Bonding 2 WAN Connections for faster streaming

RouterOS Forwarding Protocols
1

Hey,
I have a media server stuck on a 3 mb UP vDSL line. I thought about about bonding this WAN with a different ISP LTE router 10+ mbps UP, though not steady. (It can drop to below 5 sometimes)
I found that Mikrotik’s Hex router can do that with it’s MPLS capability, but I don’t know how exactly. I’m sure I’m missing something somewhere. Also Load balancing won’t work as it’s 1 connection/stream.

  1. can this be done?
  2. Don’t I need some software/hardware on the client end? How will the media player which’s connected to the DSL IP accept packets sent from the LTE IP?
    I can’t wrap my head around it. lol

Thanks all for help.

2

Some one correct me but:

I am afraid it it not possible as long as you only have one stream: Bear with me on this one.

Not speaking MT just saying:

L2 Bond with or without bonding protocol: One Stream has to take the same path as long it is available, this is due to not have packet out of order problems. In all essens sending unit is responsible to identify streams of packets at the level of smartnes it can. and then it can make promise on not breaking that stream. Bonded Interfaces have to have the same speed (with LACP). I recommend Only using LACP when bonding as it detects faults and disable links that are not compatible.

L3 ECMP in L3 routing ingress packet independent on stream is equally cost multi path routed to the destination this is to balance over all available paths. Mr IP is in charge here.

So for one stream in L2 only one interface will be used (if not the devices at both end of the bond is L7 enabled and understand different sections in protocols then there is another picture here.
L3 one stream of packets has one source and one destination. this destination can then be ECMP routed in a enviroment. This will do the jobb for most kinds of UNICAST traffic not MULTICAST but can be inherently hard to diagnose and error prone if one path is not functioning and other means of checking the paths BFD such is not used.

Take this knowledge and apply to your problem.
Use only the faster connection and have the slower connection as a pure failover. Its better with connectivity than no connectivity.
But bonding with asymetric lines would give you strange results to say the least. The L3 ECMP path is not easy either as the lines are not Equal and should not be configured as equal.


For the second question. Yes to do what ever fashion you have to control both ends of the communication. Off course this doable by overlay over other transports but the above knowledge will take you there.

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And by saying it is Doable is NOT saying I would recommend it!. Again take the above mentions knowledge and put it at your problem.

4

Hey Jimmy. Thanks for the reply. I control both ends of the connection and I can cap 2nd WAN to 3 mpbs to prevent TCP reordering problems. After all it’ll at least allow me to stream HD content, which I’m unable to do right now. 1. will it work in this case considering it’s a stream? L2 or L3?
2. Can you direct me more specifically about “overlay over other transports”?
3. Do I need to use ML-PPP to achieve this?

Sorry for all the questions, it’s a hobby for me and I’m not familiar with all the technical terms in this field.