load balance ordinary traffic

[Wes Peters]

On Thursday 15 May 2003 18:24, Barney Wolff wrote:
> On Thu, May 15, 2003 at 06:56:02PM -0400, Justin C. Sherrill wrote:
> > > This is unlikely to work with cable modems.  You're already
> > > competing with your immendiate neighbors for a fixed pie of cable
> > > bandwidth.
> >
> > It'll work just fine; the shared cable line supplies far more
> > bandwidth than what several modems will eat, and this area is not
> > oversubscribed. Also, I have a mix of modems - some DOCSIS, some
> > older proprietary Motorola, which use different parts of the
> > broadcast spectrum, and so do not affect each other's bandwidth,
> > directly.
>
> And all of these will work with the head end at once?  Interesting.

DOCSIS in particular assigns different spectrum to each modem on the 
cable, assuring privacy and bandwidth.  It doesn't assure the speed of 
the upstream connection, though.

> > > However, what you can't do is have
> > > a single TCP connection on a single local host use both external
> > > lines.

You can do that if there is software in the HFC to support it as well; 
some sort of "channel aggregation" software.  Don't hold your breath...

> > How about multiple TCP connections on a single local host using
> > multiple lines?  I know I could stick particular local machines to a
> > particular network gateway, but at that point I could just hook them
> > up directly to individual modems.
>
> You could enhance the ipfw code to allow matching bits within the
> source or dest port number, as is allowed now on ip addresses.
>
> > > That would require at a minimum cooperation from your ISP which
> > > they are most unlikely to provide.
> >
> > I work at my ISP.  What's the cooperation bit?
>
> To use parallel links you'd need to run MPPP over PPPoE, on both ends.
> FreeBSD can do that, I believe.  Can RR?

Hahahahahahaha.

-- 

        Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?

Wes Peters                                               wes at softweyr.com