Network gurus, a little help please...

Autopilot

I’ve been using 3/4G as my main internet connection for almost 10 years, as we live in the sticks. Currently on an unlimited Three SIM, which works great even with a data hungry family. (might switch to the new unlimited EE package as it’s faster in my new area).


I’ve just built a new house, also in a rural location. I’ve got BT FTC broadband, which is working well, but the speed rarely tops 10mbps. I have had a new 4G antenna put on top the the house and Three gives me about 30mbps


Both connections obviously have pros and cons: fixed line has a nice low latency and is reliable, useful for gaming, smart switches and our Nest doorbell etc. 4G offers greater speed for watching Netflix HD etc. So I’m thinking for running a dual system - a general purpose WiFi network, using the BT line, and a cabled network (I’ve had CAT5 run to most rooms) that uses the 4G for all the smart TVs and streaming we do.


My question to the network pros is - what would you do in my scenario? Should I run two separate networks and connections. Or is there some way to consolidate them, and have one network but devices using different internet connection? One issue is that different devices on each network can’t talk to each other, so what can be done to overcome that while still maiming different internet connections? Any other tips/ideas?


Thanks!

psychopomp1

I assume you're quite far (> 1 mile) from the green VDSL2 (FTTC) cabinet to be getting on 10 Mbps? Can you post your estimated vdsl2 speeds from this checker? Alternatively, if your new home is going to be your 'forever' home and you're willing to pay at least a few £1000s, it might be worth considering getting FTTP On Demand installed, assuming it shows up on the checker.

Markr123

If you’re happy to maintain both services, I believe (don’t hold me to this) there are some Draytek routers where you can bond both the connections.

psychopomp1

Thanks, your fixed line may be capable of getting a lot more than 10 Mbps, around 18 Mbps  according to the checker. I'm assuming Openreach put in a brand new copper line from your home to the PCP. Can you post router stats? If you can somehow get the 18 Mbps on FTTC, then bonding 2-3 FTTC lines should give you a nice 50-60 Mbps. But need to see router stats first....

ChuckMountain

Search for a dual WAN router as this will allow you to have one network with multiple rules on the router to allow traffic to go over different ones.  Draytek does some as does Linksys.

I use a Linksys LRT224 for mine and although I did have two connections I only have the one at the moment.  You could allocate traffic based on IP or port etc to go to either connection.

drummerjohn

The cheapest and arguably simplest approach is to use both routers on the same network. Assign one as gateway 192.168.1.1 and the other as 192.168.1.2. You will need to turn DHCP off on one router of your choice. Devices you want to connect to the gateway not issuing DHCP assign an IP manually to use the non DHCP gateway.

Or as others have stated get a dual WAN router like the Draytek 2920.

ChuckMountain

Cheapest yes, simplest nope.

xxGBHxx

I have a dual fibre connection setup but I'm a geek and a bit of a specialist/expert.

How you do it it depends on how savvy/skilled you are. I use something called policy based routing where both my connections come into the same firewall but I don't bond them (make them look like a single connection). So I keep my two links (hate to upset you but they're both fibre max and both at absolutely max line speed of 80/20) completely separate and the firewall uses policies to decide what traffic goes over what link.

For about 80% of my trafic it goes out via my first link which is a VPN. The second link is my "clean" link that I use specifically with Amazon and Netflix (as they hate VPN's) and for one of my work laptops that can't work on the internal subnet I use. I also route some other sites that hate VPN's (here's looking at you Ticketmaster, Three and Arcos card authorisation) through that clean link. My Netflix and Amazon bypass is dynamically updated every hour and so far I've never had it ever fail me. That way I can "hide" most of my traffic from ISP traffic shaping and the like and still be able to watch Netflix etc.

Ultimately a lot of it depends on your usage, your financial means, your skill/patience and what you want to achieve. I have zero experience of the routers people have mentioned but every one I've tried in the past has been very limiting so I use pfSense to do my routing/firewalling. But as I said at the top I'm a geek and an expert.

Having had a (very) quick look I can't see much of anything that allows you to bond 4G and ADSL apart from "Bondy" that does something clever with a tethered phone phone. Plenty of 4G failover solutions and plenty of ADSL bonding. I'm sure there are solutions out there somewhere but if it was obvious/easy I'd expect it to jump out at me from everywhere.

So for what you want to do (which is almost what I have only I have a SDN not a physical separation) is perfectly possible but you might have a bit of a learning curve to get it to work how you want. The SDN and policy based routing, incidentally, allows all my devices to talk to all my other devices on the same subnet.

G

Puntoboy

If it was me, I would look at FTTP on Demand. Not cheap but a fast and very reliable service for years to come.

Autopilot

Thanks for all the replies, FTTP on demand looks like an option, but I can’t find anything cheaper than £120 a month, which is just too much.