Using two cable modems one one PC ?

[p0rnflake 0]

I was wondering if it's possible to use 2 cable modems with the same PC (running w2k). And thereby getting 2xbandwidth ??

 

The modem in question is the SurfBoard 3100 - Splitting the coaxial cable should be easy enough - and by adding an extra network card it should be possible to connect both modems to the PC - but can W2k use'em ??

 

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The box said "requires Win NT 4 or better" so I installed Linux.

[OLEerror 0]

I seriously doubt that will work. Being connected to a cable modem is the same as connecting to a WAN. W2K can connect to multiple networks thorugh different NICs, but you would effectively be connecting to the same WAN twice. First, I doubt your ISP would appreciate this and would probably charge you for two connections (especially if you have to supply them with a second MAC address). On top of that, Windows would treat it as two seperate network connections. So it wouldn't split a data transfer between the two.

 

Now, this would possibly allow you to have more consecutive downloads/uploads happening since you could have them going on two independent connections. But the bottleneck there would be your hardware.

[Intlharvester 0]

I'd hate to disagree, but 'load balancing' NICs is fairly common in server environments, so there has to be a way. What it is, I don't know! - maybe it's automatic if both NICs have the same gateway address.

[SHS 0]

I'd hate to disagree you Intlharvester, but that call Channel Bonding that give you 2x bandwidth as for Load Balancing it dosen't give you 2x bandwidth.

Some 101 on it

http://www.internetwk.com/reviews/rev012599.htm

http://www.bankruptcylawclinic.com/~dwhite/184rept.html

[clutch 1]

Channel Bonding=Multi-Link in 98 and 2K (like the Diamond "Shotgun" modem) for most of us modem users out there...

 

 

BTW SHS, in your second link, it states that load balancing is the same as channel bonding. Doesn't that counter your statement?

 

 

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Regards,

 

clutch

 

[This message has been edited by clutch (edited 16 February 2001).]

[SHS 0]

No clutch may be this will help

Network Load Balancing distributes IP traffic to multiple copies (or instances) of a TCP/IP service, such as a Web server, each running on a host within the cluster. Network Load Balancing transparently partitions the client requests among the hosts and lets the clients access the cluster using one or more “virtual” IP addresses. From the client’s point of view, the cluster appears to be a single server that answers these client requests. As enterprise traffic increases, network administrators can simply plug another server into the cluster.

Here a Server Load Balancing For Free

http://www.resonate.com

 

What Intlharvester should have real said was Channel bonding "PPP multilink".

 

Dosen't any one read what he asking for

p0rnflake asking for 2x bandwidth as 400k x 400k = 800k.

[clutch 1]

This is from

 

http://www.bankruptcylawclinic.com/~dwhite/184rept.html

 

the second link that SHS recommended.

 

"The MultilinkPPP Protocol

 

MultilinkPPP’s ability to combine multiple lower-speed links into a single, higher-speed data path often referd to as WAN-independent or packet-based inverse multiplexing. A regular multiplexer ("mux") takes one signal and splits it into multiple signals. An inverse multiplexer takes multiple signals and "bonds" them into a single, usually stronger signal. Inverse multiplexing modems can bond multiple analog telephone lines to double, triple or quadruple the speed of a regular modem. This process is also referred to as, multilink, channel aggregation, channel bonding, load balancing."

 

This is the part I was addressing:

 

"Inverse multiplexing modems can bond multiple analog telephone lines to double, triple or quadruple the speed of a regular modem. "

 

Therefore, 56k+56k=112k using the channel bonding (load balancing, multi-link, whatever) technique. I originally thought that Load Balancing was merely a method for finding best path, and not for bonding. However, in this article it states that they are one and the same.

 

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Regards,

 

clutch

[p0rnflake 0]

This only applies to regular modems right ?

 

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The box said "requires Win NT 4 or better" so I installed Linux.

[SHS 0]

clutch channel bonding need load balancing for it work with out it dosen't work

[OLEerror 0]

Load Balancing is a server function. The ISP's server is using Load Balancing. But for a client I don't know of any way this would work. Unless a.) there is software running that specifically supports it and b.) the ISP permitted it. A is a possibility somewhere down the line, B will probably never happen.