Dual ISPs, 6 routers, and somewhere near 20 computers

So I moved into my friend's place out in Oregon, and I'm trying to solve a good networking problem.

We have a ton of people living here, and everybody is a computer nutjob or something. Just on my floor, there is 8 computers.

We have Verizon FIOS right now, but between the lot of us downloading/uploading torrents, one person playing some online games way too much, and all of our otherwise heavy browsing, we have almost tapped out the 15/15 service from Verizon. So my idea was to bring in a second line via Comcast.

We have a ton of routers here (One for every room a computer is in), but DHCP is disabled on everything except the Verizon actiontec. We run DD-WRT on two of the routers, and the default linksys stuff on another (Those are the three I've played with). We use routers for better wireless signal primarily, rather than switches. However I am very open to buying another router to do what I want, mostly because we want to upgrade our network to gigabit and N networking.

So here is the question then, to make it easy.

How do I successfully bring two ISPs into one router, sharing both internet connections to every computer in the house, but sending the majority of the upload traffic through the verizon ISP rather than comcast?

 

Sorry, but terms get confusing sometimes, FIOS would be used for the downlink, from the ISP to the building AP, right?

 

why not just upgrade your FIOS package to the 50mbit service they offer?

 

They don't offer it here just yet. We can only go to the 20/20, but the cost offset isn't worth it yet.

Wirelessman; Both ISPs would be used for downloading, but Comcast would be used for uploading only on port 80 with one computer, while the FIOS would upload everything else (Torrents, files my roommate sends to his office, and his port 80 which he uses for his job doing php development work).

The reason I would want two sources for download, is both ISPs will cut your download speed the more you upload, so if Comcast is on limited upload, we will get the full download speed. But since we often have half of our upload on FIOS tied up, our download speeds are slowed down.

 

So basically you want to use both routers to surf, but only FIOS router will be used for the heavy download/upload of file/data (torrent, games)?

 

Yup, that's the idea I'm aiming for.

 

You would need a smart multi-port switch with two outputs (to connect with the two routers), and I don't know who does that.

 

Got any good coders in-house?

My first thought on the matter is that basically you're looking for a sort of transparent proxy server with, conceptually, three network interfaces; one to the local subnet (comprising all of the local systems), one to the FIOS network, and one to the Comcast network. Functionally, this server would act as a default gateway router for the local subnet, and would direct each packet received on the LAN to either the FIOS interface or the Comcast interface depending on some set of identifiable characteristics the server could be coded to look for.

If, for example, each and every packet that was sent out for a torrents d/l or u/l or a game could be identified by data contained in the packet header, then the server would/should be able to take that packet, create a data table to relate LAN IP addresses/ports to the FIOS IP address/port, rewrite the packet header source address/port information, and send the packet off on the FIOS network, and then just pass everything else through to the Comcast network. Anything coming back on the FIOS network would be examined, compared against the aforementioned data table, the headers rewritten, and the packet sent out on the LAN to the appropriate computer.

The only drawback (besides having to find or code that sort of application) is that it would impose another small amount of delay on the overall quality of service apparent to, at least, the gamers (which might mean that it might be better to reverse things, use the FIOS connection as the pass-through default, and just have the proxy pick out anything that's light, like surfing traffic, and redirect it to the Comcast network).

 

FIBEROPTIC OR T1 ARE YOUR FRIENDS!

 

Basically, the options for doing this are limited unless you become a true 'autonomous system', as defined by the RFC's and the IETF. Further, unless you have an expensive ISP-grade connection to the Internet, you can't be your own 'autonomous system' with true multihoming. So you, at best, gotta fake it.

My suggestion: Set up a linux box with apache, and 2 network interfaces. One network interface goes to your new Comcast connection, the other goes to the existing network you have set up.

Instead of using iptables to bridge the connections together, set up an apache http proxy on the linux box.

Instruct everyone who wants fast web access (and ssh/ftp/etc.) to configure their web browsers to use the http proxy on the linux box. The http proxy will make use of the Comcast connection as the defaultroute to the internet.

All the other traffic, and machines that haven't been configured to use the http proxy, will make use of the existing FIOS connection.

If you want to get fancy, you could also setup the appropriate software on the linux box (with the comcast connection) to support IPsec tunneling, so 'certain' users that you select could have direct access to the Comcast connection bypassing the web proxy.

Basically, if you set things up as above, you give everyone the opportunity to use the proxy for fast web browsing (on the relatively unloaded comcast connection), and the torrents and all the other crap can flood the FIOS connection like what seems to be happening right now. Most email clients, as well, and even ssh clients, can be configured to communicate with their servers using http proxying as well -- but torrents and online games do not work through http proxies.