I'm Pondering Bridged Internet Access

[Jason Dunn]

Speed. There aren't many Internet users who wouldn't want Web sites to load faster, files to download quicker, and email messages with large attachments to get sent faster. Upload speed in particular hasn't kept pace with download speeds - over the past five years I've seen my cable modem downstream speeds double from 5mbps to 10mbps, but the upstream speeds have inched up to only 1mbps. Having 1mbps of upstream bandwidth is more than enough for regular email, even with some hefty attachments, but once you start looking at uploading 500 MB worth of photos or a 100 MB video to YouTube, upstream bandwidth starts to become the bottleneck. There's also the issue of network stability - it doesn't matter how fast your connection is if it's down.

So in light of that, I started to look at hardware that allows you to bond together multiple cable modems or DSL modems, giving you a faster connection. I remember systems similar to this back in the 56K modem days - they called it "shotgunning" back then if memory serves. There's relatively cheap hardware from D-Link ($179 USD), and there's a solution from Linksys that's roughly double the price. In addition to the faster upload speed, which I desperately want, there's the issue of external network stability and speed. Sometimes I'll find that the connections that Shaw (my local cable modem provider) peers out to are bogged down, and I often wonder if I had Telus DSL (the "other guys") I'd be seeing better overall performance.

There are some catches with this approach however: in my research thus far I've found that each "connection" can only be attached to one external modem. So if I'm doing an upload to YouTube, it will go out via one of the modems, not giving me a combined upload speed of two modems. If an uploader is multi-threaded (say, a photo uploader) then each thread can run on each of the modems, giving a much faster experience. But quite often the things I'd want more upload speed on are things like big FTP uploads, which if it's a single file, is only going to use one modem.

So while I started out quite excited about the idea of bridged Internet access over two high-speed modems, it seems the reality of the situation makes it a bit less appealing. Anyone out there doing this have any thoughts?

[Jason Dunn]

Speed. There aren't many Internet users who wouldn't want Web sites to load faster, files to download quicker, and email messages with large attachments to get sent faster. Upload speed in particular hasn't kept pace with download speeds - over the past five years I've seen my cable modem downstream speeds double from 5mbps to 10mbps, but the upstream speeds have inched up to only 1mbps. Having 1mbps of upstream bandwidth is more than enough for regular email, even with some hefty attachments, but once you start looking at uploading 500 MB worth of photos or a 100 MB video to YouTube, upstream bandwidth starts to become the bottleneck. There's also the issue of network stability - it doesn't matter how fast your connection is if it's down.

So in light of that, I started to look at hardware that allows you to bond together multiple cable modems or DSL modems, giving you a faster connection. I remember systems similar to this back in the 56K modem days - they called it "shotgunning" back then if memory serves. There's relatively cheap hardware from D-Link ($179 USD), and there's a solution from Linksys that's roughly double the price. In addition to the faster upload speed, which I desperately want, there's the issue of external network stability and speed. Sometimes I'll find that the connections that Shaw (my local cable modem provider) peers out to are bogged down, and I often wonder if I had Telus DSL (the "other guys") I'd be seeing better overall performance.

There are some catches with this approach however: in my research thus far I've found that each "connection" can only be attached to one external modem. So if I'm doing an upload to YouTube, it will go out via one of the modems, not giving me a combined upload speed of two modems. If an uploader is multi-threaded (say, a photo uploader) then each thread can run on each of the modems, giving a much faster experience. But quite often the things I'd want more upload speed on are things like big FTP uploads, which if it's a single file, is only going to use one modem.

So while I started out quite excited about the idea of bridged Internet access over two high-speed modems, it seems the reality of the situation makes it a bit less appealing. Anyone out there doing this have any thoughts?

[Phronetix]

Jason, you raised some good points about upload speeds.

Real world wise.... of all the solutions out there I still favor the one I use.

I call it Patience.

Seriously, I began to be more satisfied with the limitations of technology speeds when I just decided to be more patient, along with changing my inbox into two segments: items that take less than five minutes to finish and those that do not. Whenever I am waiting for something, I grab from my flashInbox and get stuff done.

The net effect is the technology feels faster when I distract myself. I'm sure most people already do this, but it wasn't until I deliberately did this that I noticed better productivity. Possibly even lower blood pressure, too. :wink:

On the other hand, please don't mistake this for me not caring when speeds are unnecessarily slow. I am not immune to that, and so read your article with interest.

Cheers,
Dennis

[Jeremy Charette]

The modem itself is likely not the choke point in the pipeline, but rather the cable into your house (or some splitter upstream which that cable connects to). Point being, no matter how many modems you connect to the cable coming into the house, you won't find much, if any, additional bandwidth.

I've got DSL and cable internet. I could run bridged internet and get some additional speed, because I'm using two service providers. You'll need to find another service provider to truly make bridged work, and make sure provider #2 isn't just piggybacking off of provider #1.

[Mike Temporale]

If you're going to do this, try and find a good alternate DSL provider. Don't go with Teuls just because. There's lots of really good DSL providers that offer better uptime and faster speeds. Check out the rankings at DSLReports to see which provider in your area has the best speed.

http://www.dslreports.com/archive

[ctmagnus]

I'd like to suggest checking out the Unibox product at your local London Drugs.

You mentioned Telus, and Uniserve is ranked above them in this speed test statistics page (which is derived from Mike's link).

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by Phronetix

Real world wise.... of all the solutions out there I still favor the one I use. I call it Patience.

Nah. If I believed that patience was the solution to technological problems, I'd still be rocking a 486. ;-) The real issue here isn't so much email, it's really about Smugmug uploads and YouTube uploads. I really want more upstream speed!

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by Jeremy Charette

The modem itself is likely not the choke point in the pipeline, but rather the cable into your house (or some splitter upstream which that cable connects to).

I used to think the same thing, but I don't think that's accurate: quite often when I start FTP uploads, I'll see it hit 200 KB/s upload before slowly being throttled down to 100 KB/s. Shaw also offers a 25mbps downstream product, and they couldn't do that if they didn't have the speed for it. So I think the concept has merit...

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by Mike Temporale

If you're going to do this, try and find a good alternate DSL provider. Don't go with Teuls just because.

Hmm. Interesting point - I hadn't thought about anyone other than Telus because all the other guys end up just leasing from Telus. There's a company in Calgary called Nucleus that I used years ago, but they're still stuck at 3 mbps down and 640 Kbps up. So not impressive....

This site looks useful for Canadians:

http://www.canadianisp.com/cgi-bin/ispsearch.cgi

That DSLreports link doesn't allow me to search via postal code, so it seems less useful for Canadians.

[Jason Dunn]

Originally Posted by ctmagnus

I'd like to suggest checking out the Unibox product at your local London Drugs.

http://www.uniserve.com/?page=unibox

Aha. Interesting!

[Mike Temporale]

Originally Posted by Jason Dunn

Hmm. Interesting point - I hadn't thought about anyone other than Telus because all the other guys end up just leasing from Telus. There's a company in Calgary called Nucleus that I used years ago, but they're still stuck at 3 mbps down and 640 Kbps up. So not impressive....

Basically all they are leasing is the DSL modem that is installed at your local switching station. The big difference is that you don't connect to Telus (or Bell if you're on the Eastern side of the country) servers. Yes, the physical line is owned by Telus, but that's about where it ends. The ISP uses their own servers, switches, hubs, etc... We all know how well managed the big telco's are. I've always had faster speeds at a cheaper price using an ISP other than the telco's.

Originally Posted by Jason Dunn

This site looks useful for Canadians:

http://www.canadianisp.com/cgi-bin/ispsearch.cgi

That DSLreports link doesn't allow me to search via postal code, so it seems less useful for Canadians.

Fair enough. The important thing is to compare the overall speed of your ISP. If you can get postal code that's even better.