My internet works like this, I can connect to a total of 20 different devices at a time. My isp records the mac address of whatever device I connect with and makes a list then requires me to prune off devices manually from the list if I go over. Each device is assigned the same amount of bandwidth no matter how many or few you connect. I use routers to connect my various devices so those are the mac addresses they see.
What I want to do is have more than one connection going to my main computer and be able to use them simultaneously for different tasks, for example have some downloads running on one and lets say watch the youtube with another can I do this?
That is interesting if I were to somehow use all 20 connections I could conceivably have a 108mbps downstream? I get around 5.4 Mbps per device kinda sucks but as a plus the upload is about the same so not bad.
Where might i find the directions for doing similar using pfSense or something, maybe even scaling it up a bit past four connections?
The details are a bit of a long explanation but it really should not matter. If all 20 possible connections are saturated on separate machines at the same time you get about 5.4 mbps up and down on each of them. I have tested this.
If i do buld a pfsense router it will be out of new to me parts acquired from whereever i can get um cheapest/free.
If you have multiple DSL or cable lines running to your house then you could aggregate them, but most places dont have m ore than 1 DSL/Cable line running to them and it also heavily relies on the quality of the copper itself(which is generanny crap).
Also bear in mind that youll have to pay for 2 seperate connections. It’s easier to just use one single high speed line unless you absolutely need the internet connection redundancy
I don’t mean to be rude but I thought I explained the limitations of my 20 existing “separate” connections pretty well that’s not really the issue. Its somehow magically mashing them together,that is what I am currently working on.
They are several different 5ghz access points with specific connection rules set by the isp that owns them.
The details of those rules are laid out in my OP. Each one can handle a handful of connections from separate devices each separate connection is limited to 5.4gbps of bandwidth up and down, I am allowed 20 separate connections.
So in an ideal scenario on my side it would be 20 different 5ghz routers collecting internets from the AP’s connected to one special router that can use some kinda magical wizardry to mash all the internets into one internet. I feel as though that might be a bit far fetched so in a real world scenario as many as I can realistically make work together.
The APs are of course wireless, on my end most connections will be wired there will wireless available of course. my interest here is mostly combining them in the way barnacles did in his video that Mr Mad posted to make them play nice on a single machine. Of course I will occasionally have other devices connected, typical home internet use
Before i continue, you should be aware that you’ll still be limited to 5.4mbps for any particular download/upload connection, but you’ll be able to have multiple concurrent connections running at once for different purposes. Basically if one program is saturating one 5.4mbps connection, you can still have other programs use the remaining 5.4mbps connections if they need it. It’ll give you more throughput, not speed
If you dont mind using up to 4 connections for your network then the device barnacles reviews would work fine, but if you want to use 5-20 connections then you’ll for sure need to build a custom pfsense router.
Here’s what i would do in your shoes:
get old 5ghz routers or 5ghz bridges/wifi extenders that have an ethernet connection. Get as many as you think you’ll need.
setup each individual device to connect to the AP and verify that each one has access to the internet. If you’re using old routers then make sure to set them in bridge mode(if they have the option), and if not them just disable all DHCP/NAT/DNS services on them. Most routers have instructions for setting them up in bridge mode so a bit of googling would help you here.
connect their lan ports to your router’s WAN ports. If you went with the tplink one then just set the 4 ports as WAN and if you’re in pfsense then just install however many NICs you need and set them up for WAN. @Kubuksa has a link th pfsense multi-wan setup page
get a switch of sorts and plug it into the routers LAN port. since yours have a theoretical max throughput of 108mbps you can easily get away with a single 10/100 dumb switch and connect all wired devices to this. you can use a gigabit switch if you transfer stuff between machines often.
If you go the pfsense way, you might be able to just hookup a bunch if pcie or wifi usb cards to the router and configure them within pfsense to use as WAN and which network to connect to. Just do some research into which wifi devices to use, pfsense is a bit weird with certain wifi cards.
This is janky, but it should work. Just be aware that if your internet situation changes then youll be left with tonnes of old routers/bridges
Again, this will only help with multiple devices using the same network connection or multiple programs trying to use all the download speed of a single connection. As far as getting overall higher speed, there isn’t an easy solution that om aware of short of speaking to whoever has access to the backend.
Just out of curiosity, why is the network setup in such a weird way? I’ve never heard of an ISP putting such ridiculous restrictions on connections. Is this in some sort of dorm or rental building? Normally this is the sort of thing thats used at public wifi areas so one person doesnt end up using all the bandwith, and this sort of thing is typically setup by some sort of IT department, not the ISP. If this is indeed the ISP provided router thats causing this nonsense you might be able to just plug in your own router to circumvent this.
I would just get 4 5ghz routers and hook them into the device linked above (Barnacles video). If I understand how it works, this would allow all 4 connections be joined into a single network.
This would seem to be the biggest bang for the buck to get more bandwidth.
Alternately to the switch thing you mention which does seem really janky to me. I’d rather get a PC with enough PCI slots for several cheap dual or quad NIC cards and set those ports up as WAN ports as you describe above with Wireless AP/routers all hooked in and do the aggregation through pfSense on that box. That way you could have more than 4 simultaneous connections aggregated. But this will be much more costly to acquire all the equipment.
TPlink + 4 random 5ghz routers/bridges would be fine. Anything more than 4 connections and @pepeprs would start to enter the world of diminishing returns IMO. cheapo i3 machine + a few intel pro 1000 quad port NIC’s would work good as a load balancing pfsense router if he wants more than 4 connections. The setup on the WAN side of things is definitely janky as far as setups go, but the internal network stuff will be perfectly fine. Im still curious what sort of ISP would put such immensely retarded restrictions on the connections
@pepeprs if you want more DL/UL speed then thats something youll have to discuss with your ISP. Everything described in this thread would basically work as load-balancing/failover (which gives more throughput, not speed). For actual WAN bonding, it would have to be configured on the ISP side of things as well, and if they dont want to do that for whatever reason then you’re stuck with 5.4mbps, albeit multiple 5.4mbps connections for concurrent DL/UL.
yeah I get its not the same thing as having an actually fast connection but while one download is going at 5.4gbps I can still go watch the youtube and also have a few porn streams running. I am a multitasking kinda person this was my original intention of this post. Barnacules dose seem to be successfully using his connections in parallel to basically double his bandwidth though so being able to do that would be much better.
The ISP actually dose setup there APs in this way they are not public access and I physically can’t access them at all, why they do it is kind of a long explanation.
Barnacles most likely spoke to the ISP and they setup a bonded connection. Bonding can only happen if both the ISP and the end user has it setuu for that, but in your case that would only happen after a chat with the ISP. Otherwise it’ll just be load banalced.
If you have the option of changing ISP’s then i would consider that first and foremost because it will pay off in the long run and you probably wont need tonnes of extra equipment to get a usable speed. If not then tplink + old routers is the way to go. But either way call the ISP and try to get them to set thing up in a non-fucktarded way. Maybe you can ask them to reduce the number of connections to 5 and then just split the speed on the 15 connections amongst the remaining 5.
I did go ahead and purchase one of the tp link routers. I was unable to replicate Mr Nerdgasms results and yes I did uncheck the Enable Application Optimized Routing tab so unless I missed something can’t do that.
But I can do a thing on the internet and it will automatically use the other connections for other stuff so that’s pretty good. All in all good enough results.
also note I like this new router much better than the much more expencive ubiquiti router I was using just in general as a router. The setting menu is quite responsive, well layed out and I haven’t had to power cycle it even once despite many changes to what was plugged into it. I am starting to think maybe ubiquiti products are a bit shit.
Connection: I was in fact able to replicate mr Nerdgasms results on windows. I did my inital testing on a chromebook because I was useing it for configuring the router, it happens to be the only laptop I have with a network port. It does not work as well on chrome OS so i guess linux sucks at this.
edit: the effect dose nothing on my chromebook at all, it just works on a windows machine. the chromebook will not use two connections
Hit a bit of a snag it seems if I try and open my gmail it kills my internet from the wireless router I have connected to the TP-Link router. If a say have a live video stream playing then open my gMAIL that connection does not stop but any new ones will not work till I reset the wireless router.
If I type the gateway address of any of the various devices on my home network they are still accessible.
note: I have only tested this on chromebook. It dose not do it every time but often enough that its super annoying.
I kinda suspect it may be this old consumer grade router dose not play nice with the enterpriseyish stuff I have it connected to but if I could fix it that would be neat.
edit2: really I tried changing the WiFi producing router to access point only mode, this basically disables any routing and firewall functions I think this may do the trick I’ll let you know. the TP-Link router can handle the routing.
edit:3 I think that worked has not happened again