router for two internet service providers

I have two internet service providers (Spectrum and Altafiber).  Spectrum is a cable internet connection that is hardwired to my computer and uses a google nest router and Altafiber is wireless wihich uses it's own wireless router hooked up through the phone line.  I set up my wireless devices to pick up either one as needed.  Spectrum is the main service i use because it's faster but it's more prone to service interruptions than AF which is why i also have AF.  

I just found out that there are routers that can support two internet connections.  How does that work.  Does it automatically use the strongest and then switch to the other provider if that fails or does it somehow use both internet services at the same time?

If it's the latter, could someone recommend a good router for this that wouldn't break the bank and wouldn't be too complicated to set up?  I know a little but i'm far from an expert in this stuff.

https://www.google.com/search?q=dual+home+network

https://www.google.com/search?q=Multi-Homed

I stumbled upon routers that support dual internet connections when I faced constant drops during work calls. These routers usually operate by prioritizing one connection over the other and seamlessly switching if there's an issue.

This issue is ridden with the iron triangle problem

You have three options; Cheap, easy, functional; but you can only choose two

So if you want functional and easy Peplink routers do work. Easy to set up and they work flawlessly, but they are not cheap.
For cheap and functional you could go Mikrotik. They are cheap and functional but are not easy to set up for a beginner.
I havent found any viable cheap and easy options since they would not be very functional.

Hopefully someone else can chime in with their own findings.

Hth!

tfn
 

Several off-the-shelf consumer grade routers can support Dual WAN using failover or LACP (channel bonding) when flashed with third-party open source firmware. However, I'm not sure what kind of bandwidth we're talking about here, the issue would likely be one of bandwidth for ARM and MIPS-based firmware.

If you're not highly experienced with networking, I suggest considering FreshTomato. Historically, it supported ARM- and MIPS-based routers. However, there is now an x64-based version available (though it's only been around a few months). The x64-based version would be practically guaranteed to support multi-gigabit bandwidth WAN connections.

FreshTomato site:

https://freshtomato.org/features.html

Tomato64 site:

https://tomato64.org/wiki/Main_Page

One nice bonus of using Tomato64 is that it now includes some deep packet inspection firewalling features, so can do some nice fancy things in terms of filtering. The Documentation section on the x64 site is listed as a "work in progress", however, you could easily use the Docs on the main FreshTomato site, as almost all features are similar, with few exceptions.

OpenWRT also can support Dual WAN, IIRC either failover or LACP (channel bonding).

DD-WRT also supports this feature, in several different modes.

I recommend Tomato first, as it's often considered the most user-friendly and intuitive, but any one of these can be powerful tools.

Edited by Shplad, 03 April 2024 - 10:36 AM.