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Huligan
@mpowercom.net

Huligan to Huligan

Anon

to Huligan

Re: Best Dual Wan Router

I don't need to have 1 pipe.

I need to combine 2 Modems to be on the same network.
For this I need a 2 Wan port Router. the way I'm going to set it up will be Person A will be on Modem 1 and Person B will be on Modem 2 for load balancing.

Currently we have 2 separate networks and resources can't be shared from one to another.

I think I'm going with XinCom XC-DPG502

toby
Troy Mcclure
join:2001-11-13
Seattle, WA

1 edit

toby

Member

Xincom told me that their dual wan router will work with the same ISP subnet. I haven't heard back from Zyxel yet.
The Xincom also looks to work well with secure connections, the other routers require configurations.

I have read that the Linksys routers need a different subnet for each isp, so it wouldn't work in your case using the same ISP for both. The Dlink hasn't got good reviews for stability.

DaSneaky1D
what's up
MVM
join:2001-03-29
The Lou

DaSneaky1D to Huligan

MVM

to Huligan
Would you be willing to use a PC based firewall that has multi-WAN capabilities?

Leathal
Premium Member
join:2002-02-09
Richmond Hill, ON

Leathal to Huligan

Premium Member

to Huligan
You are missing the point of what Anav is getting across, what happens if Comcast blow a router that connects them to their upstream and their redundant system can't handle the extra load are you really safe? It's always best practice when you are going for a dual WAN setup no matter what it's for to use two different ISP's that way if one has technically problems your second one can pickup the load.

Putting eggs all in one basket because you haven't had any problems in the past 2 years is simply mental!

As for dual WAN I would suggest the Xincom, Linksys and Dlink, and I am not sure about the Edimax do not lock the sessions into their WAN ports when you are network load balancing which can be a serious issue when it comes to accessing sites that use HTTPS (SSL Certs) as almost all of the them don't allow you two come in two separate IP addresses.

Leathal

schaps
Premium Member
join:2004-01-15
Saint Paul, MN

1 edit

schaps to Huligan

Premium Member

to Huligan
said by Huligan :

I don't need to have 1 pipe.
I need to combine 2 Modems to be on the same network.
For this I need a 2 Wan port Router. the way I'm going to set it up will be Person A will be on Modem 1 and Person B will be on Modem 2 for load balancing.
Currently we have 2 separate networks and resources can't be shared from one to another.
I think I'm going with XinCom XC-DPG502
You bowed out of this discussion rather early and never seemed to get a good answer to your question. I wonder if you got the XinCom and how it works for you. If I understand your situation, I don't know why you'd need a dual WAN router, though. It appears you just wanted a way to combine networks and have users manually load-balanced, that is, manually assigned different gateway addresses to achieve load balance. For that, you don't need a router, the Comcast business cable modems can be assigned IPs on your network's subnet, and that would work fine. However, it is advisable to get a multi-wan router so that you can then have one pipe to run through a firewall to separate your internal network from the wild wild web.

In any case, this thread contributed to my own evaluation process for upgrading my school's internet (currently have 2 T1s, will be dropping one), and I just added two Comcast business cable modems and am waiting for my new Peplink Balance 380 enterprise multi-wan load-balancing router (»www.peplink.com/products ··· ance-380 ). Lots of research contributed to that decision, and though that particular router is $2000, my boss, the president and principal of the school would have signed off on a $6,000 Cisco router and a three year commitment to three new T1s that our ISP proposed. I didn't think that 4.5 Mb/s was going to address the bandwidth needs of the YouTube generation, so I recommended a different direction.
So we're keeping one T1 as our lifeline and they just installed the business class Comcast modems. We're paying for 8 Mb/s download and 1 Mb/s upload, but multiple tests over multiple days on speedtest.net showed *20* to *22* Mb/s download on each one every time. In our local area, most cable modems are residential, so they don't have much activity during the day, when we need the bandwidth.
A three year comparison of going the Cisco with multiple T1 route vs. going this way and replacing the T1 with DSL modem when the T1 contract runs out in 19 months, the cost savings was $40,000 over three years. I'd say that's worth the risk...
So I'll report back when I get the Peplink installed. Huligan, if you're still around, let us know how the XinCom worked out for you.
[edited- link to Peplink Balance 380 fixed]

Anav
Sarcastic Llama? Naw, Just Acerbic
Premium Member
join:2001-07-16
Dartmouth, NS

Anav

Premium Member

Nice looking unit, I would have probably brought up the USG300 ($1500ish )or possibly USG 1000 ($2300ish) for discussion.
»zyxel.com/web/product_fa ··· 79CE2C44

schaps
Premium Member
join:2004-01-15
Saint Paul, MN

schaps

Premium Member

The Peplink is awesome! The drop-in mode installation means you don't have to change any settings on the firewall. I added the two Comcast business class cable lines to our existing T1, and it's doing load sharing based on ratios I assign, and it's amazingly fast.

The biggest problem I had was figuring out how to configure the SMC8014 cable modems/routers that Comcast uses for Business Class. They are actually router/switches set to distribute DHCP, but it turns out that if you assign the ports of the Peplink to the Comcast-assigned static IP, the SMC goes into regular bridge mode automagically.

I'm still getting speeds almost 20 Mb/s down 2.5 Mb/s up during the school day on each one, and if they conk out, we still have that old reliable expensive T1 that the router will failover to. At least until that T1 contract is up, that is. Then I'll probably get a DSL line. The Comcast modems have had no outages in the two weeks since they were installed.

You naysayers can spout "no SLA" all you want. The fact is, many businesses and schools are not as dependent on the internet as others are. The $40k our school will save over the next three years (vs. the 3 T1s our provider proposed and the principal signed off on before I found this other direction) will be put to good use in other areas of the school. And this is just freaking fast downloads. Plus, the ping times to the DNS servers are even faster through the cable modems than our T1.

That's my report. Your mileage may vary.