Topic: Bonding DSL Circuits

[chpalmer]

   If your here reading this post you have internet connectivity of some kind. Whether it be dialup, ISDN, T-1, or some other form of broadband, you have probably experienced the wait for a download. Nowadays if you have cable internet, or you live close enough to the telephone company C.O. you can probably subscribe to a higher tier for speeds that will drastically reduce your wait times. If though you are in an area not served by cable or close enough to get the better DSL tiers, you are probably living with patience that users of the higher speed tiers have long forgotten.

   There's satellite internet solutions that can make dialup seem fast at times. And with the higher cost, much higher latency, and much lower usage caps, satellite is last resort. Cellular solutions exist but for the most part have low usage caps and higher cost as well. In some cases you can still subscribe to DSL but have limited speeds due to the distance from the C.O. or the fact that you are fed from a remote DSLAM. My office is a good example of the remote DSLAM connection.

   Our DSLAM is fed via 8 T-1 circuits from the Century Link central office in the town nearest our location. The areas covered by these remote DSLAMs are limited in available speed to 1.5mbps down and 896kbps up. Did I mention patience? For many years back to the day Qwest, the original phone service provider, turned up our area for DSL we have hoped for faster service.

   Not to long ago though I learned of a technology that is used to bond DSL circuits in much the same way the T-1 circuits to our DSLAM 1 mile away are bonded, known as MLPPP or Multi Link Point-to-Point Protocol. Whats needed is an ISP that can and is willing to provide the service using this method and a device on the client end that also works to provide it.

        What this gets you is the speed of all the links combined. So 4X 1.5 connections would get me a single 6mbps connection. And the 896kbps upload I have X4 would get me about 3.5mbps upload. Yes its means 4 dsl circuits but it might be the only way to get the speed you want without moving. In my case I only bond two for a 3mbps by about 1.5mbps connection.

   TekSavvy in Canada was the only ISP that I knew of at the time that provided it. There were others that I only learned about later. But in the U.S. the service was widely unheard of.

   Also- I learned that the particular router I was already using (pfSense) was capable of bonding DSL circuits via MLPPP. In fact there are users that have 6 lines bonded on their units. Other devices include Microtik routers, Tomato MLPPP version firmware, and others that I will update this post with as I run into them. Of coarse this means your modems are in bridge mode and the router does the login, but Ive found this to be better anyways. And I was able to get my local ISP to support it. That was key.
   
   Of course you need at least two DSL lines and more if you desire, to bond lines. Century Link is beginning to offer MLPPP in their legacy (non Qwest) areas on VDSL connections, but does not offer it anywhere else. However if you use one of the many ISP's that offer DSL service using Century Link connections, the possibility is there. This probably includes other phone companies such as Verizon and AT&T also but I have no knowledge either way.

   Another trend that is popping up is for companies to offer bonding service over multiple connection types. So whether you have a combination of services I.E. cable, dsl, wireless, ect. you can have those bonded just the same. This type of bonding sends your connections through your normal ISP's to a secondary ISP that provides the service. Accomplished by a VPN that is split apart and reassembled on the other end this type of connection has redundant property that standard MLPPP does not, as your different routes are more likely to not suffer the same types of outages at the same time.

   The nice thing about these types of circuits is just that though... They are redundant. If one circuit drops out for trouble issues, the other(s) stay active and keep your circuit live although without the added speed of the dead circuit.

   As I find them I will update my reply to this post with ISP's that offer MLPPP and multi connection bonding and cost if I can get it. If you know of any ISP's to add please do so. I believe the more ISP's that learn about this new possible revenue source, the more that will support it.

[chpalmer]

Please be advised that neither the author of this post or the owners of this website are recommending any of the companies or devices listed here and they are provided only for reference. Buyer Beware!   Nor are we offering any support for any of these services or devices.

http://www.acanac.ca/mlppp-faq.html    - Canadian

http://www.olypen.com                          -USA  Washington State

http://teksavvy.com                                 - Canadian    http://mlppp.teksavvy.com/

http://www.caneris.com/MLPPP              - Canadian

http://www.ccsleeds.co.uk/mlppp.html    - UK

http://www.k-dsl.de/mlppp-en                 - Germany

http://www.westnet.com.au/business/bonded-dsl/index.html    -Australia

http://www.w-link.com/connect.php#page=bonded_dsl            -USA Washington State

http://us.sharedband.com/                                                   - USA Washington State-                            These guys bond multiple connection types


Devices

http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Manual:MLPPP_over_single_and_multiple_links

http://pfsense.org         http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Multi-Link_PPP_%28MP/MLPPP%29

http://openwrt.org       also need the MLPPP package

ISP Resources

http://www.computersalat.de/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/MLPPP_guide.pdf

http://www.ctg3.com/docs/Qwest.DSL.MLPPP.whitepaper.pdf

http://evilrouters.net/2008/11/27/configuring-multilink-ppp-dynamips/

edit- Added link

[dannjr]

Thanks chpalmer for all the Great information.
We actually tryed to get MLPPP over the past few weeks.

We're in the 3rd largest city on the country and the problem we have here is actually the lack of other providers.
If your a company that needs redundant connections you can't have true U-verse with another DSL provider.
When I say that AT&T thinks its a good thing to only have one connection provided by them only Even if your business has to support multiple business and be up and running full time.

The other big problem it seems is none of the providers to business have anything with a large enough upload.
AT&T wont support anything in Business DSL with more then a 512 upload.
They tend to always have a reason to upgrade the connections weekly which can take the connection down during criticle uploadsbeing done at night when the other businesses are closed.

MLPPP I would love to have that with load balancing. The pipe would be phat enough to handle just about anything.

Comcast in Chicago and most of the surrounding area is not a real good option for business unless you dont depend on the internet or your phones running 24/7. You need to reboot there modems here at least once a week and durring the Snow Storm or heavy rains the connections always seem to fail. Hopefully one day the FCC will start with fixing the communications problems that Comcast has like they do with the Telco companies.

AT&T doesn't like selling dry loop unless you beg for it. We're currantly changing our systems with AT&T they can't sell us U-verse Fiber because we have another DSL provider over copper to the same location. We were told when all that was available was the U-Verse Dslam over copper they wouldn't do that either unless we converted the other companies DSL over to them.
The other provider is Grandfathered in and they support a higher upload. AND for the most part there up and running 24/7 with generally maybe one outage a year. There is good news if you read this http://news.cnet.com/8301-13739_3-9822662-46.html The Article was written a while back. The information is still currant.

Don't get me wrong for what its worth AT&T has been extremely good for us for years But they need to change there practice with businesses. Hopefully in the future this bad practice of dictating how a Small business changes in the future..

Right this minute I'm not a Giant Fan of any of the providers. There's equipment shortages. Some of the older equipment is failing.
Phone lines and Cable lines alike are leaking. AND the worst part companies are almost forced to lay off employees due to the economic decline thats in the toilet and our Governments drag there feet with addressing the problems. I don't need government to address "In God We Trust" hanging on the wall in Congress they need to address the Economy. Not to tell business how to do things but to see how it can be stimulated to get us all going again.
Then maybe companies like Comcast, AT&T and even MegaPath can put money into there backbones. Maybe fix a few bridges Streets and parks again..

Last note: France and a Few other European countries are now playing with 50 to 100Mb connections with a minimum or 10Mb uploads. While most websites cannot support more then a 3Mb download at least there looking ahead.

Thanks
Dannjr