Running two internet connections simultaneously

I have been having occasional trouble with my internet connection. Usually it only goes out for about a minute or so, but this is long enough to lose hands. My router and laptop are new and the connection is adelphia cable.

What I want to know is wheather or not getting DSL on top of the adelphia can work, and will this help? Also, what do I need to pull this off, another router?

I realize this may be a crazy question, I just need someone who knows about this kind of thing to comment.

DSL has a pretty cheap deal around here now, so I figure this to be +EV for sure.

Thanks for your help.

[swiftrhett]

I've thought of this too. Keep in mind that Party Poker has been giving people dropped connections that are not the fault of the player.

I had a dropped connection during 8 tournaments, but I could access google, etc. fine, and Party admitted it was their fault.

Maybe the best way to do this is to have your backup internet on a wireless connection? Keep in mind there is a lot of time needed for windows to activate a windows connection, and you may have to use commands like "ipconfig /renew"

You wouldnt be able to use two connections at once without an expensive piece of hardware. Your best bet would be to have the dsl ready if your cable goes down. You could just change the network cable and do an ipconfig /release and an ipconfig /renew. This would get you up on the DSL in about 30 seconds if the cable was handy.

Just how expensive is this piece? Can I ebay it? 30 seconds doesn't quite cut it on FullTilt. And I sure as hell can't pay for two connections and still lose hands to disconnects.

[PLOlover]

I'm pretty sure you can bridge 2 highspeed connections like dsl and cable modem no problem in windows, it's only dial up and dsl or dial up and cable that are the problem.

[Nomad84]

If you have 2 NICs, you may be able to just disable the one with DSL on it most of the time. Then if you had problems with the cable, you could disable it and enable the DSL NIC. Not sure if this would work, but it gives you something to research at least. I only point this out because of problems I've had with running wireless when another connection was enabled also. Disabling the ethernet port did the trick for me. Even if this were possible, it wouldn't be much faster than switching the cables around manually.

[StevieG]

There are routers on the market that will accept two incoming Internet connections to provide both increased bandwidth and failover protection.

downtown (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showprofile.php?Cat=0&User=23175) started this thread (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=techhelp&Number=3393800) back in September asking about it.

kahntrutahn (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showprofile.php?Cat=0&User=34793) asked the same thing in a thread last month. (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=techhelp&Number=3796114)

The dual-WAN routers that downtown found looked good for this purpose. I don't recall that either ever posted follow up information whether this worked for them. You might try PM'ing them and asking directly.

Please post follow-up info here so others can benefit.

[astroglide]

http://www.cyberguard.com/products/firewall/SG_Family/SG560.html?lang=de_EN

http://www.techdepot.com/product.asp?productid=3450196&iid=1249&Hits=24&HKe yword=cyberg

your connections won't work in symphony like you'd probably hope. you don't take 2 3mb connections and get 6mb as if it were one thing. when you request data it's done from your ip address and it has to be sent back to it. since you'll have 2 ips from 2 isps it's not treated as "one big pipe". the big reason to do this is uptime, not bandwidth aggregation. i also don't know how party/etc are going to react to an attempt to resume a session from a different ip if your primary line chokes, it might be more of a delay than you had hoped.

snapgear makes good stuff. they also have more advanced devices like this one with wireless built into it, etc. a big benefit to using them is that they don't charge you for users and they don't charge you for software updates. most places will sell 'packs' and only allow 10 computers, 20 computers, etc to be connected and will want a support contract before they'll give you updates - even SECURITY updates. i've got an sg530 at my house (just one broadband connection), and i've deployed several other snapgear products professionally for vpn/routing stuff.

the devices do have serial ports where you can connect external modems for dialup failover connections, but you're looking at a speed problem there in terms of connection negotiation as well.

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
I have been having occasional trouble with my internet connection. Usually it only goes out for about a minute or so, but this is long enough to lose hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have been having the same problem with my cable service. I just ordered DSL and a XiNCOM XC-DPG502 Twin WAN Router (http://www.xincom.com/twr502.html). It could take up to a month to get the DSL going, according to Verizon, but I'm hoping this is just a conservative estimate. Once I'm set up I can try a session and pull the plug on the cable modem to see how various poker sites handle the sudden change in IP address.

Some scissors and duct tape should make this work.

[Link774]

You might find that just switching to DSL is more stable. Your cable connection might be unstable for some reason outside of your control, but your DSL connection may be fine. I rarely have issues with my cable connection, and have never had DSL though, so I don't know how it compares.