Is it possible to use 2 GPRS modems?

[murray654]

Hi

Is it possible to use 2 GPRS modems to increase bandwidth? GPRS just is not fast enough, and I need more bandwidth. What would happen if I connected 2 GPRS modems to 1 computer?

I have heard of people dialling into an ISP on 2 regular phone lines to increase bandwidth, not sure if this would be possible on a GPRS connection.

Regards,

 

[alchamy]

In theory it can be done. You will have a few problems though. (There are several solutions to your problem, none are fun though)
You cannot Multiplex GPRS since the providers do not support it which means you need to bond the connections yourself.

Although this can be done with dynamic ips it is easier with static ips and gateways or atleast the illusion thereof.

To cut a long story short you will need a Linux/BSD box to do this and it will need to be running a recent kernel (2.6 is better).

You can then use the Nexthop and Equalize commands to distribute packets.

Search the forums as this has been discussed several times, there is a solution to use a single windows machine with some free proxy software and a simple proxy script file. (Would search for you but I am too lazy )

Just remember that you will never truely combine the connections since that would require support from the provider. Instead it will load balance transfers and sessions, ie when you load up a site it will alternate between gateways and once a file is locked to a gateway it will stay in the gateway until it is complete or refreshed. IE if you wanted to download a 10MB file you would need to use a multithreaded download manager to get the "combined" speed.

 

[murray654]

I tried the proxy method. works ok for browsing. No good for some secure sites, like my web hosting control panel. They did not let me log in. Absa did not let me in, but FNB did.

Mind you , one modem was connected to MTN and the other on Vodacom. Could I log in to my web hosting control panel if both modems were on the same network?