Is it still possible to "shotgun" 2 56k modems?

I'm still 56k and while I can afford the $600 front+install for satellite internet, I refuse. I've got two phone lines in my house, one is voice but isn't used 10PM-6AM (prime downloading hours!) and I was wondering if it's still possible to shotgun modems.

Here's the computer that would have the 2 modems:

AXP 2200+
512MB Corsair Value
ECS L7S7A2 motherboard (SiS 746FX)
Onboard LAN to my network hub
(Obviously) 2 PCI modems (1 is currently installed, would have to buy a $10 newegg modem if this will still work)
XP Pro SP2

Also, it's going to share out to my network, and like you have to manually "share" the connection. So I don't know how that would work.

Is anyone doing this? Is anyone fucking sick of 56k? Is anyone tired that people in 3rd world countries get to jack into 100Mbps connections while at least 45% of Americans are still stuck with 56k?

Can anyone help me break the 10Kbps marker? LAUGH

kent said:

Is anyone fucking sick of 56k? Is anyone tired that people in 3rd world countries get to jack into 100Mbps connections while at least 45% of Americans are still stuck with 56k?

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not sure about the shotgun question, but you can thank our lovely american government for destroying the communications markets for the last 8 years. <rant> 3rd world countries don't have the same shithead rules as the telecom companies like SBC, BellSouth, etc have on them (the UNE-P laws that govern companies like SBC to lease access to their network infrastructure at a cost that is often 80% LESS that what it costs just to maintain that infrastructure). So next time your phone line goes down and they have to replace the cable because it's all f'd up from years of oxidation and repair, you can write your congressman and thank him for helping to destroy the american communications infrastructure if he voted for the UNE-P laws.

we might start to see things turn around now that those laws are disbanded as of the end of the year. SBC already announced they're going to be dumping 6 billion into network infrastructure upgrades and broadband access. How quickly that gets to the field is a whole other story though....

ok...</rant>

People talk about how much faster DSL and Cable are purely by how fast they connect at 2Mbs/sec , 756 Mbs/sec whatever. However that is not what makes these connections so much faster than dialup its because they are digital connections not analog. Their isn't any convesion process between analog and digital and thats why its faster not how many kilobits a secound it can transmit. Latency is how fast data is transmitted and over a phone line a 112k modem is going to be just as slow as a 56k modem. A faster analog "phone line" connection imo isn't going to do a whole lot of good and its going to cost you the same price or more a month what it would cost to have DSL or Cable. Look at the difference between 34k modems and 56k ones, very little improvement if any. If you have other people living in the house with ya they aren't going to be pleased that both lines are busy, after all thats why most people get a second line so it doesn't tie up the phone.

kent said:

I'm still 56k and while I can afford the $600 front+install for satellite internet, I refuse. I've got two phone lines in my house, one is voice but isn't used 10PM-6AM (prime downloading hours!) and I was wondering if it's still possible to shotgun modems.

Here's the computer that would have the 2 modems:

AXP 2200+
512MB Corsair Value
ECS L7S7A2 motherboard (SiS 746FX)
Onboard LAN to my network hub
(Obviously) 2 PCI modems (1 is currently installed, would have to buy a $10 newegg modem if this will still work)
XP Pro SP2

Also, it's going to share out to my network, and like you have to manually "share" the connection. So I don't know how that would work.

Is anyone doing this? Is anyone fucking sick of 56k? Is anyone tired that people in 3rd world countries get to jack into 100Mbps connections while at least 45% of Americans are still stuck with 56k?

Can anyone help me break the 10Kbps marker? LAUGH

Click to expand...

If your ISP supports "Multi Linking" your all set. "Shotgun" is proprietary name that I think Diamond Supras had for a type of modem that had two modems on one PCI card.

You will connect at 100,000 and instead of 4.0 Kb sustained downloads you will get around 6-7 Kb sustained downloads.

The PC that has the two modems in it will act as the "gateway". Your "gateway's" LAN card's IP address (i.e. 192.168.0.1) will be the "gateway" address for all the PC's on your LAN to connect to the internet through.

You will setup ICS on that "gateway" PC. ICS will assign IP addys for all your PC's on your LAN. In the networking options make sure you have both of the modems check boxes checked off on. The modem properties under controll panel willl take you there and you will also see s checkbox stating "dial all devices" you will want that check off on as well.

That is a rough start for you. Post away with more questions.

matthew J said:

A faster analog "phone line" connection imo isn't going to do a whole lot of good...

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I disagree, I'm on dual 56k (w/ 3Com 3C888 now but used to be 98, 2K then XP), when your dealing with slower speeds you certainly notice when days are cut from your download time by going multilink. For broadband users each speed bump delivers smaller and smaller gains in time (you don't end up finishing downloads before you started them), doubling the speed cuts hours then minutes from download times. Diminishing returns.

After years of waiting, DSL is making it's way to my neck of the woods in 6 months time, and the ipStar satellite now has spot beams on NZ. So I'll certainly dump multilink when I can (not least because it's cheaper than 2 lines + 2 accounts).

Go for the shotgunning method if you can, even a 1-2kbyte increase can mean hours if you are downloading something huge. I used to do close to 11gb a month on dialup, so I know what that "tiny" speed increase can mean.

My ISP is Earthlink. I don't know if they support multilinking. Then I got to thinking -- damnit -- I may have to pay $42/mth now. If I want two accounts (I believe, at least in olden days, ELN would let you sign on twice, but would charge like $6/hr on the second connection) that's like $22/mth. I guess I could switch to NetZero or something where 2 accounts = $$ of 1 ELN account.

I guess I need to call ELN and a couple of other ISPs.

Question: On the "server" PC, like in Dial up networking, you can now "bridge" connections in Windows XP. Is that what I would want to do? i.e. turn on sharing on both, then bridge them?

BTW: I ALWAYS get 5.3K sustained downloads. Bandwith efficieny is 100% lol. So I'd REALLY be looking at 10.6K.

For having dialup, I have good dialup.

To start with, bridging is NOT what you want to do. Bridging essentially turns your machine into a router, connecting two different networks.

Now as far as dual modems, there is another way, but it has some drawbacks. There are some older devices out there called WebRamps that would allow up to 4 modems to connect to an ethernet network. I only suggest this because they are dirt cheap on ebay now and can be found pretty easily.

Now to the downside. WebRamps support binding of multiple lines (MultiLinking), but only if your ISP does. But, you can still use 2 modems even if your ISP does not support the binding, but what it will do is dynamically connect you on whichever modem has the lowest load. For instance, you start a download and instead of connecting on both lines, it will max out one of them and the other line will get used when you make another file request or browse the web. So, while you wont be able to get a single file any faster. If you download 2 at the same time, they will each get the full, blazing 56k speed. Its not perfect, but it would certainly be cheap.

Brian Taylor

Interesting idea. I ebay'd for one and found two I liked:

- One has no built in modem, but 3 serial ports for modems
- One has 1 V.90 modem, plus 1 serial port for another modem

As I only have 2 phone lines, I'd opt for the V.90+serial, and get jacked on a serial modem I guess.

As far as finding an ISP that supports multilinking, I don't think it'll be possible. I decided if I do this, I'll switch to NetZero and get 2 accounts.

You say I won't get 10.6K, but it'll top one modem out at 5.3K, then switch to the second as needed. Does it dialup/disconnect as needed?

Can I not do this with two PCI modems, too??

Let's suppose I was too lazy to archive a music CD to my hard drive and just decided to download off LimeWire (I use Linux, so this is the best P2P I've found.), if, perhaps, it were to download the same file from multiple sources, would it top each source at 5.3K (if I only had 2 sources)

Also, one of the lines is used for voice, too, and it has call waiting. I would NOT disable call waiting on that line (through dialing rules), if both modems were being used, and I got a call, would it be able to handle dropping one line, while continung the Internet through the second?

Also, this is all seperate from the main computer. This device is a router so how do I turn off dialup all together so I can fax?

kent said:

Let's suppose I was too lazy to archive a music CD to my hard drive and just decided to download off LimeWire (I use Linux, so this is the best P2P I've found.), if, perhaps, it were to download the same file from multiple sources, would it top each source at 5.3K (if I only had 2 sources)

Also, one of the lines is used for voice, too, and it has call waiting. I would NOT disable call waiting on that line (through dialing rules), if both modems were being used, and I got a call, would it be able to handle dropping one line, while continung the Internet through the second?

Click to expand...

Only if your ISP and your modems support v.92 protoclol will you be able to have some form of call waiting with your PC without buying some sort of external hardware device.

I am not 100% positive on this, but I'm pretty sure two seperate ISP accounts will not let you do multilinking. Multilinking is done through one ISP account.

My ISP is Mountainet and they let me do multilinking all day long. They are a small back-woods ISP that loves UNIX (great ISP too I might add) I would think Earthlink would support something like this, just call and ask before you buy another modem. Simple as that.

I work for an ISP that supports V.92 and multilink-ppp, and we have a customer that is shotgunning two modems in windows xp (not sure wether its home or pro) but you can do it directly through dial-up networking once you install 2 modems. But I'm pretty sure all you really need is multilink-ppp on the ISP's side, but V.92 is nice.

What national ISPs support multilinking?