VERIZON AND SPRINT

morpheus · EVDO User Joined: 16 Jan 2006 Posts: 42

I would like to find a router that would support the installation of a Verizon modem AND a Sprint modem and would load balance between them (failover would work also).

Do we have a router on the market that will do this?
_________________
-morpheus-

Alex · Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 8:08 pm Post subject:

not this minute, but very soon you'll have a choice: MBR1000 or KR2

morpheus · EVDO User Joined: 16 Jan 2006 Posts: 42

Hey Alex ...

Load balancing, fail over or both?
_________________
-morpheus-

Alex · Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 9:07 pm Post subject:

aztec · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 18 Jan 2008 Posts: 11

just sent my email in for balancing.

will happily switch over the 2 other clients in the sticks if balancing happens on the MBR.

goodbye Satellite forever!

tz1 · Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 7:18 am Post subject:

Will they have multiple ports, or will you need a USB hub?

Alex · Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 8:11 am Post subject:

morpheus · EVDO User Joined: 16 Jan 2006 Posts: 42

what is the criteria for the active link to fail? does the interface have to go down? for example; if both interfaces have an EVDO connection and the active connection reverts to 1X (for whatever reason) does the software look for a better connection in the pool of failover links?

Why have failover? if you have more than one link why not use them all and concentrate on traffic shaping across all of the links ...
_________________
-morpheus-

Alex · Posted: Wed Feb 06, 2008 12:59 pm Post subject:

morpheus · EVDO User Joined: 16 Jan 2006 Posts: 42

Makes the feature "mildly" usefull but not quite worth the cost. Hope I don't have to wait too long before someone implements this ...
_________________
-morpheus-

gmcnutt · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 08 Oct 2007 Posts: 13

The link has to go down pretty hard for the MBR to detect failure. For a modem, it has to get a PPP shutdown or a hangup from the modem to decide that it's kaput. For the wired ethernet WAN, it has to basically stop getting any packets off the wire. This is a pretty passive failure detection scheme, but I think anything more aggressive would require the router to actively ping the link, and this raises some questions: whom should it ping? How often? Should it use standard pings or something "sneakier" like DNS queries? Is it important that it go farther than the ISP? Etc. A lot of this could be user-configurable, if the user thought to go configure it. Do people have opinions on what they would prefer or find unacceptable in a failure detection algorithm?

morpheus · EVDO User Joined: 16 Jan 2006 Posts: 42

A ping of the default gateway of each interface should do the trick as long as ICMP is not being filtered. I just tested mine and I got a reply. But I doubt that the people programming the equipment would use any services on this layer to see if a link is still up? They have access to routing protocols, QOS and who knows what else.

What would I prefer in fault detection? Start by using all of the interfaces instead of using only one and failing over to the second. Send the traffic to the least congested interface. If one interface receives a response faster than the other then move more traffic in that direction.

Let’s say we have one interface that is Verizon and one that is Sprint. You are traveling a highway between cities and have a 1x connection on each interface. You arrive in downtown Verizon and the Verizon interface switches to EVDO and since the congestion is minimal all the traffic heads that way and the Sprint interface goes idle. You get the idea …
_________________
-morpheus-