Download via DSL & Airport at same time?

[daveIT]

Is there a way to use my Ethernet and my friend/neighbors wireless at the same time to get faster downloads?

 

[mkrishnan]

I'm sure the short answer is probably "no," but the first question is whether you are rate limited by your network connection for whatever you're downloading? That is, are you running at or close to the max speed of the DSL to begin with? If not then using a second network connection is unlikely to help you.

There's no way exactly what you want will be built in at the system level -- if you think of basic services offering you downloading, like getting a file via FTP or HTTP, the service on the other end will have no idea which of your two IP addresses to send each packet of information to.

So if it works for anything, my guess is that it would only be relatively specialized downloading systems like BitTorrent....

 

[daveIT]

I did some Googling and found this program:

IPNetRouter which says it has the following feature:

"Internet Protocol (IP) Multihoming - the ability to use more than one IP interface via Ethernet, PPP, Airport wireless, etc at the same time."

Is this what I need to use wireless and Ethernet at the same time?

The reason I'm asking is I currently have "256K" DSL from which I usually get 30-50K. When I connected to my buddy/neighbor's wireless I was getting up to 190-200K download speeds! He has a cable connection...

 

[benthewraith]

When I connected to my buddy/neighbor's wireless I was getting up to 190-200K download speeds! He has a cable connection...

Wow...dude, sometimes I get up to 400-600K. Sometimes up to 803K. I'm on a 6Mbps cable connection.

Just curious, are you sharing your internet connection with others in your house, because transfer speeds shouldn't be that slow, even on your connection. :S

 

[daveIT]

I'm not sharing my DSL connection. My buddy next door only has one computer. I'm not suree of the speed of his cable service. We live in an older neighborhood in Anchorage I'm wondering if the cables/wires are crappy or something.

If you think this is bad you should see what my parents have...dialup with usually 36.6k maybe 40 on a good day...hahaha!

 

[mad jew]

30-50K with a 256kbps connection seems pretty reasonable. As for the original question, I haven't tried that app you're talking about but I'm a bit suspicious. I've always thought this was impossible. Maybe talk to your buddy about ditching your own connection and paying half his bill to use his connection.

 

[daveIT]

I was thinking about switching to cable, but they bone you if you don't buy their TV package. I use DISH network instead. Maybe I'll bump my DSL up a couple notches...

 

[mkrishnan]

I don't think IPNetRouter really does what you want at all... actually Apple licensed this software ultimately and incorporated it into OS X. If you look more carefully at the homepage, you'll see it has seen limited development since 2003.

In OS X, you can get an internet connection, say over ethernet, and then share it, say via Airport, with other computers, right? Turning your computer into a router. *That's* what multi-homing is for. The whole point of the IPNetRouter package was to function as a software router. Not what you're talking about.... sorry....

 

[dextertangocci]

Off topic, but what is the difference between cable and dsl?

 

[macg4]

Off topic, but what is the difference between cable and dsl?

speed and the way they work. cable goes through the cable lines just like a tv and dsl uses existing phone lines