Multiple Lines

From BE Usergroup Technotes

Q: Can you get multiple BE lines?
A: Yes, just order two (or more) BT lines and then order BE service on them.

Q: Do I need to pay two times for BT / Phone line rental?
A: Yes, TWO normal BT lines are required to be active for the two ADSL signals to be sent over them. The prices below do not include normal phone line rental and installation costs.

Q: Do I get a discount?
A: No, discounts are not offered to customers with multiple lines.

Q: Can BE install a new line for me?
A: BE do not do phone line installation or line rental services. See BT's website and information on install costs

Q: How can you use multiple lines?
A: Going from easiest to most complicated: ADSL Line Bonding, Load Balancing, MLPPP or VPN Bonding.

Contents 1 ADSL Line Bonding 2 Load Balancing 3 VPN Bonding 4 MLPPP

ADSL Line Bonding

Currently in manual ordering so open a ticket enquiring about Line Bonding.
Real ADSL Line Bonding is G.998.1 which is described as "ATM-based Multi-Pair Bonding".
It uses a router with two (or more?) ADSL modems built into it and often only one RJ11 connector. The outer pair goes to a RJ11 for one line and the inner pair goes to another RJ11 connector for the second line.

Advantages	Disadvantages
Less Overhead	High setup fee £85 (Includes Modem)
Simpler, just one box	Around £52 (for existing BE customers) (or £55/pm otherwise? needs confirming) (slightly more than 2x normal BE Pro accounts)
Single thread downloads use both lines (full speed)	Single ISP (vs. load balancing below)
Normal ping times	Maximum of 2 lines bonded
Fully supported by BE	Single Line working problems¶
Single IP Address	Line profile changes via ticket only.
	Profile changes drop the entire bond during the change.

Different lines can have different SNR profiles but Fastpath / Interleaved is common to both lines.
¶Once connected either of the two lines can fail and the internet will continue uninterrupted. However the service will NOT connect initially unless both lines sync. This means a major line fault twinned with a router reboot will require a manual intervention by BE to enable "single line working" mode.

Support and FAQ on Line Bonding
Compatible equipment:
Comtrend NexusLink 5631 - Likely to be the router which BE will ship.
Zyxel P-663H-51 - Also tested as compatible with the service.
Example Speed on two bonded long phonelines:
[1]
Example speed on two bonded short lines:

Load Balancing

Load balancing means you have two BE lines (or other providers) which are not linked in any way. Each line has its own IP address and ADSL modems and you just use equipment to share connections down each line.
This means you can use a standard computer with multiple (or less if you know how to configure it) network cards and a free operating system like Zero Shell of pfSense.
You can also buy load balancing hardware routers.
The down side is problems with quite a lot of online systems seeing you flip flop between two IP's. Systems like online banking will excessively log you out each time a request comes from a different IP. The fix is to force SSL connections to one line only. Not ideal.
The next problem is single threaded downloads such as media streaming or similar which can only be sent down one line. Things with multiple connections like newsgroups, torrents and download managers will go over both lines.

Advantages	Disadvantages
Cheap	Two IPs causes problems with some secure sites
No special equipment required	Single thread downloads only use one line
Normal ping times / VoIP works well etc.
No limit on number of lines
Can use different ISP's for redundancy if you wish

VPN Bonding

More information on the setup of this is over on the VPN Bonding page.
This method is a combination of the load balancing option with the benefit of a single IP address as per the Line Bonding option.
The server in your house takes your internet requests, splits it into two different VPN connections, sends it to a server, merges the two VPN connections and releases it onto the internet.
The setup is very complicated, requires a server running ZeroShell in a datacentre.

Advantages	Disadvantages
One single IP address	Expensive (requires datacentre server)
Single threaded transfers use both lines	Complicated
Possible right now without waiting for BE line bonding.	Some overhead reducing speed
No limit on number of lines	Limited testing exhibited trouble achieving expected speeds on more than 2x 10mbps+ lines
Can use different ISP's for redundancy	Higher ping, sometimes high jitter (potential VoIP Issues).

Example Speed:

MLPPP

MultiLink PPP (Point to Point Protocol).
This will work on any provider including BT Wholesale equipment should the ISP want to allow it. BT don't "support" it though should weird faults develop. MLPPP is also supported by most of the BE Wholesalers

Advantages	Disadvantages
One single IP address	Expensive, more costly than BE's Line Bonding
Single threaded transfers use both lines	Non-standard equipment required (Routerboard?)
Possible right now without waiting for BE line bonding.	Line faults on one line seem to cause real issues (I Believe this to be a Bug with the Routerboard750 I was using when I tested, I'm told it works a lot better with the Cisco routers. - Dragon2611)
Normal ping times