Where have all the dual WAN routers gone?
Last week’s internet failure in my home has made it very clear to me that I need a backup. Even my wife, who frequently works from home using Citrix, had a lot of trouble getting anything done. We really need to be online all the time. So the first thing I did was sign up for a second broadband line. I’ll soon have both a cable and a ADSL(2+) connection. Now all I need to do is tie them together.
I thought about getting a second router, and putting up a second wifi network for the new connection. But that would mean I’d probably end up interfering with my current signal, and it’s not really an elegant solution. So I started looking into dual WAN routers. These routers accept two ‘inputs’, and allow you to route your traffic between the two using a set of user-defined rules (“torrents go left, email goes right”). What you end up with is a single LAN that uses both connections simultaneously. No need to switch networks when one goes offline, your router will do that for you.
Draytek only?
Almost all the dual WAN routers aimed at consumers and small businesses seem to have been discontinued. I was only able to find a couple of models by Draytek. Googling turned up other models by Linksys, 3com, Netgear and others, but all of them are no longer listed on their respective manufacturer’s websites. Most of the reviews and forum posts Google turned up were from 2007 or even older. Most of them were quite positive about the various products though.
So, am I wrong in thinking that these routers are really nifty, and would be ideal for my setup? Or is their disappearance a sign I should stay away from this type of solution? Or perhaps these routers simply turned out to be too expensive for consumers and sold poorly?
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We have the same setup of cable and DSL and use Xincom dual wan router with great success. Have used it for nearly 3 years without incident. Look here: http://www.xincom.com/twinwan.php
Comment by FFN — April 27, 2009 @ 1:15 am
Hi FFN. I’ve never seen a Xincom router for sale here in the Netherlands. They look like they’re geared towards professionals, and I can’t seem to find a model with built-in wifi. Also, I tried to find out how expensive their products are by clicking links from the ‘where to buy’ page, and only one of the e-tailers listed there actually sold a Xincom router.
Comment by Roy — April 27, 2009 @ 12:08 pm
Peplink’s mutli-wan routers have very good reputation. They focus on producing mult-wan routers that work. Check it out:
http://www.peplink.com/
Comment by Mike — April 28, 2009 @ 5:42 am
@Mike: Much like with Xincom, the Peplink (another brand I’d never heard of) lack wifi.
I’ve opted to get a Draytek btw. It should arrive next week, and I’ll be sure to blog about it then.
Comment by Roy — April 28, 2009 @ 2:00 pm
Why not check out DD-WRT or OPENWRT? Both allow you to use the lan ports on your router as an additional LAN port. they support numerous different hardware platforms and have TONS of features you won’t find in a standard router firmware.
Comment by Nick — April 30, 2009 @ 9:02 pm
correction, “an additional *WAN* port”
Comment by Nick — April 30, 2009 @ 9:02 pm
@Nick: That may just why there are so little consumer dual WAN routers. The flexibility of the WRT. I guess anyone who knows what dual WAN is will have no trouble flashing their router. I think it’s quite impressive that these firmware have made routers do they things they weren’t designed to do.
Comment by Roy — May 1, 2009 @ 1:38 pm
buy from http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=34 or ebay
1- Jetway Mini-ITX Motherboard —-$130.00
1- 3x GigaLAN Module—————–$45.00
1-512MB DDR2————————–$20.00
1-PowerSupply—————————$35.00
1-USB Pen drive (for hdd)————-$10.00
pun it in a Plastic Box cabinet ($10)
—————————————————————–
Total $250
Download : VC5 – Vyatta Community Edition 5 from http://www.vyatta.com/downloads/index.php
connect motherboard lan connection to Your existing router (set Static Getway)
USE BGPv4 for Multihoming increase the reliability of the Internet connection. as well as bandwidth multiplication..
you can connect 3x GigaLAN Module to 3 different service provider.
You can also have built in IDS / IPS + firewall + QoS bla bla
and lan to wan throughput is awesome 330Mbps ……in case of xincom devices it is 50Mbps total
Comment by Prithvy — May 3, 2009 @ 8:01 pm
Hi Prithvy. While your solution is technically superior to a purpose-built router, I wouldn’t want something like that powered on 24/7. Even an Atom-based mini-itx machine still consumes around 30 watts of power. I couldn’t possibly justify that kind of strain on the environment for routing alone. If I ever do need a real home server, I might consider something like this though.
Comment by Roy — May 6, 2009 @ 3:12 pm
in that case buy buy a
50W SOLAR PANEL 12 V will ……………. $125
12V/ 17Ah Sealed Lead Acid battery $70
choose DC-DC power supply with variable input range 12V to 25V (up to 40V available) for same rate as u dont have to buy AC to 12V DC convertor.
connect solar panel to battery and motherboard in parallel
yeppes no AC power supply input required for your router.
Will work 24×7 on 7 hrs of charging from sun
No problem for environment ….
Totally green….
a cisco or juniper purpose-built router router with multiport wan will still cost more….that total of max $500
and they will still cost u on ur electric bill
Comment by prithvy — May 7, 2009 @ 8:36 pm
A bit late I know, but worth documenting for others.
Apart from the vendors mentioned by others above, Edimax have a few low cost multi-WAN routers, Billion BiGuard does this better than the Draytek at similar price, & HotBrick, SnapGear, Fortinet, Cisco, and SonicWALL also have this functionality in various models (at a price)
But the one I like best is from ZyXEL – the ZyWALL35. It comes in a UTM and standard version (UTM provides ASIC accelerated gateway level filtering & AV controls via Bluecoat services) and smart policy based routing, If your ISP still has modem capability, you can have a third level of redundancy with dial backup. The priec is very reasonable for the quality, reliability & functions provided.
Comment by Ross — June 4, 2009 @ 2:06 am
This message is for Prithvy… I want to contact you. Could you drop me an email at eldergamer@yahoo.com
Comment by David — June 12, 2009 @ 12:40 am
Try this it is an open source solution with LOTS of documentation and seems relatively easy to setup.
http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Multi_WAN_/_Load_Balancing
the documentation is better than I expected.
Comment by trdrvr2 — June 19, 2009 @ 4:13 pm
Vyatta is incredible but difficult to set up.
Comment by trdrvr2 — June 19, 2009 @ 4:15 pm
Personally, I think you’re better going for a diverse internet connection than two xDSL lines bonded together. I’ve seen it far too often where companies think they are protected by dual WAN connections, then a highway digger cuts through both lines in an instant.
A 3G / HSDPA / EDGE backup is a more resillient solution since it’s using a different technology: Read all about it here.
http://www.nucleusnetworks.co.uk/mobile-broadband/dual-wan.htm
Anders
Comment by Anders — June 29, 2009 @ 12:01 am
I am right now shopping for DrayTek V2910V and its not easy to buy, at least in Canada. Ordered from Voipsupply but they can’t ship for weeks and all DrayTek products on their website got labeled ‘Discontinued’…. hope DrayTek co is not in some trouble?
The Vigor2910V besides dual WAN also has VOIP SIP registration which I would use with my home Asterisk to provide service where the DrayTek router will be installed (I maintain internet setup for a family here in town and they will have direct line to me via SIP phone)
I used DD WRT flashed Linskys routers in that place before but couple years ago flashed all to Tomato firmware, didn’t know DD WRT allows for dual WAN, maybe its something they have done in last two or three years? Somehow it didn’t grow on me, had few time when after several months of uptime, PCs on LAN would not get IP from DHCP and all LAN would require thorough rebooting and I suspected DD WRT…
Also the family needs something low tech that maybe other called up tech must be able to work with. That means no custom glued together solution with mobo and all as described above. It has to be resetable simply by cycling powersupply bar’s switch, so even family members can get back up on net on those occasions things go on lark.
Hope I am not choosing too badly with DrayTek product, now if I can put my paws on it.
Comment by Van — June 30, 2009 @ 8:00 am
Hi Anders. I don’t have two xDSL lines. One is cable (DocSIS 2). I’ll agree that 3G is a good option as well, but it’s rather expensive over here in The Netherlands, and my router is able to use a 3G stick instead of the second line. If both fail, I can go and pick one up, plug it in and be online again. No need to pay for it every month with activation being almost instantanious.
Comment by Roy — June 30, 2009 @ 10:50 am
Hi Roy,
That’s fair enough, at least you have two different topologies providing your Internet. Do you have Pay As You Go 3G plans over there? In the UK you can a Vodafone PAYG stick for £40 with 1GB data. Extra data costs £15 per GB.
Anders
Comment by Anders — July 16, 2009 @ 11:50 pm
Yeah, we have prepaid 3G modems here. They’re not terribly expensive either (80 euros if I remember correctly), and my current mobile provider has a plan that limits daily costs to a couple of euros. I’ll pick one up if ever both lines fail.
Comment by Roy — July 18, 2009 @ 6:31 pm
TP-Link do a fantastic dual-wan router, and also some with more WAN ports. Look for the TL-R480T+
Here’s a link for info: http://www.tp-link.com/products/product_des.asp?id=14
Installed and running 2 months, no problems.
Comment by Keith — August 4, 2009 @ 9:02 pm
Have a look at the products from Syswan Technologies, Inc. They have Dual and Multi WAN solutions at very attractive pricing and offer great free tech support. The Doulinks SW24 is for the dual WAN solution and some models have VPN. The Octolinks SW88 can home upto 8 concurrent broadband links !
See product specs at http://www.syswan.com
I am using a few at customer locations and have had no trouble with these so far…
Comment by Wanspider — September 20, 2009 @ 4:05 pm
There’s a mod firmware of tomato for dual WAN (see http://www.dualwan.cn)
The problem is that it’s in chinese
The only version I know which is English version is 1.23.0061
I am currently using Asus WL520GU, flashed with tomato 1.23.0061
It’s quite cheap. It’s around $40 – $60 and running in 240MHz
As Asus WL520GU has 1 WAN port and 4 port, it’s now becoming:
WAN = WAN1
LAN1 = WAN2
LAN2-3 = acting as LAN
Comment by harmoni — October 19, 2009 @ 12:29 am
I work from home and have an Edimax load balancing broadband router that does full load balancing with failover based on sessions, packets, ip addresses or bytes. It has been solid. I would recommend this router.
Model BR-724 with optional Wireless feature.
Comment by Ken — November 10, 2009 @ 10:25 pm
I too think Draytek is quite a good find for Dual Wan routers. Many of the popular brands out there do not even have Automatic load balancing.
Check out Draytek’s US page here: http:www.draytek.us
Here is the reseller I usually purchase Draytek from: http://www.buyvoiprouters.com
Comment by Amanda — November 12, 2009 @ 4:25 pm
There is a translated version of the latest Dual-WAN from China. The translation is quite understanabvle . It was done using webkit by a guy called mstombs on Linksysinfo. The firmware now requires no scripts. Another guy called Toastman on linksysinfo.org is hosting it (and an awful lot of other interesting stuff) here:
http://firmware.mooo.com/DualWAN_China/TomatoDualWanND1_23_0409_ENGLISH-GUI%20by%20mstombs/
Comment by John — November 13, 2009 @ 2:58 pm
Roy,
Did you finally solve your dual WAN router challenge ? What router did you end up getting and how is it working.
We are in a similar quandary and have to decide what router to get. Would appreciate your feedback since you´ve already gone through it. Thanks a lot !
Comment by Gus Salles — November 30, 2009 @ 2:16 pm
I’m using Draytek 2910G but facing its bottleneck at 30Mb/s ( WAN to wired LAN ) when I connect a 100Mb/s + a 30Mb/s broadband to it. Do you have any suggestion for another dual WAN (wired or wireless) router to handle it ? Hope the price could be as low as possible.
Thanks
* but I have to tell that Draytek runs solid stable
Comment by Tony — February 1, 2010 @ 5:32 am
I second the tp link TL-R408t+ dual WAN, not a blip in months, rock solid device.
took five minutes to setup:
A Lan cable from each standard wireless router still running DCHP on different ip ranges , set the tp-link WAN ports to dynamic and this just runs straight away.
Switched the radios off on the two wireless routers and plugged a access-point into one of the 3 free etherent ports on the TL-R408t+ and jobs done.
http://www.faculty-x.net/multi%20wan%20routers.htm
theres a quad wan as well but thats over kill for me.
Comment by spattzzz — February 23, 2010 @ 11:35 am