanced Os upgrade for it is £343.

Damn I got a good deal on my NFR :p

expensive stuff but for businesses
 
Am currently at work but will check out the links you pointed out when I get home and see if one of them is good for what I need. Thanks for the suggestions all..
 
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