Hi, I was hoping to get some help with setting up our network at home. Long story short we now have 2 phone lines with broadband from orange, so firstly is there any way we can connect the 2 broad bands together???? Secondly I wanted to set up my network better as the orange supplied wireless routers don't seem to be able to cope with multiple wireless devices, so this is what I thought. Both fone lines are in the office along with the main pc the NAS and network printer. So disable wireless an dchp on 1 router then a connect both routers to gb switch along with pc/NAS and printer, then 1 cable to lounge where pc/PS3/tv and av receiver are connected to a switch, and another cable to the back bedroom where the xbox/pc/wii and pvr are connected to a switch. So will this work. Or can someone recomend better setup. I do have an access point kicking around so would be happy to replace the 2 routers if the is a better solution. I do need wifi as we have a couple of laptops and a iPad that use it. I don't have any of the switches as yet so some recommendations would be great. Budget is minimal but flexible I just don't want to be replacing kit in a years time ( netgear seems popular at the moment and NAS is a readynas duo) all switches will be gigabit and cable wil be cat5e ( won't see any benefit fom cat6 as not going to be at house for that much longer). Really sorry it's such a long post just tried to cover all bases. Thanks Tim
For the 2 uplinks you need a router that can load balance, otherwise you will just use one. Something like the Linksys RT042 (quick google gave me this). A friend of mine has one, I'll try to find out what he has. Expect it to be expensive tough! That router will probably also be able to do DHCP on the inside, so you have 1 internal network. This can be wired up through 1 central switch. The wireless access point can just be plugged in. Set it up somewhere central for best coverage.
Wow that was quick thanks glider sorry for my noobness but when you say uplinks you mean broadband connection right, also what did you look for on google as I didn't know where to start Thanks Tim
Alternatively, if you get a regular PC and install any number of open source firewall specific OSs you can do load balancing that way. Bare in mind that load balancing does not give you one 16Mbps connection if you have two 8Mbps connections, it gives you two 8Mbps connections. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_router_or_firewall_distributions Some of the more popular ones are: http://www.untangle.com/ http://www.smoothwall.org/
thanks tehboris I understand that it was not going to double my connection speed it was more that I wanted to make use of what I had, I dont really need the speed or the second line really but it was cheaper than just a fone line from bt so thought why not. thanks for the links I will have a read through them and see if it will suit my needs, just a quick question though the pc with the software on will that have to be on all the time for it to work??? sorry if thats a stupid question. Thanks Tim
what you want is mlppp which does bonding. there are a few options out there that do this, but i can't recommend any specifically.
