Multiple broadband connection?

"Tyson" wrote

In a word, no. For the same reason that pigs can't fly. It just doesn't work that way.

More specifically, nobody has yet designed any equipment that will do that. The current equipment uses all of the available bandwidth for just one line. It is possible, however, that newly discovered technology might make that possible in the future. IMHO, that is not likely because I think there would be a VERY limited market since a router works just fine in most situations.

You probably could get your provider to bring in a second DSL, maybe even without a second "voice" line.

Well, yes, it can. But if he's constantly downloading at full bandwidth, I'll expect him to attract some very unpleasant attention from your ISP. But this is unusual, and even then only slows things down ~2x.

It's uploading that causes more trouble, more of the time. A single unthrottled P2P filesharer can just hose out the connection (Very high latency). Downloads stop even when there's plenty of bandwidth because the ACKs can't get through. A known problem on asymmetric links, and the easiest solution is throttling upstream.

You cannot put 2 DSL circuits on one phoneline. No can do: the frequencies are used by the first. But you can put two DSL circuits on two different phone lines. Then you need a rather fancier router, but fortunately you can roll-your own with the Linux Router Project.

You will need to build and maintain routing tables that shovel all the "entertainment" packets (by port and or addr) out one interface.

-- Robert

One phone line - one broadband connection. That is the way the technology is designed.

Two phone lines - two broadband connections. Now that works.