Using multiple broadband connections without using any special router or software

I have two broadband connections. One cheap connection, which I
mostly use for browsing and downloading. Another very expensive
connection that I use for voice chat, remote desktop connection
etc. Now, using these two connections at the same time required two
computers before. But I figured out a way to use both connections
at the same time using the same computer. Here’s how:

Connect the cheap internet connection that is used mostly for
non-critical purpose like downloading, browsing to a wireless
router.

Connect the expensive connection that is used for network
latency sensitive work like Voice Conference, Remote Desktop
directly via LAN.

When you want to establish a critical connection like starting
voice conf app (Skype) or remote desktop client, momentarily
disconnect the wireless. This will make your LAN connection the
only available internet. So, all the new connections will be
established over the LAN. Now you can start Skype and initiate a
voice conference or use Remote Desktop client and connect to a
computer. The connection will be established over LAN.

Now turn on wireless. Wireless will now become the first
preference for Windows to go to internet. So, now you can start
Outlook, browser etc and they will be using the wireless internet
connection. During this time, Skype and Terminal Client is still
connected over the LAN connection. As they use persisted
connection, they keep using the LAN connection and do not switch to
the wireless.

This way you get to use two broadband connections
simultaneously.


image

Here you see I have data transfer going on through two different
connection. The bottom one is the LAN which is maintaining a
continuous voice data stream. The upper one is the wireless
connection that sometimes consumes bandwidth when I browse.


image

Using Sysinternal’s TCPView, I can see some connection is going
through LAN and some through Belkin router. The selected ones – the
terminal client and the MSN Messenger is using LAN where the
Internet Explorer and Outlook is working over Wireless
connection.

Share on Tumblr

10 thoughts on “Using multiple broadband connections without using any special router or software”

  1. Where did you get the Network Meter gadget? Would be nice if you could post us a link.

  2. Agreed, would be interested in the network meter gadgeta s well 🙂

    Any link?

  3. Assuming that the expensive connection connects to only a handful of services, you could just put on a static persistant route for the specific IP addresses, pointing any traffic going to said IP's to the inside interface of the 'expensive' ADSL router. Then have the Default Gateway pointing toward the cheap broadband router, catching anything you didnt specify elsewhere.

    I imagine it's also possible to route specific traffic on a port basis to a specific IP address – IE say the 'critical' apps use ports 5,6,88,666 you could route these to the other router.

  4. I am sitting at my office, where we only have wired Intranet. To get to my corporate Emails i have to be connected to the wired LAN. At the same time i am downloading softwares witch i use a 3G moblie modem for. The problem is that when i connect my 3G modem, outlook tries to reach the Email server through it and fails. I have to disconnect the 3G modem to have access to my emails. Is there a way to force outlook to connect to the server through the wired LAN and not the 3G modem?

    Thanks in advance!

    Bruce

  5. Hi, I tried the way you told. But after starting 2nd connection, all previous traffic were stopped & restarted using 2nd connection.

    This means it's not working on my laptop.

  7. re: Using multiple broadband connections without using any special router or software says:

    Hi Bruce, you can first try removing the default route created by the DHCP server. In command prompt or CMD type “route del 0.0.0.0 mask 0.0.0.0 ” and add a static route ex. “route add 10.0.0.0 mask 255.0.0.0 ” if your using class A network or “route add 172.16.0.0 mask 255.255.0.0 if your using class B network and so on. Hope it helps and sorry for bad grammar.

    Pinoy

  8. i have tried pinoy suggestion, but it still failed. i have the same problem with bruce. 🙁

    does anyone has solution for this matter? please mail me at niwdeplus@hotmail.com

    (my guess, it should involving route and etc, but so far, nothing have succeed)

    Edwin

  9. Thank you for submitting this cool story – Trackback from PimpThisBlog.com

  10. hi there, i would like to ask if this works with the following:

    I have two usb modem A and modem B. modem A could download at max of 300kbps while B could download at max of 700kbps. Since I am a frequent internet user, Im planning to use this two modem simultaneously so that I could have a max speed of 500+300=800+kbps. But I dont know if this would work. I have read your blog and its really interesting. The problem with usb modem is that, when you connect the modem A in the internet while modem B is currently running, Modem B is being disregarded right? So any fix for this? I would really appreciate the help, thanks a lot!!

Leave a Reply