Internet TOOL Question

[John T]

Okay gents, in the RV I have BOTH AT&T plus Verizon Jetpack/Hotspots each with an external MIMO Antenna
Amplifier BOTH work fine and subject to location one can be stronger than the other. My laptop or cell
phones see both those (and others) WiFi sources and we select one or the other to connect to......

QUESTION is there some sort of Software or a piece of Hardware/Router that will COMBINE the two WiFi
signals and output the sum of both (like WiFi 3 etc) to increase up and download speed ????????????

John T NOT any WiFi or Router expert, Im old school can barely answer my smart phone lol

 

[Janicholson]

No because they listen to different source frequencies, and broadcast on different wifi frequencies. Jim

 

[John T]

Well shucks I was afraid of that

John T

 

[Doug - Iowa]

For wireless connection between your device and your local hub (jetpak or ATT) you can only have one path at a time. You see this when your phone or tablet gives you a list of possible wireless connections and you can only pick one.

However, if your jetpack and ATT hubs BOTH have provisions for a local CAT5 connection to hardwire to your device (laptop or PC with wired network connection) there is trickery within windows to prioritize and load balance between the two. I've never done it, and it looks ugly to me. A device is also available, here's the tech link:

https://techwelkin.com/combine-multiple-internet-connections

Hardwire your laptop to use the load sharing device.

Do you know how many devices are pinging your ISP's? I was suprized how many accumulated n my home network over time. The more IP enabled devices you have, they start reserving (hoarding) bandwidth. In my house it is just my wife and I, but if I check my ISP we have 16 devices competing for bandwidth at any given time. Two phones, two tablets, three laptops, two smart TV's, the security system, my ham radio FT8 link, the list goes on. One quick improvement test would be to put everything on one ISP (the slower of the two) and your laptop by itself on the other. There might be an improvement in your laptop performance when it has no competition.

 

[wp6529]

Many routers can take more than one WAN connection and provide failover or load balancing. Failover gets you reliability, load balancing can get you better performance for multiple users / connections, but no connection can get anything faster than your fastest individual WAN.

Actually combining more than one WAN to get an aggregate speed is not something that can be done with a single router. There are products / services that can do this (Peplink is one) but there is a continuing cost associated with the service.

Functionally what is done is a VPN tunnel is created using your multiple WAN connections in a link aggregation group back to the provider's nearest data center where the other end of that VPN is then connected to a really fast Internet backbone. This will allow you to get a single connection with bandwidth approaching the sum of your WAN connections minus a bit of overhead.

 

[DaveBN]

Hey John, where are you? I tried to find you yesterday but didn't see you. I'll be there again tomorrow or Monday helping friends set up and would like to meet you.
Dave

 

[John T]

Im going tomorrow Sunday to Flywheelers Row 74 far Northwest corner but in and out to get the golf cart. Will be there all week before going to Pioneer Days in Zolfo Springs a week....

John T Now at Lake Bonnett Village Avon Park

 

[brooktre]

I dont know your situation, but many RVers are getting starlink internet. I use it at home and it works very well. I can have 3 people streaming video at once without any buffering or slow downs at all. And it has been very reliable. Ask around if you have an interest.