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Load Balance between two wifi adaptors

PostPosted: Sat Sep 25, 2004 2:50 pm
by JonEp
Having searched and lerk here for some time I was wondering as there use to be a way of load balancing two telephone or ISDN connections is there a way of load balancing two wireless connections on two different and seperate network Access ponts.

For example one connection to BT Openzone and an another to T-mobile.

Jon

PostPosted: Sat Sep 25, 2004 3:23 pm
by Thorn
Not the way you are describing it. Essentially, you have two seperate and distinct networks with the the same SSID.

You could:
1) Load balance behind one AP, or
2) Have two APs on the same backbone for roaming, or
3) A combination of the above. Two APs on a common backbone, and load balance behind the backbone.

More information is in these two threads:
http://forums.netstumbler.com/showthread.php?t=3949
http://forums.netstumbler.com/showthread.php?t=3443

PostPosted: Sun Sep 26, 2004 3:51 am
by JonEp
Thor

You say that the two Hotspots I mentioned would have the same SSID but infact they would'nt.

They would be OPENZONE and T-MOBILE and totally different different networks.

In the second search of the forum that you pointed out. This was posted in one of the posts.


I think it's also possible to do at the PC. At one time there was software (and sorry, don't remember the specifics) that would load balance connections across 2 modems or NICs on 2 different subnets. You might even be able to get it to work with 2 wireless cards (I think it did it's magic up at layer 3). But to see any difference you'd need 2 access points at widely seperated channels (1 & 11) and have to make sure that each card attaches to a different access point. That would be funky if you ever got that working.


I was just wondering if anyone remembered what the software was called that load balanced?

PostPosted: Sun Sep 26, 2004 3:57 am
by sparafina
JonEp wrote:I was just wondering if anyone remembered what the software was called that load balanced?


I recall that win98-2k did the modem load balancing thing, i.e. 2 56k modems would theortically give you 128k. Never heard if anyone doing it with 2 nics though.

PostPosted: Sun Sep 26, 2004 4:05 am
by The Others
I've got a quick question on the matter:

We all know that placing your wireless device too close to the access point will cause damage to the radios of both because of the effect of shouting in each others ear's. Will similar damage be caused if you place two active wireless cards in one laptop? I know the cards wont be shouting at each other, but, they'll both be in earshot. Is the close proximity alone enough to damage those fragile little radios?

On the subject a little more, I've seen linux boxs load balancing with two network cards and always imagined you could use two wireless cards in a similar manner (obviously the 2 access points and seperate channels applied). I've never heard of windows doing such a thing.

PostPosted: Sun Sep 26, 2004 5:33 am
by macpad
I don't c why you couldn't load balance, but you would need specailist software to do it. Remember as well that you can only load balance on seperate downloads, i.e. multi threaded downloads - no problem, a single game of half-life -- no go. I know that linux has lots of load sharing options and have seen a few for modem sharing etc for Windows.

For the others,

I have 4 pcmcia cards running in a desktop, two go to external aerials, but the other 2 run side by side, for local hot spots. This setup has been running fine for 6-8 months.