Is it possible to combine internet networks?

Hard to describe what I'm asking, so I'll try to do it simply...
Say you're out in public and find 3 open, unecrypted wifi networks (just ignore the ethics of stealing internet, etc, for now... Assume they are given out freely).

Say each network gives a download speed of 35kb/s. Is it possible to somehow use all three, simultaniuously, to attain a speed near 100kb?
I know with OSX you can only select one network to join, but I was wondering if there was some workaround software someone has created I haven't been able to find? Surely I'm not the first to wonder this, but I couldn't find anythign in a search.

Thanks much.

 

I think it's possible, although I don't think theres an easy of doing it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Load_Balancing

You'd probably need more than one wireless card since I don't think you can associate with more than one AP at once, although it might be possible under linux with special drivers and stuff.

Basically each time you open a new connection, the next network connection you have available is used. e.g. if I set it up and connected to two networks then initiated a download with a download manager like Getright, I could run segmented downloading and have the first connection download one part and the second connection the other, effectively using all the bandwidth available.

Again, its possible, but I dont think theres a simple "HowTo: Network loading balancing on Windows XP"

Also, try looking up round robin equalization.

 

Windows Vista will let you do it but it is kinda hard to set up and doesn't give you that much of an increase. But it does do what you are trying.

 

Well, on a related note, I"m on Mac OS X...


Interesting to note that it's slightly doable, it does sound like apain though.

Shame, I was hoping for an easy solution, but I didn't really expect one though....

 

You can't do it without multiple wireless cards on any OS, and in general it's a pretty hairy thing to handle. There isn't an easy solution for having multiple addresses on the Internet

 

I actually will argue with that... when I want through training on vista before it was released, we played with this feature... they did it because of the ability to have multiple ad-hocs connected at once, creating a virutal AP... with the way vista is built, it is able to actually handle doing this with multiple ap's... it is difficult to do but can be done. When you get about 30 geeks in a room with 20 machines with vista on them with wireless cards, we are bound to hack something and we had two wireless networks connected at once so we could do that but with Mac OS, I am not sure. haven't had long enough to play with it.

 

it might be possible. I remember waaaaaaaay back in the day, probably 1995 or 96, diamond technologies came out with a "shot gun" modem, that allowed you to get ISDN speeds using two standard phone lines, two ISP accounts and the hardware of course.

All it essentially did was combine two analog 56K connections.
this is definitely doable, but i'm not too sure how you would tackle it.

 

Back in the mid-1990's we used install multiple NICs in the NT servers and bind different protocols to them to separate the traffic. Way back in the 1970's and 80's we used to combine ISDN lines to build up capacity. In reality, they were both gimmicks to try to get a little ahead of the current state of the technology at the time. Seems the more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

Okay,... i got two wireless connections on my laptop. usb and a card. Is there a way to get both to connect?

 

At the same time? For what purpose?