How To Set Up A Dual WAN Router

With all of us being and staying connected with work and personal relationships online, it has become even more important to remain connected. However, if your internet connection is far from reliable and you are worried of constant drops, then having more than one ISP connection is an absolute must. If you do have more than one ISP connection, you will need a Dual WAN router – These are not as simple as a single-WAN router, and here we will show you how to get the most out of your Dual WAN router and the set up process.

You will have to determine whether you want a failover option or a load balancing one. With failover, if your primary Internet connection fails, the secondary one jumps into action, making sure that your work can continue uninterrupted. If you choose load balancing, you will need to configure your router with the speed you get from your internet connections so that the router’s smart technology will then be able to distribute traffic equally on both. As your router will distribute traffic automatically, it has to be aware of the different network speeds, so that the distribution of traffic can be done accordingly.

Set up Process

1. Select failover for a backup network connection or load balancing for bandwidth optimization, data overload prevention, throughput maximization and minimal response times for both your WAN connections.

2. Select your Primary and Secondary WAN.

3. If you choose Failover:

a) Set Time Delay – the delay from the time the router restarts and the first ping packet is transmitted

b) Set Interval time – the lag between two ping packets

c) Set the Failover detection time – the time period set that determines when the primary WAN will shift to the secondary WAN after the primary is disconnected

d) Enable Watch Dog: Enable this setting to keep an eye on the primary WAN connection between the host and the router by sending out regular pings to a dedicated target. If the ping does not reach the target IP address, automatic failover will occur.

e) Target: Target host IP address to where the ping packets will be regularly sent from your router.

4) If you choose load balancing:

Enable routing rules and input data such as:

Remember, load balancing is a great option but if the difference between the two ISP connections is greater than 10Mbps, you should choose the Failover mode.

Overall, dual WAN routers will cost you more money in the long run, as you will be subscribing to two internet connections from separate ISPs, but if being connected online is top priority for you due to work commitments, important business transactions, critical online functions that won’t be able to wait out the delay of a downed internet connection, then owning a dual WAN router as well as having two internet connections will be well worth the cost.