Can you bridge 2 ADSL lines into 1?

[Ody]

At the moment I have an 1mb ADSL line through a Belkin router. Believe it or not I live a mile outside Manchester City Centre and they still haven't even got 2Mb here.

Anyhow...soon I will be working from home and my comapny are installing a 2nd telephone line and a 2nd ADSL connection and router.

Will it be possible to link them if I want to to increase my download speeds in the evening? (when Im not working of course )

[Trippledence]

I think this is possible, however the hardware for it is very expencive, and it would still only be able to have each conection at the highest speed of one line, so downloads would still be 1mb, but two at once.

Have you got DSL MAX? If you are presently on 1mb with conventional ADSL then you could get at least 3mb and faster upload with DSL MAX.

[SourceQuench]

Hi Ody,

Yes, it's possible - it's called bonding. However, in most cases you would need an intermediary machine (running linux) with two (or more) ADSL PCI cards to bond the lines together for you. One thing to note is that it's not exactly cheap (but cheaper than say dedicated Cisco models) and also, you will need to have the same ISP on both lines and request them to "bond" the lines at their side.

You might want to take a look at http://www.automatedhome.co.uk/article1729.html for a quick start (a quick google found that).

and also http://www.freestuffjunction.co.uk/bondedcd.shtml which is the home of the linux boot CD for bonding.

Hope this helps.

[kempez]

My mates been running 4 ADSL lines bonded together as one for some time now. Expensive tho...

[Zak33]

Zen have offered bonded lines for a long time....the costof several BT lines, plus several ADSL lines plus the bonding charge are still way cheaper than a leased line.

[Ody]

So thats in effect a no then Thanks guys!

[explicitlyrics]

No it is very easy, you just get two modems, plug them into an old PC you have (150mhz/64mb is probably enough). Then install the free linux software on the machine and plug your PC into a network port on your old PC (if you have 2 USB/internal modems then you need 1 network card, if you have ethernet modems however, then more network cards are needed - cost £2 each...)

They are making it sound much harder than it is.

One thing to note however, is it is only 'multi-threading' internet uses that would benefit from this. In other words, downloading a file fast while browsing through the other connection, or downloading two files simultaneously, or gaming while downloading.... Downloading a single file off the internet would not work any faster unless you multi-sourced it.

The reason behind it is that the local exchange has to be told to split data evenly between the two lines in order to truly bond ADSL lines. This can only be done if both lines are with the same ISP and the ISP supports bonding. Otherwise all data relating to one download/browing session/gaming session... would go down one or other of the ADSL lines. I hope that makes sense.

[badass]

Zen have offered bonded lines for a long time....the costof several BT lines, plus several ADSL lines plus the bonding charge are still way cheaper than a leased line.

Andrews and Arnoold offer bonding and the Kit to do it aswell. www.aaisp.net.uk

[kempez]

INET do bonded lines

www.idnet.net