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I have a cable connection and an ADSL connection. I often play online games and I want an uninterrupted connection. I have only one ethernet port on my computer.

So, when I'm in the middle of a game, if one connection drops out, I have to pull out one cable and connect the other cable. This takes some time, plus the ADSL connection takes some time to come up.

What I want is to run both connections at the same time, so if one happens to drop out, the other takes over automatically. I was searching for information on how to do this and I came across "dual routers", but I didn't find any detailed information.

Basically, I'm looking for a checklist on what I should be looking for when buying these, and the estimated cost of one that would do the job for me. Also, if there is any other way of accomplishing this, I'd like to know that as well.

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  • Not sure if it would be easy to automate this, since the connections very likely have different IP addresses, and if your IP address changes, both TCP connections and UDP-based protocols tend to break. Aug 27, 2013 at 22:03
  • Isn't this what load balancing dual wan routers do??
    – user249012
    Aug 28, 2013 at 5:48

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Easily done to achieve a seamless, fail-over for network traffic. Yes, it is load balancing.

I've actually found your question because I'm looking to find info on using multiple adsl line for gaming

I've used PFSENSE.ORG before for a client of mine. It is a free linux distro that sits on a dedicated computer with multiple Network cards. I had 3 on there. Two ADSL lines into the customers property and then one network card back out again.out, to distribute the combined connectionss around his property. If you have an old computer lying around, then a couple of extra network cards would set you back a few pounds/dollars/yen/milk-bottle-tops

Pulling FTP and using speedtest sites did see his download speeds double.

However, for gaming, the server would see your two IP addresses as two separate connections which is why I am unsure how it would cope. It would be no problem at all to force all traffic for a certain port out of one connection only though, and then a few clicks inside a web interface to tell those ports to go on another connection should one go down.

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  • Yes, that's what I want, for all the traffic through one connection and to use the other connection if and only if it goes down. A lag upto 10 seconds is acceptable while changing connections, but not more. I'm thinking of using a ethernet connection and a usb dongle and Connectify Dispatch to load balance.
    – user249012
    Sep 14, 2013 at 5:58
  • You could improve your answer by also mentioning that you don't just have to use, say, pfsense. There are a number of solutions, both hardware and software. Most often the term to search is "dual wan", "dual wan router" or "multi wan"... I, for example, have used both Netgear and DrayTek solutions, both have connection aggregation and fail-over, like other solutions do.
    – Kinnectus
    Dec 4, 2015 at 8:56

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