using two internet connections

I got a strange request from a user who wants to use both DSL and a cable connection for internet access for a combined increased speed.
I am really puzzled on how to answer this one, any suggestios?

Answer: Just cause you can afford it, don't make it doable.

It won't help. He'll either have the speed of the DSL or the speed of the Cable service. Do the services all come from the same outfit? Even then, the infrastructure is different.

it's a good idea for a "failover" but that's about it.

FatPipe will do it.

http://www.fatpipeinc.com/

mpower1

"Beware of users with ready made 'solutions'.............find out what the real question is before deciding on the answer"

I think you need to find out a bit more about what they are expecting to be able to do.

Load balancing/task management software can speed things up by making fuller use of available resources, but at the end of the day a 2Mbps connection is just that, and two of them do not give you 4Mbps, they just let you run 2 x 2Mbps jobs at the same time.

I would really want to know more about the services that the user has. Costs of various usage options, what they actually do with their connection and so on......................

Also consider "contention"..................if the connection is shared by a load of people file sharing, you are not going to get a good service.

In that situation the solution would be to go for a "business" contract with fewer users sharing.

:)

I have deployed a couple of options that DO make use of extra bandwidth. One is radware. Another is a software upgrade to Watchguard Fireboxes. Another is some Cisco commands in a router with two Ethernet boards. But it only works with multiple users. AS a single user one cannot have two connections at once. Which would be DSL and Cable. This Only works if more people are on the LAN, that way you can cheaply increase the bandwidth based on predetermined factors such as user priorities or traffic levels. But you don't have to get fancy - You can simply route high bandwidth users out one pipe and everyone else out another just by changing a routing table for instance to alleviate congestion.