Will a 56k modem work well on a 256k ADSL connection?

December 25, 2004 8:47 PM

I have ADSL. If ADSL is active and I hookup an old 56k modem to a filtered voice line, a) how fast would I be able to connect, and b) would it affect my 256k ADSL connection?
posted by krisjohn to computers & internet (5 answers total)

a) No change
b) No
posted by cillit bang at 9:44 PM on December 25, 2004

If I had two ADSL connections from two different providers (both say 256 Kbps), would I able to pool them together on a Windows XP PC to give me a 512 Kbps connection? If so, could anyone help?
posted by madman at 10:15 PM on December 25, 2004

madman: only if you could find a way to make Windows speak BGP AND both of your ISPs sent you BGP announcements. Consumer ISPs are unlikely to offer this, but mom & pop ISPs that cater to highly technical (typically commercial) customers might if you can convince them that doing so won't cause them any headache.

In the best circumstances, you would have 512 Kbits/sec of bandwidth for your whole network. There is no standard process for packet re-assembly, so you can't just split each packet in half and send half to ISP1 and the other half to ISP2.
posted by Kwantsar at 12:24 AM on December 26, 2004

For two DSL connections, you can use one of these routers. We are going to use one at work, with a DSL and a cable connection. We are getting it so our internet will stay up if one of the two goes out.

Any one process will only use one of the two, but it does load balancing for multiple users. (Email needs to be sent to the correct ISP, so it is retrieved from only 1 of the 2)
posted by jjj606 at 6:52 AM on December 26, 2004

madman, what you want, if you can't find a nice ISP, is network connection load balancing software. For windows XP I haven't a clue when it comes to software names, but built into linux (for free) is iproute2, which does everything you need.

It was a lot of hassle to set up, but that's due to the lack of documentation. I have working scripts that are done *properly* (not with iptables) if anyone decides they are interested.

(Yes, it works. Nicely. If you have a poor connection, it will get "phased out" [for lack of a better term] so that your internet doesn't remain broken half the time.)

Just to let you know, load balancing in this instance would mean you could have two downloads and two uploads all happening simultaneously all happening at the full speed of one indivudual line (aggregate it's double). You will not end up downloading one item at 6 mbits if you have two 3 mbit lines. But you could download two items at 3 mbits each.
posted by shepd at 11:03 AM on December 26, 2004