Connecting 2 BT modems to Draytek Vigor 3220. Have I misunderstood?

[rapidewilson]

Hello there, I currently have 2 FTTC broadband lines to my property and my intention was to load-balance these lines.
I purchased a Draytek Vigor 3220 Quad-Wan router as it seems to have the features that I am looking for.

Full disclosure, I'm not experienced with Networking, but I'm trying to learn.

So, currently I have both my homehubs plugged in and verified running with solid speeds.
As I understand it, I should be able to use ethernet from these 2 modems and connect them to WAN1 and WAN2 of the Vigor 3220 for load balancing and output from the LAN connector to my network switch.
I'm beginning to fear that I've made some kind of grave mistake and purchased the wrong device or misunderstood HOW it works.
Currently, I cannot get either line to register on the Vigor.
I've tried using PPPoE as well as Dynamic IP, but to no avail. 
When attempting PPPoE, I've been using the credentials bthomehub@btbroadband.com with the pass of BT, but I feel like I'm barking up the wrong tree. If I'm just passing ethernet over to the Vigor, does it need to use my credentials?

What's got me wondering, is if I enable IPV6 via DHCP(?), that seems to auto configure itself, but IPV4 just isn't working at all under PPPoE, or Dynamic IP.

I feel like I'm either missing something incredibly simple like a setting here or a value there, or I've done a silly and got the wrong kit for the job... or been sillier and totally misunderstood what is and isn't possible in the first place haha

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance,
Alexander Wilson

[licquorice]

You have it completely wrong on many points unfortunately.

First and foremost, load balancing between 2 lines requires them to be configured for load balancing at the ISP end as well as at the customer end , which BT do not support.

Secondly, your homehubs are not modems, they are modem/routers hence the will be performing the PPPoE sessions and routing and natting.

You are connecting 2 routers together rather than connecting a router to a modem. The configuration is totally different.

[rapidewilson]

Hmmm, what's got my head fried is my lack of experience, and the fact that some have been able to do exactly this (Feeding internet over ethernet from a modem/router combo) to this specific model of Vigor and had it work.  Admittedly, I've not seen it done with a BT modem/router.

If under the assumption that you are correct, what would I need to change to get the desired outcome?
Would the HomeHubs have to be replaced for something like a modem-only solution?
I was looking forward to learning about Load Balance and Link Aggregation.

In the essence of learning and 'teaching a man to fish', would you mind explaining a little deeper what's going wrong here?
Is it the fact that I'm connecting 2 modem/routers to a router, as opposed to 2 'just-modems'?
I was under the assumption that it would work almost like my switch where it automatically recognizes the input connections but this router would add the functionality of being able to balance the load accordingly over the two lines.

I may sound stupid to anyone in the know, but it feels like the functionality is there to do what I'm looking for, given that IPV6 is apparently functional, so if anyone can educate me further, I'd really appreciate it!

[licquorice]

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@rapidewilson wrote:

Hmmm, what's got my head fried is my lack of experience, and the fact that some have been able to do exactly this (Feeding internet over ethernet from a modem/router combo) to this specific model of Vigor and had it work.  Admittedly, I've not seen it done with a BT modem/router.

Yes, it can be done. See below.

If under the assumption that you are correct, what would I need to change to get the desired outcome?
Would the HomeHubs have to be replaced for something like a modem-only solution?
I was looking forward to learning about Load Balance and Link Aggregation.

You certainly won't be able to aggregate the links, but you might be able to balance the load from various devices to each of the links.

In the essence of learning and 'teaching a man to fish', would you mind explaining a little deeper what's going wrong here?
Is it the fact that I'm connecting 2 modem/routers to a router, as opposed to 2 'just-modems'?
I was under the assumption that it would work almost like my switch where it automatically recognizes the input connections but this router would add the functionality of being able to balance the load accordingly over the two lines.

I may sound stupid to anyone in the know, but it feels like the functionality is there to do what I'm looking for, given that IPV6 is apparently functional, so if anyone can educate me further, I'd really appreciate it!

---

You are basically creating 2 networks by connecting 2 routers together. The first router (hub) will be routing packets from its public IP address WAN interface (internal in this case as the hub is a combined modem/router) to a device on its private address LAN ports. This is Network address translation (NAT).

If you connect a second router's WAN port to a LAN port on the first router, it will need to have an IP address in the private address range of the first router. The second router will then in turn translate that IP address into a second range of IP addresses that the devices connected to it will use.

E.g, the hub uses the private address range 192.168.1.XXX with a DHCP range of 192.168.1.63  - 192.168.1.253

therefore you need to give the WAN port of the Draytek an address of,say, 192.168.1.10 and its LAN address range in the 192.168.2.xxx network.

If you replace the hubs with standalone modems, it becomes much simpler.

[rapidewilson]

Thankyou for the explanation, I think I understand a little better! Not fully, but it's helped me grasp the concept and give me a direction to learn in.
Whilst I may well replace the hubs with standalone modems in the future, I think I'd like to tackle this challenge and learn how to overcome this issue.
I'll have a play tonight and see if I can sort it. If I manage, I'll post how I did it for anyone else who stumbles across this in the future

[licquorice]

Post back with any further questions you may have.

[licquorice]

Forgot to add, you need to set the Gateway address on the Draytek WAN port to 192.168.1.254

You will need to give each WAN port a different IP address e.g 192.168.1.10 and 192.168.1.20

[rapidewilson]

Thankyou, I'll try this out when I get home. I'd come to that conclusion about the second bit, but I'd have likely not realised the gateway thing until an hour of frustrated niche google searches later haha!