Two seperate connections but using the same phone number and broadband package

[Benjamin123]

Hello,

I am reaching out for some answers to my question about the possibility of having two seperate connections but connected together under one existing package (so same phone number on both lines). One connection would be to our cottage and another connection to our new dwelling, which they're not far apart.

We are currently receving broadband using an existing copper line and then the network evenly becomes split between the new dwelling and the cottage by using external wireless transmitters (which has worked really well for years), but I am looking to replace the wireless transmitters to something that can be connected together (see full explanation below).

Our plan for next year would be to upgrade our existing broadband package to full fibre and set up & configure a new internet network in the cottage whereby the incoming broadband connection would be connected the same as the new dwelling under one single public IP address obtained by ISP, in our case with BT.

If this isn't possible, then I wondered if the two seperate fibre connections had to be setup simultaneously, is that the configuration for the router to talk to each other (similar to a site-to-site VPN configuration) using the same details provided by the ISP. However, this may mean some additional cost for another broadband package. Could somebody clarify if this is correct? Although, having a seperate ISP connection from a different provider could be a good thing to act as a 'backup line' but this would require some setting up via the network to transmit this between the cottage and the new dwelling in the event of an network outage either by BT or another ISP.

I am open to suggestions and I look forward to hearing all of your responses.

Many thanks,

Ben

[naylor2006]

The problem will be is that when ordering FTTP the UPRN (address) will be the same as each other, so as far as I know two Openreach Fibre lines into one address wont be possible, well its possible but if your out house and house are the same address which I gather they are its going to be problematic.

The way to have two FTTP lines is probably going to be one on Openreach and another one on an alt net, IE a one of the guys who lay their own fibre and backhaul, Gigaclear, Truespeed, Giganet etc etc....you would then have two ONT's. But you'll need to be lucky enough to have two fibre providers, openreach and someone else.....

Then you would perhaps need to convince the 'other' provider to install the ONT into the outhouse and indeed you could then get two decent routers and set them up in a s2s configuration, your ISP routers are not going to do that. But why would you, just run ethernet between the two buildings to join the two networks, you can still VLAN them off from each other, a s2s would send everything back out over the internet and then back in again, you'd just use LAN if you were that close.

Failing that the 'other' provider could install the ONT next to the one in your main house then you could run an ethernet over to the outhouse and place a router in there. Even the alt net provider may not want to install into the outhouse depending on their own decision making.

But anyway, at the moment you are using a method of sharing Copper based broadband between two buildings and its great, why on earth do you want to go for two fibre lines when one will give you 900Mbps or 1.6Mbps?

Just get one fibre line and use the same sharing method you have now or better still run an ethernet from the main building to the outhouse and install switching and AP's there.

[Benjamin123]

Hello @naylor2006 ,

Thank you for your time responding to my question. I have been doing a bit of research myself recently and I think as the setup I am proposing to do would not work 100% effectively without using VPN.

So I have decided to continue to look for a fibre optic broadband package, setup and configure another ER605 router from TP-LINK (added via Omada Cloud) and set up a Site-to-Site VPN connection using IPsec and eventually this should allow to retrieve traffic through a private tunnel from the main house, which then makes the existing outdoor APs we currently use be made redundent.

The other thing I'd be interested is the mode between load balancing and failover, so should one of the ISP networks go down (which thankfully for us it is very unliklely), it should divert the live traffic onto that failing network. I presume that I wouldn't need the external APs for this purpose as the IPsec usually takes care of it, but even if I still use the external APs then it may cause conflicting issues, but not sure if I'm right or wrong here?

I look forward to hearing your or anyone else's thoughts.

Cheers,

Ben