EVDO used for redundant connection?

[charloscarlies]

Is this possible? I work from home and my cable company's service has generally been beyond terrible. I have no other options where I live and outages cost me a lot of $$ during working hours, so I absolutely need to do something different.

My question is can I just buy an EVDO router and plug it in along w/ my cable connection? If so, is there a noticeable lag time if one connection drops or is the bandwidth routed simultaneously? Are there any better options I'm just not thinking of?

I really appreciate any help because I'm at my wits end w/ this thing.

 

[drebo]

Your best bet would be to upgrade to a business class service with an enforcable SLA.

That way, you have some recourse when your connection goes out.

 

[charloscarlies]

i considered that, but given how much more they cost it wasn't that attractive to me.

the other problem is don't they just credit outages based off the monthly rate? from what i've seen i know they "guarantee" 99.9%+ uptime, but even outages that last a minute or two is enough to cost me significant sums of money (i play online poker fwiw). while i probably should consider a business class service at some point, i absolutely need some kind of backup that will get me back on instantly.

would my solution even work?

 

[drebo]

Is the amount of money you lose in a month more or less than the increase cost of a business-class account? If it's more, then the answer's a no-brainer. If it's less, then you probably will just want to deal with it.

Now, that's entirely besides the point, being that most cellular broadband services run $40-$60/mo anyway, which is probably much more than the difference in cost between residential cable and business-class cable.

As far as simply dropping another router in...your computer's connection to the outside world would not automatically switch over unless you were using some kind of advanced router features like Cisco's HSRP or IPv6 anycast would do it as well. So, no, it probably wouldn't work the way you're thinking.

 

[kevnich2]

How much extra is a business class connection? Just to let you know though, a business class connection really isn't anything different than a residential except that you usually get higher download/upload options and you have better support if it goes down, but it has just as much of chance of going down as a residential. In my opinion, only way to make sure your totally good to go is have redundant options. Depending on how close you are to the tower, an EVDO connection might work just fine for you. As far as the lag, right now I can't tell you how quickly a router will switch the connection over if the cable connection drops off. I'll test mine tonight and I'll let you know what I find out. I will say this, there is a speed difference between my cable and an evdo connection and web browsing is a little slower, but it still works.

 

[RebateMonger]

Isn't the OP going to lose any current game connection? Since he/she would now have a different IP address after the switchover, I imagine that any current game would go bye-bye.

 

[kevnich2]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Isn't the OP going to lose any current game connection? Since he/she would now have a different IP address after the switchover, I imagine that any current game would go bye-bye.

That's what I would think, the traffic would be taking a different route entirely. Normal web browsing wouldn't have any effect but what he's doing I would think would have an effect.

 

[charloscarlies]

That's what I would think, the traffic would be taking a different route entirely. Normal web browsing wouldn't have any effect but what he's doing I would think would have an effect.

wow that's something i didn't even think of. on pokerstars i think they allow like 45-60 seconds to reconnect though, so i would think that *should* be enough but i dunno what changing the IP itself would do. i probably should e-mail their support and see...although i'd be really surprised if i got a decent answer from them.

 

[Goosemaster]

so you're planning on gambling and having your IPs switch while you play. Let them know asp lest them ban you for trying to rip them off or something.