Two modems in one ethernet network
(I'm way more of a software guy than a hardware guy and I got hardcarried in my college networking class so excuse me if I say some dumb stuff or horribly misuse a term, accepting corrections)
Hey, I'm a software engineer and I work from home. My ISP was been terrible lately, so I'm planning to install a secondary internet connection here to make sure I don't run into any issues from outages while I work. Is it possible to just connect the two modems from both ISPs in the same Ethernet network through switches? And I assume that if yes, would I just be able to switch between both on my PC at any time without messing with the cables?
Also secondary question, both connections in theory are 1Gigabit (in pratice 80Mb, maybe 200Mb on a good day, but still assuming they were always 1Gb), I already have a 10/100/1000 network switch at home, would it be able to handle 2x 1Gb or would I need to get a better one? (assuming two different computers are using each connection)
Thanks.
Posted May 19, 2023, 9:19 PM UTC
If you get the TP-Link ER605 multi WAN router, you can connect both ISPs to it and then configure load balancing and fail over. If your current router has the WiFi, configure it as an Access Point (AP) so that you can still use it for WiFi but allow it to use the subnet of the ER605.
I think you'll only get a max of 1gbps throughput.
Thanks!
Make sure that you get Modem or ONT only devices from each ISP and not combination modem/router units.
Oh, got it. I have a single modem/router device from my current ISP and the new one will be an ONU (googling told me it's the same as an ONT). I'll need to switch it for a modem, right? How will Wi-Fi work in that case? I checked out the ER605 and it seems to be Ethernet only. Thanks.
Edit: Actually googling pictures makes me think my current modem is actually an ONT as well, will try to confirm that.
Edit2: Googling the model number it looks like it's just a modem+router.
You might just get an Access Point like the TP-Link EAP610 to do the WiFi. For a cable modem I would get the Arris SB8200 to replace a rented one or configure that combination unit in Pass Through mode to get the public IP to your ER605.
If you really want to get into networking with a single interface you could get the TP-Link OC200 controller and you'd be able to set up the ER605 and EAP610 as an intigrated setup.