Does 2 X 2Mbs Adsl Lines Equal 1 X 4Mbs?

[Digitalbanana]

Sick of my TOT line reportedly not being capable of more than 2mbs ISP services, I've asked to get another line installed, this time from True. We're in the middle of Bangkok so I expected more of TOT. With True to be installed, no idea if they will be limited to 2mbs also but they are offering any amount on paper, will my combined lines give a similar download to a single higher bandwidth line (i.e as the title suggests) or is it not so simple? I just want min 4mbs so I can watch some streaming videos without the buffering. If True's new line can do that alone I'm thinking I will dump TOT altogether.

[mhoolahan]

Sick of my TOT line reportedly not being capable of more than 2mbs ISP services, I've asked to get another line installed, this time from True. We're in the middle of Bangkok so I expected more of TOT. With True to be installed, no idea if they will be limited to 2mbs also but they are offering any amount on paper, will my combined lines give a similar download to a single higher bandwidth line (i.e as the title suggests) or is it not so simple? I just want min 4mbs so I can watch some streaming videos without the buffering. If True's new line can do that alone I'm thinking I will dump TOT altogether.

hey banana,

i've had to live with both TOT and TRUE services recently. While neither are great...TRUE is definitely the better service of the two.

I know during the evening at least, i can achieve the advertised rate on my TRUE account.

Mick

[filingaccount]

The speed given by a Thai ISP (and most ISPs world wide) is the line connection speed (eg. the speed you get from your modem to the ISP. Of course minus TCP overhead data). No ISP will guarantee bandwidth for you, but generally speaking the higher your connection speed, the higher your "real speed".

There are some ISP's that are much worse than others though. TOT is a prime example of a horrible ISP delivering nearly 0 bandwidth. I used TOT for 1 year and not once did I experience their "2 Mbps". I consistently got speeds equivalent to dialup modem speeds.

Now I am with True and I have more than 16 Mpbs line connection speed, but real life bandwidth is nowhere near that (surprisingly, except when downloading torrents). I'll be lucky if I can watch online streaming media over 300 Kbps. This is purely due to traffic shaping (they will deny it vigorously, and when presented with supporting data, they go very quiet very quick and refuse to discuss it with you any more).

It is quite strange to see bandwidth hogs like torrents get full speeds, but a low bandwidth online stream is traffic shaped to oblivion.

Anyway, getting 2 separate lines will not automatically give you double speeds. You would need a router capable of accepting 2 adsl lines and combining them (a load balancer). Even then you might get 90% of the theoretical line speed when combined.

Personally I would suggest you drop TOT as soon as you can and replace it with another ISP.

[Supernova]

With True to be installed, no idea if they will be limited to 2mbs

This depends on the distance between your computer and the telco exchange. The closer you live to the exchange, the higher the sync speeds.

will my combined lines give a similar download to a single higher bandwidth line (i.e as the title suggests) or is it not so simple?

Short answer: No.

It doesn't work that way... You won't be able to bind the two connections to double your throughput (as if it were a single line). To do so would require sophisticated equipment like those used by ISPs.

[welo]

semi-long answer...

Load balancing over two ADSL lines is not trivial.

I am no expert on this so I rely on reports and opinions found on the web. And what I find is not really conclusive.

There are dual-wan routers available that seem like a straight forward solution, however, it seems they are expensive and rare, and I even found one post that indicates that those routers require the provider (ISP) to 'bond' the two lines in order to be able to provide such service, the technology involved 'Multilink PPP' (MLPPP). I further understand that this practically only works with two lines from the same provider.

check out this discussion: http://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/showthread.php?p=1077749

Other solutions involve a (mostly) Linux based PC as router that allows load balancing on TCP/IP level. I'm not completely sure how seamlessly and effectively this works.

Checkout this article: How To: Load Balancing & Failover With Dual/ Multi WAN / ADSL / Cable Connections on Linux

Not sure what could be done when connecting your Windows PC to the two modem/routers via 2 different network cards (two NICs in a desktop PC or wired/wireless in the laptop). Transparent load balancing will not work AFAIK, not sure if assigning connections per application is possible at all.

welo

[carnac]

I use 3bb and have always gotten the 4mb/s as it was offered. I'm thinking of increasing to 6 just to for the heck of it. They go up to 16mb/s. The service has gone out a couple times due to storms and some other stuff. They speak fluent English and the service is, well like a breath of fresh air. They will test your speed at your place before doing anything.

[negreanu]

Now I am with True and I have more than 16 Mpbs line connection speed, but real life bandwidth is nowhere near that (surprisingly, except when downloading torrents). I'll be lucky if I can watch online streaming media over 300 Kbps. This is purely due to traffic shaping (they will deny it vigorously, and when presented with supporting data, they go very quiet very quick and refuse to discuss it with you any more).

I can stream You Tube at 720p no problem at all no stuttering on my 16mb True Premium package. Also download at 15.3mb from usenet, torrents, Itunes store 24/7. I would say there is no traffic shaping on the 16mb premium product. Well not on mine anyway

Even Hulu through a VPN streams perfectly.

Edited June 18, 2010 by negreanu

[Supernova]

I am no expert on this so I rely on reports and opinions found on the web. And what I find is not really conclusive.

There are dual-wan routers available that seem like a straight forward solution, however, it seems they are expensive and rare, and I even found one post that indicates that those routers require the provider (ISP) to 'bond' the two lines in order to be able to provide such service, the technology involved 'Multilink PPP' (MLPPP). I further understand that this practically only works with two lines from the same provider.

+1

More trouble than it's worth IMHO.

I found this while doing some searching on the subject...

Load balancing is not the same as modem bonding (aka: shotgun). They are two very different things.

[siamect]

Now I am with True and I have more than 16 Mpbs line connection speed, but real life bandwidth is nowhere near that (surprisingly, except when downloading torrents). I'll be lucky if I can watch online streaming media over 300 Kbps. This is purely due to traffic shaping (they will deny it vigorously, and when presented with supporting data, they go very quiet very quick and refuse to discuss it with you any more).

I can stream You Tube at 720p no problem at all no stuttering on my 16mb True Premium package. Also download at 15.3mb from usenet, torrents, Itunes store 24/7. I would say there is no traffic shaping on the 16mb premium product. Well not on mine anyway

Even Hulu through a VPN streams perfectly.

You share the bandwidth with others... and they don't guarantee the speed that you have as connection speed... lottery

[filingaccount]

Now I am with True and I have more than 16 Mpbs line connection speed, but real life bandwidth is nowhere near that (surprisingly, except when downloading torrents). I'll be lucky if I can watch online streaming media over 300 Kbps. This is purely due to traffic shaping (they will deny it vigorously, and when presented with supporting data, they go very quiet very quick and refuse to discuss it with you any more).

I can stream You Tube at 720p no problem at all no stuttering on my 16mb True Premium package. Also download at 15.3mb from usenet, torrents, Itunes store 24/7. I would say there is no traffic shaping on the 16mb premium product. Well not on mine anyway

Even Hulu through a VPN streams perfectly.

Youtube can not be considered streaming as it can buffer the entire video before playback (and the same can be said with any content that is stored and played back on demand. aka. not live). Try a live broadcast and you'll see a different story. Youtube also caches videos on servers worldwide, including in Thailand or in Singapore making for quicker transfers.

I also download non-time critical things with good results, BUT real streaming media does not work well.

The funny things is that True is forcing me to download non-streaming media on a daily basis, and I use between 20 and 70 GB of data transfer each day because of it. Should they allow me to properly stream media, the usage would probably be 5-20 GB (aka. a lot less) per day. Their efforts to curb excessive bandwidth use is seriously messed up.

[welo]

I found this while doing some searching on the subject...

Load balancing is not the same as modem bonding (aka: shotgun). They are two very different things.

Thanks for the link, it just got me more confused

I thought multilink-PPP takes two distinct PPP connections and bonds them. PPP is a data-link OSI layer wise (layer 2) and AFAIK a logical protocol. But the article writes about signal multiplexing, so I'm a bit confused. Well, that OSI layer stuff was never my strong point

Thanks for pointing out the difference between bonding and load balancing. I was aware of the difference when I finished writing my post, not necessarily when I wrote the opening line

If considering the purchase of a dual-wan router it might actually be important to find out if the desired model does actually rely on MLPPP ('bonding') or provides 'load balancing' on TCP/IP level. I found one comment that the cheaper dual-wan routers actually expect MLPPP - not sure if Thai ISPs offer this at all, and I further think that requires two lines form the same ISP.

However, I later remembered that some of the custom router firmware projects provide solutions to turn a standard 'DSL' router into a dual-wan load-balancing router. To accomplish this the firmware turns one of the LAN ports into a 2nd WAN port. Checkout DD-WRT or OpenWRT.

And it seems that the DrayTek Vigor 2910 mentioned in your first link is actually a dual-WAN router with 'real' load balancing (not bonding).

The Vigor2910 series provides a configurable second WAN interface and supports policy-based load-balancing and connection fail-over on dual-WAN interface. Except the QoS function for the original IP layer, it also supports NAT session/bandwidth management which increases the usage efficiency of bandwidth greatly. It allows users to access Internet and combine the bandwidth of the dual WAN to speed up the transmission through the network. Each WAN port can connect to different ISPs, Even if the ISPs use different technology to provide telecommunication service (such as DSL, Cable modem, etc.).

source: amazon.com

The router even supports 3G USB modems (1 USB port only)! A quick price check showed prices between 170-260 USD. DrayTek has a Thai website.

Edited June 18, 2010 by welo

[Digitalbanana]

Personally I would suggest you drop TOT as soon as you can and replace it with another ISP.

Thanks to all for the valuable input. Just to add to one confusion I may have implied, my ISP is not TOT but CSLoxinfo. My line is provided by TOT. CSLoxinfo say I cannot increase to a higher package since the TOT cabling cannot go beyond 2mbs. I believe them. They suggest getting a new phone line in so I will choose True which CSLox also suggested. CSLoxinfo also provide ISP services for True they tell me, but I don't see the point if True has their own ISP and at cheaper prices.

I appreciate the technical links mentioned to having two ADSL lines. I'll likely just compare both after install which I'll keep concurrent and take it from there. Hopefully the True line will handle all for my needs.

[joncl]

Google "Cisco RV042" and be very happy, we have been before 16mbs lines were introduced

[bearhunt]

i have one 4mbit jasnet connection and one 6mbit loxleybroadband connection. the jasnet is 3500++ a month and i always get 4mbit even international, the loxley is 999 baht a month and i get 4-6mbit off peak times and random in the day. i have a peplink load balancer i got from Le Siam Internetwork (about 11k baht i think) i simply plug the connections into the two ports, set the router to balance how i want (i have it on overflow - using the better jasnet connection until its full then requests spill over to the loxley one). it works great!

i downloaded the england game this morning at 9mbit so it was money well spent

if you are going to use two adsl providers i strongly strongly recommend two providers with very different peering agreements, a great combination would be jasnet and csloxinfo. google internet map thailand and ytou will find the map