Suggested configuration for Load Balancing router

[Fozzie Bear]

Its been a while since I last posted on this forum but I would really appreciate some advice and guidance.
I have the pleasure of being the IT support tech for our local Village Hall in which I have created a simple Internet Cafe with three computers. The Village hall is over 6Km from the exchange so ADSL speeds are low achiving max of 1.5Mbps and quite high attenutation because of the poor quality of copper lines and flooding BT joint boxes. As a result we have two Plusnet domestic broadbands and a Drytek Vigor 2820 dual wan router on the basis that it would provide some load balancing.
Just recently we have been experiencing very slow speeds and although escalated to Plusnet they say there is nothing they can find wrong with the lines. A restart of the router remotely and this fixed it for a while but it was the same again the next day. I finally visited and found that the second router , a BT Voyager 220v had lost sync with the exchange. I decided to replace this with a spare Netgear DG834 GT and appeared to get a good sync on this line of 1.4Mbps using BT Speedtester. I had problems accessing the admin console of the Vigor 2820 locally although I could gain access remotely to the interface via No-ip. Figure that out? Anyway I thought I ought to update the firmware in case this solved the poor download speeds. The router is no up to the latest suggested firmware "with a modem code with more conservative paramaters, for line speeds of less than 4Mbps, on lower quality lines"
I have now questioned the existing configuration and choice of hardware, in partucular the Voyager 220v which is getting a bit long in the tooth and is itself a router, when I belive all I need is a true ADSL modem connected to the ethernet port of the Vigor 2820. As always being a charity the village hall are short of money. The original setup and Vigor were paid for by a local initiative and I donated the Voyager.
Can anyone recommend a small cheap and reliable ADSL modem that I can use in place of the 220v. Are any of the later voyagers eg 190 more suitable on adsl2+ ? Also how should I set up the router for load balancing for our scenario. We wont get the benefit of bonded broadband but should traffic from each computer be directed down a different adsl circuit or should we let the router try and determine the best route. Also should I disable DHCP on the second router and give it a fixed IP address? Alternatively would I be better with two netgear DG834s connected to the switch and give each PC and wireless access point a fixed IP address and different gateway route?
regards
Fozzie

[duke]

hi
i'm not sure if i'm allowed to post url links in here or not
so i'll do it anyway

i once had a BT router clone and and its a long story

voyagers can be accessed from telnet and there are utilities that can map or plot signal strength and other things

and the setup you have is i think more like a failsafe than channel bonding which i think you could if the final node(router?)[whereever your ethernet lines from your various adsl routers converge ] was running linux

for voyager routers please take some time and go through this excellent site

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http://corz.org/comms/hardware/router/bt.voyager.205_router.how-to.php

[duke]

draytek does 3 types of firmware - adsl2+ annex m lines, regular lines and lower quality lines. try using the 211801 firmware for lower quality lines,

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http://www.draytek.co.uk/support/downloads.html (choose the alternative firmware)

i see you already mention that in your post

so you want have 2 adsl line going into 2 adsl modems+wifi then going to the draytek then finally distributed to other pc's
overkill
your adsl lines are coming from the same exchange so you can never have true fallback
try changing modulation parameter in adsl router setting to sync for lower speed according to the line speed
look here for explanation

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymmetric_digital_subscriber_line#ADSL_standards

see if the adsl filter(s) are in place or need changing
you can buy 2 cheap ar7 routers that are discontinued and put RT firmware on top and get better results

other wise look into the CLI commands for the voyager at previous post and see the commands for re connection interval to DSLAM it might help

[Fozzie Bear]

Thanks for the response Duke. You are quite correct about failover with both adsl circuits coming from the same exchange, but experience has shown me in my own house with two adsl circuits from the same exchange that one can be down whilst the other is still working OK. A lot depends if the BT ducts are flooded It's more for load balancing that we decided to go this route and you can tell the difference when all three PCs plus a couple of laptops are connected to the internet and streaming video from Youtube or BBC iPlayer.
I have since read that the second WAN (ethernet) port of the Vigor 2820 should be attached to an ADSL modem in bridged mode ie ppoA>ppoE. This allows the draytek to do the authentication (ADSL user name and password etc) and presumably allow the draytek to "control" the modem. At the moment the adsl authentication details are entered in the 220v. I also cannot monitor remotely the state of the second ADSL circuit as I only see the second WAN as a connected ethernet device. Presumably with a true modem I will see the link stats in the same way as I see the draytek's internal adsl modems line stats?
Looks like we will have to stump up £57 for the Vigor 120 which is the recommended modem. Unless anyone can recommend a cheaper alternatives? Even second user 120s are holding their price on ebay although could shave a few £'s off a new one.

Incidentally what is an AR7 router and what benefit would these have over the draytek for load balancing?

regards
Fozzie

[mstombs]

The Draytek is supposed to be good, but you should consider an old PC with a couple of Ethernet cards to set up a real load balancing PC with web/dns-cache etc to try to minimize the traffic on your slow connection. Not sure what the current state of the art is but there used to be single CD distros of SmoothWall etc

You would need a couple of Ethernet ADSL modems, and depending on your connection type not always easy to turn off router type functions in many modems.

As to what modems best on your particular line - you just need to experiment, I don't think there is a universal answer - but do ensure your own telephone wiring and filters as good as you can get.

I wonder if 2 ADSL phone lines in same bundle interfere with each other and divide up the bandwidth anyway?

[duke]

Incidentally what is an AR7 router and what benefit would these have over the draytek for load balancing?

an ar7 router is what this site is all about

Q. Who/What is RouterTech?
A. The independent technical support site for all things networking. We also specialize in firmwares and support for routers based on the AR7 chipset (i.e., "Class II" routers).

the firmware on this site is basically a customized linux install with only bits and pieces relevant to adsl routers
as ar7(the name of cpu/chipset)[actually more like a SystemonChip] router are the bottom heap in terms of ram and rom(think harddisk) and can run only a small subset of tools

it might be possible to run your setup with just one router/modem {but it definitely will not be an ar7 router} for that you will have to look at openWRT(open source)/ DDwrt(paid) [these are linux based software for devices with wide supported hardware]

or some 4mb[rom]/16mb [ram] ar7 routers with a switch (since you are managing all offsite) maybe switch replace with Dreytek
basically once you have linux{any flavor} running on router with sufficent RAM/ROM sky is the limit (some hardware mods exist where SD card have been added to increase ROM and so the number of programs that can be stored)(you can overclock some boars to make all your progrms run faster warranty-void. hehehe)

do keep in mind ddWRT / openWRT question are not answered here

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http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/start#supported.hardware.-.router.type

buyers guide

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http://wiki.openwrt.org/toh/buyerguide

moreinfo

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenWrt