Can I use more than one internet provider at the same time?

Question

Usually a home router has only one uplink connection, enabling a single internet provider at a time. But suppose I hack my router (ie. installing linux), could I use 2 internet providers then?

Answer 1

You could use a linux router to load balance and share 2+ connections across a LAN.

This article explains how to edit your route tables and /etc/rc.local file to do this.

Answer 2

"hacking" the router may not suffice, you'll need 'load balancing'.

a spare old computer with 2 NICs and Vyatta Community Edition is certainly cheaper solution than a modern Multi-WAN router.

When you run Vyatta on a standard x86 hardware system, you'll create a powerful network appliance that can run circles around proprietary systems.

Answer 3

Only if it has two physical ports, and you've got two separate lines coming into your house. If that's the case, take a look at this topic on the subject.

Answer 4

Windows can load balance 2 connections. If you have a machine with 2 NICs, you can edit the registry to enable this:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\NetBT\Parameters]
"RandomAdapter"=dword:00000001
"SingleResponse"=dword:00000001

This isn't useful if you want to share the connections with a network though.