WiFi and cable internet

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Assuming you already have a Wifi card in your computer, you should need nothing at all. I read your post as saying you are currently hard wired into the modem which means you are using ethernet. If that is the case, probably the only thing you would need to do is switch from the ethernet to the wifi card. In the Apple this would be done System Prefs-> network. (I don't have a Windows machine, but there is probably something similar there).

I have to wonder, you have something that works now and costs, but you want to do something free instead? you can't do both at once, it's one or the other, so why do you want to change? you would gain absolutely nothing, as a matter of fact you will probably lose a lot (wireless is way slower than wired, and presents a whole slew of security problems)

you may already have what you need to try it (note i said try it, then set it back when you see what a pain it is, but forget the exact model..... you didn't even say what type of computer you have, laptop or desktop, pc or mac (or something else), and/or if it has wireless already built in or just wired.... what is it?

FYI, you can very easily use multiple WAN connections simultaneously. I've been doing it since about 2004-2005.

Among the advantages of multiple WAN connections are increased throughput on some downloads and of course WAN redundancy so that if one WAN link goes down the other(s) will take over.

Apologies for the hijack.

sure you can use it as a backup easy enuf, *IF* the unknown computer he has even has wireless, but trying to bond it/combine the two internet feeds, and do both at once so it's twice as fast, is way different than using them individually/singly/one at a time. i'm curious how you use multiple connections at the same time, far as i know you can have multiple connections enabled, but only use them one at a time, but your statement of increased thruput ("Among the advantages of multiple WAN connections are increased throughput on some downloads") specifically means bonding/combining the internet connections and using multiple connections at the same time to speed up downloads... and you said you have been using multiple connections bonded/at the same timesimultaneously, since 2004-2005, i want to speed up my downloads (only have about 22 mbps now, and looking at fios so it will be about 40 mbps)... so i'm curious how i can combine the two so i get 62 mbps downloads....

"Peter Pan" wrote in news:6uCdnXMr8PvsE5nXnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:

I have absolutely no WiFi capability with my current hardware.

I have known, in the long ago past, that it is possible to have multiple internet connections to improve throughput. Back then, about all that was required was to install more than one modem.

I figured that anything that was possible 10 years ago is still possible, although the hardware required probably had changed.

But while composing this reply it got me wondering: Can I install a second network card and attach a wireless receiver to it?

Can I install a second

desktop, laptop? mac/pc/other? does it have a usb port? cheapest easiest may be a usb/wifi dongle, tons of em for windows pc's/desktops, work great with usb extension cables too... can't do much on providing links since you haven't said if you have a windows pc or not... do you?

Yes. That's certainly one option of several. Hard to say if it's your best option, but it will work.

For the first couple of years, I ran multiple NICs and simply manipulated the PC's routing table so that I could utilize the multiple connections simultaneously. The default NIC was connected to my cable modem, and the other NICs were connected wirelessly to other Internet-connected networks. My Usenet provider offered multiple server addresses and allowed multiple concurrent connections, so I was able to saturate all of the WAN links easily.

More recently, as a proof of concept, I set up a pfSense load balancing server with 7 NICs: 6 WAN links connect to cable modems and the 7th NIC connects back to my LAN. No messing around with the routing table, the pfSense server manages the WAN links, including load balancing and automatic failover if/when a link goes down. Modern download managers (freedownloadmanager.org is a good one) are smart enough to not only open multiple connections, but to also seek out mirrors, when applicable. The result is little or no improvement for single-threaded things like simple web browsing and email retrieval, but big downloads fly. During the POC testing, I was seeing 60-80 Mbps from my Usenet provider. If I had added some wireless links into the mix, I could have easily seen 100 Mbps+. Needless to say, my LAN is Gigabit where necessary.

"Peter Pan" wrote in news:us6dnaVbaMm8fZnXnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:

A Windows tower desktop (with the tower basically on the floor). While it does have USB ports, I really don't care for dongles - from a mechanical point of view. They break or fall out.

No, not often - but often enough that I've learned not to place them to use where sustained reliability is an issue. I'm looking for something that once connected will stay connected, untouched, potentially for years.

That's why the idea of installing a network card sounded attractive. Cards are internal, screwed into place and will not be broken off by my cat. The cables have clips that hold them into the socket and will not be pulled out (it's hard enough to take them out when TRYING to. :D)

What I had hoped might be available might be thought of as a "reverse router." Instead of hooking many computers to one modem, hooking many modems to one computer. (This device could, if someone so desired, be hooked into a router to allow the sharing of multiple modems among multiple computers). The reverse router would have built in load balancing software.

The more I think about it... this device, if it exists, would probably be out of my price range anyway.

The idea behind having them both was so that I could test out the WiFi without having to commit to it "sight unseen." Or without the hassle of switching the hardware between them during the testing phase.

Then, having put it to the test, I could decide whether or not I was satisfied enough with it to cancel my paid internet connection.

Linwood Boomer wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

If I were to do it this way I would have to select which network to use for each program, right? There wouldn't be any network switching "on the fly," would there?

What I'm thinking about is a situation something like:

On network A, I'm downloading a 700 MB file. Network B is standing idle.

What I would like is for something to notice that Network B is unused and direct it to pick up some of the load.

okay windows tower desktop, with usb ports (but you don't want to use em.....) with a desktop, you are usually stuck with whatever wireless signal you can get where the box is located, if you have an internal card, you can however put in a card with an external antenna jack, cable it (not cat friendly), and use whatever antenna you may want/need.... however, what i usually do is put in something like a pci card with a usb port, usb extension cables, and a usb dongle plugged into the extension cable/port (under $50), they do make wireless bridges that just plug into your existing router, as you asked about above, but they are rather expensive ($300 +, have one for $189, but of course that company is out of biz), hard to find, and need configuring.... if you are into puttering/experimenting, you may be able to use something like an el cheapo wap running alternate firmware (dd-wrt as a bridge, not a router or wap, between an external wireless net and your wired router)

gets tricky when you want ethernet instead of usb.....

"Peter Pan" wrote in news:RoadnV559scgeJjXnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:

I don't mind using the USB ports - I just don't like connecting anything other than cables to them. (My router and keyboard use USB ports, for example) I suppose that I could employ an extension cable for a dongle.

I was wondering about bridges. I had heard the term but wasn't sure what they were.

The router I have only has one jack marked "Internet", the other four jacks are marked 1-4. I wasn't sure whether or not the three unused jacks could only be connected to other computers (to connect them to the one modem). I was of the opinion that they could only be connected to computers - but knew I could easily be mistaken.

yes, the first one(by itself marked wan in etc) is usually for/from your modem, the other 4 (3, you are using one) are usually used for other computers/wired devices/other routers/switches, but there are new cool things out now/soon that can be plugged in.....

generically the term "bridge" is usually the term for something that connects(bridges) two network segments... for instance in your case you will probably have one device that talks to the wireless network, and the bridge would Bridge(connect/make work) the device/segment that deals with the wireless network and your wired network....

no real specific definition, a bridge is more of a concept than an actual black box, in the case of wap/routers the bridge is internal between the wap and the router, if you just used a wap with a router, it can be a network cable. in the case of a dongle, an extension usb cable can be considered a bridge, or if your computer has two network cards you can have a software bridge that connects them...

in your case you need something to talk to/work with/use the external wireless network, and then the bridge will connect that device to your computer (not to the wired network directly, a software bridge does that)... hence suggesting the usb dongle (it will talk/interface/etc to the wireless network, and a software bridge in your computer will bridge the usb/wireless segment to the ethernet/wired segment.....

while you could tinker with/putter lots of different things, the usb thing may be the cheapest/easiest solution for you....

ps, i live and travel in my rv (recreational vehicle) and have a wired network in the rv, but am usually in an rv park that has wireless... tried a few dif ways, but the dongle/extension cable works very well, and only have to plug in the cable to a usb port....

I need directional capability and use one of these

don't sell or recommend these, just some links with pics..... usb wifi dongle $14.99 ft usb exstension cable $12.99

"Peter Pan" wrote in news:A8mdnU4l45oCrpvXnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:

That explains a lot. Where would I get the software bridge?

When I mentioned it, the thought of a second network card came about because I play World of Warcraft. I know of a few cases (*) where the playability of the game improved significantly where (what might be called) a "gaming network card" was used. My thought was to maybe get one of these, hook my wired network into that, and use my existing network card for the wireless. I'm not tied to that idea, it was just something that occurred to me.

(*) The reason it's only "a few cases" is because I only know of a few people who have done it. In every one of these cases the playability improved.

JimH wrote in news:Xns9C071A1EBA894hahadotdotdot@74.209.136.99:

I just Googled "software network bridge", and it would seem as if this is a standard feature in XP (which is what I'm using). Is this true?

You weren't really using the multiple links as one. You were telling your client software to use different connections. This is very different than just making use of all the bandwidth "automagically". You know this, but others reading the thread might not fully grasp this. I do this, mostly by using a multihomed proxy running on a linux box. There's a very handy plug-in for firefox (foxyproxy) that allows you to switch proxies on the fly.

It's not usually possible to do this without a lot of work on a sole client box with only one interface. Likewise most consumer routers have no support for it. It's nigh-on-impossible with a windows box. Linux, less-so, but it's still a trainwreck trying to juggle the iptables configs. It is not a simple routing table config.

Which is it's own adventure to setup, configure and maintain. Great stuff, just less than trivial for most people to deal with effectively.

Bingo. Being this is what most people are after using muliple uplinks isn't going to help much.

The problem with "free" metropolitan wireless can be best summed up by the concept of 'the tragedy of the commons'. Anything made free to everyone will suffer when everyone (ab)uses it. TANSTAAFL.

The free links are handy when you need a simple connection or a fallback in the event your main connection dies. But I'd never depend on one for my sole connection, nor would I put much effort into trying to half-ass a multi-link or proxy setup. Being able to use an slow link 'for free' isn't really much of a bargain in my book.

-Bill Kearney

In my (previous) way of doing things, it wouldn't be "for each program" but rather "for each Internet destination". Your routing table already has a catch-all (default) route, but you can add network-specific and host-specific routes to your routing table to gain more control over which NIC-WAN pair will be used for specific apps, assuming you know in advance which Internet destination(s) those apps are using. For most people, it'll be far more trouble than it's worth, but it works.

Then forget everything I said above, since that is a completely manual method of using multiple WAN links. If you need automation, I would steer you to pfSense (free software, but you have to provide an old PC as hardware), or something commercial off the shelf (COTS), but the COTS stuff can get expensive and typically doesn't do a tenth of what pfSense can do. Look for keywords like dual-WAN and load balancing, etc.

yes, but.......

in xp, there are usually network connections for various installed devices/segments... (local area, wireless, dial-up, etc) some usb dongles will create a seperate connection, and you can then bridge that to other things (right click, sometimes setting up a network, etc)

if you don't have multiple network devices, you can't bridge em unless there is more than one, and you said you have no wireless, and only one network card so only one will show up, so i would suspect you can't bridge with your current setup....