Bond two different ISP

RouterOS General
1

Hi All,

Unfortunately I’m not a very experienced on Mikrotik, I have used it for a while connected to one ISP. Mikrotik model 951-2n.
So my situation is as follows:
First ISP I’m using have ADSL connection thru ADSL modem, set to bridge. Mikrotik configured to use PPPoE, static IP address, no port restrictions.
Second ISP I’m using is a cable ISP, using a cable modem with a dynamic IP range. Modem can be set to bridge, but supply new IP regularly. Have external port restrictions. SMTP being one. NOTE!! ISP does not support static IP.

So I want to bond the two together if possible, and route all SMTP traffic over the first ISP (adsl with static ip)

Is this even possible?
And could I please have some help on config examples.

Thank you very much :slight_smile:

2

Impossible to bond those lines. You can balance the load or failover.

3

Ah Crap…
Is it because it is PPPoE and Dynamic IP that makes it so?
What would be needed to be able to bond two ISP’s?

4

So called bonding is not possible with different isps as the same settings have to be made on the other side also. How could do two isps that?

5

When you say “bond”, I think you mean what’s actually called “load balance” - i.e. distribute the load between your two ISPs so that in effect, your devices use their combined speed… That’s what you want, right? Or is this “bonding” thing something else?

To force the SMTP traffic to the first ISP, you can use per-traffic load balancing, and you can use PCC to effectively combine your ISPs’ speeds, by telling the router how many connections to be passed to which ISP, so for example, if both ISPs offer the same speed, you’ll want to give half of all connections to the first, and half for the second ISP.

Keep in mind that with this approach, each connection could theoretically deliver only the selected ISPs top speed (e.g. if each ISP offers 100M/100M, you have 200M/200M for your devices, but even if there’s only one device online making one connection, that one connection will only have a speed of 100M/100M, even if the device is allowed more; the device can still consume more if it makes another connection, which would go to the second ISP).

EDIT: OK… this manual page makes me realize “bonding” means exactly a variant of load balancing that doesn’t have the above drawback. I don’t think what you want is possible though, as each ISP will more than likely not forward packets for a connection that wasn’t initiated through them, plus the remote host requires packets to have the same IP:port combo to count them as the same connection, and your two ISPs have different IPs.