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I have 2 USB dongles for 2 different carriers, both of which offer 3G speeds. Is there a way to bond them together, and used them at the same time, in order to increase speed?

EDIT: I need this in order to stream video, at a higher bit-rate than would be possible with a single 3G+ connection.

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  • A single video stream? Or more than one stream? If a single stream, you'll need a server that you control with a good Internet connection that can split the stream into two streams and sends one over each link. (That server need not understand the stream, it can be a generic proxy.) Mar 10, 2012 at 9:35
  • Note that the dongles need to use different radio bands (not just differnet carriers), otherwise they're just competing with one another for radio timeslots.
    – pjc50
    May 15, 2012 at 12:23

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It is possible, but probably more work than you want to do. To accomplish what you want you will need some means of load balancing, and that means you will need more hardware than just a PC.

Your multiple USB dongles are basically multiple network connections. If you had some more hardware (i.e. a suitable mobile broadband router (acting as modems) for each USB dongle plus an extra router for load balancing) you could make it work.

There is a good tutorial on the subject at Surfboard Hacker (the one I used to make load balancing work for me). Here is a similar tutorial and here are the scripts you will need if you do this with a DD-WRT router. You will have to modify some what they say for your purposes since you are using mobile broadband instead of a standard DSL or Cable modem.

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  • Complexity isn't an issue. This is for a purpose, not to download pornography at starbucks at a faster speed :P I did some reading, can this be accomplished with a PPP multilink? I'd need a router at a datacenter, to be in the middle of the connection, but Im not quite sure which type would be good for it, and what I would need on the PC end.
    – user11955
    Oct 21, 2010 at 3:43
  • Not sure about PPP multilink (if possible or how to set up). I know the way I did it only took me an afternoon to get right, and it worked great. The way I did it required nothing special on the PC end, only the extra hardware I originally mentioned. You can try something more exotic (PPP multilink), but if you just want it to work I would go with a tutorial that accomplishes something close to what you are trying to do (like the one I suggested). Good luck what ever you choose :) Oct 21, 2010 at 3:57
  • Is this method gonna work for a single connection thread? Essentially, I have 2 connections that can do 1mbit UP, and I want to stream a video at 2mbit.
    – user11955
    Oct 21, 2010 at 4:04
  • @user11955 upload speeds will increase as well as download speeds, but it is unlikely that your speed will actually double. There is typically a 10% - 20% loss in speed. New links added to my answer to help guide you. Oct 21, 2010 at 5:04

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