[PLUG] Connection pooling/teaming and ISPs

Darkhorse plug_0 at robinson-west.com
Tue Sep 7 08:01:01 UTC 2004


Maybe it would clarify the thread to ask, when do you have to have
the same ip you had in an earlier transmission?  Do you need to keep
the same ip for a single ip communication or can shopping carts
etc. get messed up when one communication uses ip a with the next
communication using ip b?

Maybe the answer if you have 1 subnet is to use three routers to
do this.  Assign all of them a global ip in a single subnet and 
have one of them be the origin of all packets, hence all packets
come from the same ip regardless of the broadband path used.  
Unfortunately, I don't know any Internet Service Providers 
that will combine two cable or dsl connections let alone a 
mixed cable and dsl connections in one ip subnet.  

A thought is to dynamically set a unique ip on one of your two broadband
gateways at a time, but this won't help if you have two subnets for your
two cable connections.  Why ISP's don't allow customers to do two cable
or DSL connections in one subnet has puzzled me for quite some time. 
Couldn't the ISP just take a single ip out of the pools the customer has
usually paid for despite going bridged and route any packets from those
two subnets through that ip on their end?  Even if you had to pay 
$5 a month to get an ip on the ISP end that they route your multiple
broadband connections out through, that wouldn't be so bad.  Considering
that most broadband accounts through the same provider work over the
same telco equipment and that increasing the connection speed on one 
is commonly available, why use two Cable or DSL connections anyways?

What you really need is an ISP that will bridge two DSL 
connections together.  Trouble is, how many people can afford the
cost of two phone lines?  Two phone lines in
Scappoose costs a minimum of $26/month running $65 the first month, 
add another $24/month if you want to be able to place a telephone call
anywhere in the Portland area at a reasonable price on either line.
The routers at Opus apparently can't do two DSL connections together
at a time.  If you can use a global ip from one of your subnets over
the other subnet, your ISP is opening up all kinds of abuse vectors.
The ISP sets each broadband account up on a subnet and for security
reasons probably doesn't allow you to use any ip numbers other than
the ones they assigned to the account your currently going out 
through.  If ISP's would dump customer end ip networking opting 
perhaps for Novell's IPX protocol instead, maybe the combining
problems could be solved.

     --  Michael C. Robinson





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