Bonded or Load Balanced Broadband for home?

[flyingjase]

Can anyone help?

My broadband speed is pony on account of me being miles from the echange apparently. Also they are not upgrading my exhange to that new fangled ADSL2 something for years. In order to speed things up 2 things have been suggested to me:-

Bonded line - 4 lines that will alledgely give me 1mb up / 8 mb down but comes at a huge £400 per month or

Load balanced line (using barracuda link balancer) - 2 lines at £40 per month (so signifcantly cheaper but with no quoted speeds)

They are both offered via StreamNet

Is the bonded line really worth 10 time the amount each month? Are there any other options?

We don't have fibre optic round here either.

Thanks!

[paul26982]

flyingjase said:

Can anyone help?

My broadband speed is pony on account of me being miles from the echange apparently. Also they are not upgrading my exhange to that new fangled ADSL2 something for years. In order to speed things up 2 things have been suggested to me:-

Bonded line - 4 lines that will alledgely give me 1mb up / 8 mb down but comes at a huge £400 per month or

Load balanced line (using barracuda link balancer) - 2 lines at £40 per month (so signifcantly cheaper but with no quoted speeds)

They are both offered via StreamNet

Is the bonded line really worth 10 time the amount each month? Are there any other options?

We don't have fibre optic round here either.

Thanks!

im in the same boat regarding speeds and the options you have, i'd never consider those prices

[flyingjase]

paul26982 said:

flyingjase said:

Can anyone help?

My broadband speed is pony on account of me being miles from the echange apparently. Also they are not upgrading my exhange to that new fangled ADSL2 something for years. In order to speed things up 2 things have been suggested to me:-

Bonded line - 4 lines that will alledgely give me 1mb up / 8 mb down but comes at a huge £400 per month or

Load balanced line (using barracuda link balancer) - 2 lines at £40 per month (so signifcantly cheaper but with no quoted speeds)

They are both offered via StreamNet

Is the bonded line really worth 10 time the amount each month? Are there any other options?

We don't have fibre optic round here either.

Thanks!

im in the same boat regarding speeds and the options you have, i'd never consider those prices

The £40 a month doesn't seem too bad if it works and that's a big if. They are not committing to a set speed. The £400 is a joke - at work I pay £600 per month for 30mb fibre optic leased line!

Have you got better pricing with another provider?

[rpguk]

I'm not an expert on these things (in fact I asked a similar question a while ago, because I have two lines and wondered about if it was possible to link them)

But I don't think you need to use any particular ISP to use the load balancer. Would it be more cost effective to purchase your own load balancer and sort your own connections (which I'd have thought would be cheaper then 2 x £40pm). The speed would then surely be something close to 2 x whatever speed you get from your current ADSL line?

Edited to add - Hmm, reading your OP again it seems perhaps that's exactly what you're suggesting!

Edited by rpguk on Tuesday 10th August 20:29

[flyingjase]

rpguk said:

I'm not an expert on these things (in fact I asked a similar question a while ago, because I have two lines and wondered about if it was possible to link them)

But I don't think you need to use any particular ISP to use the load balancer. Would it be more cost effective to purchase your own load balancer and sort your own connections (which I'd have thought would be cheaper then 2 x £40pm). The speed would then surely be something close to 2 x whatever speed you get from your current ADSL line?

Edited to add - Hmm, reading your OP again it seems perhaps that's exactly what you're suggesting!

Edited by rpguk on Tuesday 10th August 20:29

The cost is 2 x BT lines whatever that is plus 1 x £40 to StreamNet. (plus the cost of the load balancer). I don't know what extras Streamnet do over & above normal boradband for the £40

[paddyhasneeds]

Have a chat with AAISP on IRC, they should have some options.

[TurricanII]

Bear in mind that if you download a file from a website over load balanced adsl lines that your connection will still only be as fast as one adsl line, the load balancer just picks the least busy adsl. If the bonded link is bonded at your home AND your ISP then you should get one fast connection as you would expect.

[sonic_2k_uk]

TurricanII said:

Bear in mind that if you download a file from a website over load balanced adsl lines that your connection will still only be as fast as one adsl line, the load balancer just picks the least busy adsl. If the bonded link is bonded at your home AND your ISP then you should get one fast connection as you would expect.

+1

[flyingjase]

sonic_2k_uk said:

TurricanII said:

Bear in mind that if you download a file from a website over load balanced adsl lines that your connection will still only be as fast as one adsl line, the load balancer just picks the least busy adsl. If the bonded link is bonded at your home AND your ISP then you should get one fast connection as you would expect.

+1

Interesting - in that case, do you know of any cheaper bonded providers?

[FlossyThePig]

Why not contact Rutland Broadband they may have an alternative solution.

[arcturus]

I have been looking into this and initially came up with these daft figures for bonded ADSL. However if you provide the kit yourself and opt for a non managed version (ie where you look after the kit at your end) then I understand that Enta will bond your ADSL lines togeteher for nothing. You just pay for the separate ADSL connections with them at normal rates.

You will of course need to buy yourself the kit to bond the lines together at your end and this can cost from £100 to £1000 depending on how much tech knowledge you have.

Personally I'm just going to use a number of Draytek Vigor 120 modems connected to an old PC running pfsense which will do the actual bonding.

Also note this is all theory just for now. I do not have a working system, i'm just planning ahead.

Note you can't buy direct from Enta - you will need to go through an agent (which conveniently, we are!!)

[TurricanII]

I knew pfsense did load balancing but not sure about proper bonding... there is a standard e.g. MLPPP that defines bonding, check with your ISP what protocol they use. http://www.firebrick.co.uk/ have been making bonding kit for ages and get good reviews

[carl0s]

Also worth keeping an eye on BT Infinity (FTTC).
I know you said no fibre optic, but I presume you mean Virgin.

[Plotloss]

Do you know anyone local with a decent line length and line of sight?

If you do, a microwave link could be an option potentially.