Talk Internet

A: Talk Internet Sharedband will aggregate the actual speeds of the lines connected to the service minus a small overhead. For example, if you have two Broadband connections, one running at 2Mbps downstream and the other at 4Mbps downstream, the aggregated performance will be up to 6Mbps downstream. Sharedband aggregates both the upstream and downstream bandwidth.

Sharedband cannot create "new bandwidth" - it aggregates the total Broadband connections and delivers what is actually available at that time. Line speeds are not always as advertised or constant throughout the day or week. Sharedband software tests the line speeds periodically and adjusts the distribution of packets to optimize the aggregated performance. In addition, packet re-sequencing is automatically activated when connections are detected to be very different speeds and latencies.

A: The speed you can expect is worked out by the speed of each line added together with a 10% - 15% overhead. Additionally, Sharedband will deliver a maximum of between 9 to 10 Megabytes despite individual line speeds which may be above this in total.

A: Each Internet device has a small amount of memory to deal with out of sequence packets - the amount depends upon the operating system. On two slow speed lines with large latency differences, this memory buffer is probably sufficiently large to cope with out of sequence packets. However if fast lines are used, or there is a very large difference in latency, it is likely that this buffer will not be sufficiently large resulting in packet loss and poor performance. Sharedband has built-in packet resequencing software that puts downstream traffic back in its original order. However because the routers are doing more work, the over-all maximum throughput is reduced.

A: Customers can set up automatic performance monitoring of lines via the management system they have access to. This entails periodically checking the actual throughput of the lines (rather than what has been bought) and adjusting how much data is sent down each line accordingly. For example if a 2 line deployment showed line 1 was delivering 4Mbps and line 2 was delivering 2Mbps, double the amount of traffic will be delivered down line 1 than line 2. This 'adaption' period can be adjusted from once every 15 minutes to once a day.

A: Sharedband adds 25bytes to each packet which is typically 1.6% of the packet size. In addition, a very small amount of data is used in the line testing process; the frequency of the line testing is adjustable and should be set to a minimum based on the stability of the speed of the lines being pooled.

A: Sharedband can aggregate any type of Broadband connection together. Connections can be the same type (example: leased line/leased line or ADSL/ADSL) or different (example: Cable/Fibre or ADSL/Wireless).

A: Yes, port forwarding (PAT) is supported.

A: Sharedband supports PPTP VPN traffic and IPSEC using L2TP, UDP or TCP protocols.

A: Sharedband will continue to operate if a line is lost and as long is one connection is up, you will stay connected. Bandwidth will be reduced by the speed of the disconnected line until that line comes back on line. This is especially advantageous with applications such as VoIP when a disruption to a single line connection will cause the call to drop.

A: There is no single point of failure and because aggregation occurs at the IP layer, multiple Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Internet backbone infrastructures can be used - significantly improving resilience when compared to a single provider solution.

A: For many businesses, high availability, incrementally scalable and fast connectivity is only achievable by purchasing expensive leased lines and bonded leased lines. Talk Internet Sharedband can aggregate less expensive Broadband connections such as DSL and Cable to provide the speed and reliability of leased lines, or it can be used to aggregate leased lines in an economical, flexible and simple way.

A: This will depend on whether you wish to aggregate existing connections or whether new lines or services, such as ADSL to an existing telephone line, need to be installed. Once the lines to be aggregated are in place, it normally takes less than an hour to install the Sharedband-enabled routers and activate the service. After Sharedband have received your order for its bonding service, routers will be despatched typically within 2 to 3 working days.

A: typically have delivered Sharedband enabled routers (one per line), a quick install guide and configuration details.