 Welcome back to my YouTube channel. This is Daniel Rosell here. I want to do a video today. I'm running through my whole series of videos about backup internet connectivity I'm gonna call this one how to get really reliable home internet. The reason I'm doing that is I'm trying to target people or help people with this information who may not even have heard of back over internet or fail over internet They might not be familiar with those keywords. But that is what I'm gonna be talking about in today's video Now I did a whole series of videos about this in the summer and surprisingly those got a relatively decent amount of views and comments and emails and alongside that. I've just been seeing a lot of talk on Social media mostly on Facebook groups people Frustrated with their home internet and you know, how can I do better with my home internet? Which makes sense because I guess the work from home workforce has just mushroomed Since the pandemic it used to be something that the few people with remote jobs And maybe freelancers were working from home. I've been doing this this lifestyle for Four years now there are bites and now it's like everybody now. It's like who's not working from home It's probably the people with hybrid jobs in their in-office day are and not at home and the rest of us are so Dramatic dramatic shift and that definitely poses a challenge on the internet infrastructure because no one really envisioned this Including in places like where I live Paradoxically in Israel the high-tech capital of the Middle East the internet infrastructure is still kind of somewhat old-school In Jerusalem relatively central the best internet connection I can get at the moment for my money is VDSL with the like three megabit per second upload speed So fiber isn't even widely available. Yes, even though they're supposedly working on that quickly. So when you're dealing with internet being Delivered over the last mile by these technologies and that's an important thing to know about the internet that these kind of technologies DSL coaxial, they're really last mile technologies the backbone of the internet Runs on fiber and it runs even through national switches all the way It's going being carried on fiber until it gets really close to to the actual subscriber Slightly different in in commercial internet connectivity But for the kind of residential internet that you or I might have and we're struggling with oftentimes the reason as well There is more demand on the network and in many cases. We're dealing with also Infrastructure that is just not that great and that combination can pose a lot of problems in terms of Throttling and slow speeds etc. So alongside all these chats about internet connectivity I've been seeing somewhat I would consider to be pretty lousy advice being a battered about on Facebook You know people say oh my my internet goes down for 30 minutes a day What should I do and people say? Oh, you know just just get rid of the internet. Just use use a use a hotspot for your phone and internet connectivity cellular internet connectivity Does have a role in home connectivity or can have a role and actually in the setup. I'm going to talk about here It leverages the power of or the power the existence of cellular connectivity If you live somewhere out in the sticks like, you know, somewhere really far out in the Australian outback It might be your only option or satellite might be your only option But if you live in an urban center, there's a general, you know as a general rule in Technology, it's better to get stuff over a wire than it is through the air So that applies to ethernet versus Wi-Fi it apply it applies even in the world of microphones wired microphones versus wireless microphones If you want reliability, it's generally best up for a wired connectivity source So my the connection I've designed or the network architecture. I've designed Leverages both a wired internet which is DSL and it requires and it leverages cellular But only is a backup and I'm going to talk in this video about how anyone can set that up for themselves at generally pretty low cost And I'm going to be just overlaying some Diagrams throughout this video. So you won't have to watch me talking here in my home office for 40 minutes But I'm going to try go through everything in this video that somebody interested in setting this up in their house Might want to know so basically what we're going to be doing or talking about is something called internet failover and what that means is that We're going to have one internet connection a Primary and if that goes down or is interrupted it's going to fail over Hence the name failover to a secondary internet connection It is not the same thing as Connection bonding and this is a common source of confusion even among the home networking world and YouTube for that matter where people will think they're doing connection bonding But they're not actually bonding connections Connection bonding is a more advanced you could say perhaps It involves the similarity is that you're going to be using multiple connections But it requires some infrastructure in the cloud outside of your home network in order to Bind together the packets as they go out to the internet and then split them off to the different Wide area networks to the different internet sources. So there is a software called speedify and I've reviewed speedify on this channel and That's that's that's good. It's basically it kind of looks like a VPN from the outside But what it actually is doing is the speedify provides the infrastructure To do that combination of packets So in other words, let's just take this down a technical level when you're going to have internet coming in from different sources And that's going to be speedify will pull them together and give you one internet connection now This might sound very esoteric But connection bonding is actually very very useful. It's used widely for years in broadcasting So if you're doing a video link up with a correspondent in Kabul or something You don't want to rely on one shaky cell phone signal. So There's been a market for this stuff for years these little hardware devices that will literally tether together Three or four mobile networks or one satellite plus two mobile networks, and they'll give you one really robust connection There's two separate benefits to to connection bonding that are actually different one is Speed connection bonding will give you Will generally aggregate is or is capable theoretically of aggregating connectivity So if you have a 10 megabit per second line and a 10 megabit per second line, it can give you 20 But there's actually another main Quite a significant benefit and that's that it's failover is typically instant Which means that if you're dealing with a hardware device, which is what we'll be talking about today for Putting together different internet connection sources that that process of failover itself of okay The hardware has to have some means of checking each connection So that when one line goes down it says hey, this line is down Let's go to line to that sometimes isn't instant instantaneous and even if it is instantaneous on the application layer on the On the network layer. Sorry on the application layer. It sometimes is not so that what that means again in simple language is that you might be braising Google Chrome watching a video and Your failover device might swap the connection But that might take 10 seconds before the video starts playing again Whereas with connection bonding theoretically it's instant and if you view speedify you can get that so speedify is a decent option and The reason I'm I'm use this set up personally is that It's kind of once you have it Deployed you own your own hardware you have to pay for an additional internet connection Which is a cellular connection, but once you've got all that stuff set up. You're kind of good with speedify. It is a proprietary Technology by a third party technically, I'm sure they will say the privacy policy is locked in but you know They are you are passing all your DNS queries and internet data through The through their system and from a privacy standpoint that would kind of make me uncomfortable take away the cost perspective So what I've done is set up a load balancing router on my network now It doesn't have to be a load balancing router, but that's the first thing you're going to need to set this up. So Just to step back again for a second What this system I'm going to describe is doing is called failover. It's not the same as as Connection bonding because we're not actually bonding the connections in the cloud We're just going to have a few redundant connections or actually if you're just using two you've got one redundant connection Bringing that into your home or business and that means that when connection one fails you can go over to Connection two so what you need to make this work failover, but we're not combining the connections. That's important You can do load balancing With these connections and that means that you know, you can say hey, I want all my Skype Traffic to go through this wide area network through this internet connection source I want all my internet traffic to go through this one But again, it does not equate to connection bonding for reasons that I hope are now a bit a bit more clear Okay, so failover and how I do fail over on my network. So the first thing that you need is a internet router and A router is actually a router and modem these days almost always That has multiple wan ports now when you look at the back of your average internet writer You're going to see usually they're color-coded And if they're not color-coded they have labels LAN local area network These are where you plug in ethernet cables for your local devices And you're going to have typically one port that says wan wide area network And that basically is if you have an upstream source of internet You're going to put the router into that and then you're going to connect your downstream appliances there now That's not going to work for a failover setup because you're we're going to need to put multiple Wans on the network. So I'll tell my network diagrams in a second. What I have done is I have my ISP router My ISP supplied router which I keep on my network because if they want to support Issues on their network, they are able to remotely log in and check out my settings But you technically that that steps optional You could actually skip your ISP router and you just would need to find a multi-wan writer That had a modem that was compatible with your ISP and to put in the settings for the sake of simplicity I've decided not to do that and I keep the ISP writer on my network the next thing that I Did was I added a 4g cellular writer to my network now here's Here's the thing. Here's why I've sort of given the theory if you will of failover internet And that's that that second connection doesn't have to be cellular that could be satellite that could be it could be another DSL connection or you could go DSL and coaxial essentially what we're trying to do here is orchestrate a situation in which you never don't have a viable internet connection so The best way to think about it is What combination of connections even if that's just two is going to make it as Least likely as possible that they're both connections will ever not be available. So I kind of actually like mobile and I Like mobile mobile and wired because of the fact that they're being delivered through different infrastructure one is coming from a being delivered over the air via a Broadcasting station the other ones coming in through the ground And the reason that is if I don't know some digger cut through the ground and Digged up a bunch of internet cables. They might guess both coax and DSL might be down So that's the reason I've done it like this. I would use satellite for the same reason, but it's just a lot more expensive And you know if you can get a 5g writer in your area or a 5g modem affordably Instead of 4g then by all means do that. The only reason I use 4g. It was just a ton cheaper to get it It was a difference between like a hundred dollars and five hundred dollars for the heart for the writer and The actual subscription would have been pretty similar. So I went for 4g Because the connection is barely in use And I do pay a monthly subscription for a 4g data sim card just for having backup connectivity So the next thing you're going to need after you've got your two routers is a multi-wan router now Here's where the terminology gets a bit confusing a load balancing router is Basically any router so you're gonna be using your routers including your ISP router and your 4g router as Bridges you're gonna be using them just as modems and the actual router for the network will be the next device you're putting on there so You you do have to know if you can get a 4g modem versus a 4g writer that's better if you can get a You know VDSL modem. It's just that it's harder to find modems than it is writer modems these days So it's actually often easier just to buy a router and work it as a modem And that's another that's something that you'll have to figure out so after you've done that So you get your two modems then the next thing is going to be your actual router now What this can be basically any any router that has multiple wan ports you have a few options here one You have a multi-wan router And they do make these for like gamers. They're basically consumer routers that broadcast Wi-Fi But they're gonna have multiple wands and they're gonna have a load balancing feature That's one product category next product category is going to be a load balancing router is and these are kind of business hardware Where you know businesses will use these actually in the cloud For balancing incoming connections to a data center But you can use them on your home network too and the final category is what's called a wired router or a VPN router and these are the same things They'll just be writers that can work as writers in your home network But they the difference between them and your average writer is that they've multiple wide area network ports so Get yourself one of those I bought mine for about a hundred bucks. It's a TP link Load balancing router and do I recommend TP link? Actually, I do not I have found this device finicky It seems to be working. Okay now The other options in the space Cisco make ones ubiquity make one Me Cree talk, I know I'm pronouncing that wrong. They do one as well. So you've got a few manufacturers and I think Mickey Mickey Mickey truck. I think it's called I think they're the more kind of customizable one and a lot of people really like ubiquity I've had TP trouble with TP link supports and I haven't found them that good So I can't really recommend TP link hardware personally, although it's what I have now It was what was easy for me to guess and it does work, but I wouldn't be buying it again So then what you need to do is basically connect your multiple internet modem routers Into the next piece of gear, which is going to be your whatever whatever you've bought for this aspect So that can mean whether it's your your load balancer or it's a wired router or it's a VPN router or whatever It's called. It doesn't really matter. You'll find these in IT networking You'll find these you might find a load balancing router in your local computer store if you do not Go to an enterprise IT supplier and explain what you're trying to do and they will have them There's another company called Dre-Tec I should have mentioned and Dre-Tec do interesting products because they actually typically when you get into this world of multi-wan routers There's a few more manufacturers. I'm forgetting about but when you get into this world of or this product category People the manufacturers don't put Wi-Fi Into the router is the reason for that is these are typically used in businesses And businesses it's more typical to separate out the components So you're gonna have your modem then you're gonna have your router Then you might have your access points or access points downstream broadcasting Wi-Fi So in a business environment, it's more typical. So that's the only reason For that, but it's just important to know what you're buying if you if you want to minimize your hardware And I actually Recommend doing the opposite I actually think the approach of separating out the components like business networking do is actually a lot more smart The reason for that is it's more modular So if you if 5g writers come down in price and you decide hey Let's upgrade to 5g for the cellular So you just buy it by yourself a 5g writer and you take the 4g one off the network If you have something like a Dre-Tec that has built-in 4g and This built-in modem and that built-in modem and built-in Wi-Fi then you're stuck with whatever is in that product So although it was initially tempting to me to buy something like a Dre-Tec the more I thought about it I Realized it's actually better to separate out the components That's my opinion. Anyway, so get yourself your load balancer. So let's just roll back to where we are so far We have our We have our ISP router. We have our cellular router. We have our load balancer and Now you just need to set this up. So because we're not talking about a specific product It's gonna be different for each product, but basically they make it fairly easy. I've done videos on how to set up load balancing on the on the TP-Link ER605 It's not super difficult. You basically get your 1-1 and 1-2 connections running and you've that sometimes is the tricky part to make sure you've got the Routers actually set up as modems and you know, there's no IP conflicts Once you're there, it's typically quite easy You just create a backup rule and my backup rule just says look if the primary is not available go to the secondary Know what I do is I periodically do spot checks Once every few months I go into the transmission log And I see how much the load balancer is pulling from each wide area network And what I'm looking for is a little bit from the backup if there's no pull from the backup whatsoever I would suspect that it's not working. There's a problem What I see typically is 1% or 2% usage from the backup internet connection and that tells me that everything is good so Now we can connect everything to the load balancer and that means Wired internet computers that means ethernet switches basically you build your network from Whatever hardware device we put in that's going to be doing the load balancing. That's the starting point Everything upstream is just modems and combining connections So if you're gonna invest anywhere probably invest in this piece get yourself like a big big wired Broadband writer with lots and lots of switches Etc that would be my advice And what I have in my network is I actually have oh it's get it gets complicated I have a Wi-Fi router on the end firstly. I have a couple of ethernet switches They're running into my computer my NAS my Whatever else is wired on my network Then I have a Wi-Fi Router to broadcast Wi-Fi, but that's only actually running as and that's running in access point mode So you're gonna need a writer that either you can configure as an access point or that has an access point mode TP links writer, which is what I'm using actually has access point functionality So that's bringing out a Wi-Fi network and connecting everything wireless so your wireless printers and your Smartphones connected the internet and your tablets all connect through the writer and the writer pulls connectivity from the load balancer and the load balancer pulls connectivity from Your various ones that's how this all works and I even have just to show you how far you can take this I have another access point off the router. So to extend the network. It's one of these You know TP link things obviously if you can do Actual APs wired APs that's preferable if you're a renter then you can do something like set up a mesh network or use APs right the house and You can keep going at infinite and basically you're just bringing your playing with networking You're you're taking it everything to the router and from the router You can either connect directly to the writer or you can put an AP Etc etc and carry your network out That's it And it works really well. I used to have daily internet outage There was like daily downtime from the ISP the other ISP was also sucky So I was like well if one is bad and two is bad and one and two of my only options. What can I do and I couldn't think of a solution and then I went on this rabbit hole And I'm honestly glad that I did because the internet now basically never goes out I don't watch what's going on in the network because I don't really care if it's coming from ISP one or ISP two I just go into the spot check thing periodically to make sure it's working and That's it. So I think this is I mean in terms of the costs of this setup We're talking total costs one time a cap X. Let's look at cap X capital expenditure by the hundred bucks for a 4g writer hundred dollars their give or take Your load balancer might be in other hundreds. This is all cheap. You get a core spend more But let's just look at it on the minimal end of things So by two hundred dollars worth of hardware there and then op-ex your operational or ongoing expenditure. You're talking about probably I'm paying like 15 bucks a month for a 4g data sim to just just for backup That's all it does literally it sits in the writer and is waiting for the main network to go down so that it can back up The primary connectivity so cap X of 200 and op X of about $15 per month recurring So not expensive and I think that if you are running a home-based business, which is what I'm doing Which is what my wife is currently doing for the most part? you know and you Internet connectivity is your It's everything if you don't have that you can't work you can't you can't do zoom meetings You can't collaborate with people. I think it's a really it's kind of a no-brainer in an ideal world You would need to do this We just have would have great internet connectivity from ISPs and maybe they'd be They'd already be sort of you know have this Failover built in and they'd never go down, but until we get to that point This is one way to work around that final thing to say is if your internet goes down It's one thing. What if your power goes down so Power backup is another thing you can do if you want to really take this to the ninth degree. So Typically writers are low draw devices can't say the same thing for computers, but if you want to keep your internet going in the event of long power outage, whatever So a UPS is the very obvious answer a uninterruptible power supply now Writers you can measure them by buying a kilowatt and you can see firsthand that they draw almost nothing So that's the first thing is you can probably run all your networking Hardware off one UPS. Now, maybe that's a bad idea if it is you can let me know in the comments I don't think it's a bad idea. That's I think if they're all co-located In one physical box, just go ahead and do it, but you could also do one UPS for each each Writer and that would mean Power drops. Well, you're gonna have now you're gonna have backup internet and the backup system is gonna run as long as all Two modems and one load balancer can keep powered and I forgot the Wi-Fi writer its own total for this setup I'm describing. I'm actually using four pieces of hardware. There's the ISP writer, there is the Load balancer There is the cellular writer and finally there's the writer and if there's the actual Wi-Fi writer And finally, there's the AP if you want to add that so really five So it kind of a lot of gear, but you know it does the trick So I think that's really all there is to say about us If you're really concerned with getting Internet that doesn't go down you could of course take this further you could you could have four internet connectivities coming into a you know a load balancer with four ones and Then you have no, you know but I think I think the diminishing returns is really gonna set in after two because the chances of your Wire network and your mobile Provider your MVNO going down at the exact same time already looking at a very very small percentage Over just having a single connection and I think adding three or four connections are gonna be adding more subscriptions more expense I don't think for most home users. It would be worthwhile Hope that video was interesting. Feel free to shoot me a comment in the comment section below Thank you guys for watching to get more videos from me. Please subscribe to this YouTube channel You