The mweb solution

[pmurgs]

Ok... so with quite a few of us on mweb :banghead:, I thought I'd provide the details needed to route your BC2 traffic through another isp without dropping your mweb connection :sex:.

Ok, so I got two prepaid accounts from webafrica (traffic does not expire at the end of the month, you keep it until you use it all up). Both use the saix network. One is international, one is local only. The international one is to connect to the master EA servers, and a 1Gb account here should last you forever because BC2 sends so little traffic to the master servers. This account will also help if seacom is down cutting off mweb international traffic. The local only webafrica account is for your game traffic which is actually not that much, since we don't use ingame voip.

Ok, so there are two ways to run more than one internet connection (pppoe connection) through your adsl line. You can either do a software or hardware solution. Both solutions require you to put your modem into bridged mode (or half bridged). This means your modem will no longer login to your isp for you.

The software solution is to use TrafficSplitter (which is the same as RouteSentry, but RouteSentry is old and no longer supported and not as good). Here is the link to the TrafficSplitter thread on mybroadband. http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php/201023-Testbunnies-required-for-my-app-similar-to-RouteSentry?highlight=trafficsplitter

The hardware solution is what I'm using, and that requires a proper router. I use the Mikrotik 750G which I love :hooray:. It's really powerfull for managing throttling of some pc's on your network, multiple pppoe connections, scripting and scheduling plus more. Scoop distribution is the cheapest place to buy one http://www.scoopdistribution.co.za/product_info.php?products_id=916. You can also get the plain 750 model which is cheaper but lacks gigabit lan support. Do not buy the 250G, it won't do the job, its a different type of product.
If you decide to go with a 750G, I can help you with the config. I even have an application I wrote that picks up when BC2 starts on my pc, enables throttling of other pc's on my network by talking to the 750G and then turns off the throttling when BC2 closes on my pc which I can give you if you want to automate throttling.
There is also a popular Linksys modem/router than with a firmware flash, can be used to do this kind of routing.

So assuming you go with the TrafficSplitter software solution. TrafficSplitter is usually used for local and international bandwidth splitting, but allows up to 5 different isp accounts to be used at once. To just route your BC2 traffic through it, you need to edit the route file (Contains list of all south african ip subnets) to only have ip subnets needed for BC2 (remove everything else). If you decide to get both a seperate international webafrica and local webafrica account for routing your BC2 traffic, you will add both of these to TrafficSplitter (in different route files, one for each webafrica account). When you need to use these accounts with trafficsplitter, you can just turn them on in trafficsplitter, and off when done. Your mweb connection for other stuff can stay up all the time.

These are the ip subnets for our local BC2 servers, for the webafrica local only account.

Webafrica Freezone (WAGE BC2 servers, you won't use any of your webafrica local only account cap)
41.185.60.0/24 (/24 means 255.255.255.0 subnet).

HypeGamez servers (MTN backbone)
66.8.59.0/24

Saix servers (saix of course)
196.2.97.0/24

iGame servers (I suggest leaving these for your mweb account to route, as I get better pings through mweb than through webafrica to these, but here are the ip subnets anyway). If iGame ever get prepaid local only adsl accounts, you could use one of those to get a better pings.
41.213.87.0/24
196.2.97.0/24

For international traffic to the EA master servers, to prevent being disconnected with a "lost connection to EA" message. This is for your webafrica international account.
159.153.235.0/24

If you decide to go with this speak to me as this is not an exhaustive tutorial on how to route your traffic and I'll help with questions/problems.

[NiteShade]

Murgs, thats all fine and well, but I cannot afford 2 int'l ISPs at the same time.

We used to run Traffic splitter. We had a Telkom account and a 30gig WebAfrica local account.

[Paul]

Murgs, thats all fine and well, but I cannot afford 2 int'l ISPs at the same time.

We used to run Traffic splitter. We had a Telkom account and a 30gig WebAfrica local account.


This is what I have except I use route sentry. I will be internetless at the end of the month for I don't know how long. But when I do get it back I will have to investigate the best solution. I think I might just stick with this one.

[pmurgs]

Paul, TrafficSplitter is a lot better than RouteSentry, but if RouteSentry is doing the job, then no need to switch.

Shady... in the last 16 days, I've used 30Mbs on my prepaid international account. So 1Gb at this rate should last me a year and a half. So thats about R70 for a year and a half. I've used 500Mbs on my local only account, so thats about 1Gb a month, which is around R15 a Gb. Of course, thats only for one person playing and if you play as much as me. And you only need to use these accounts, when mweb is giving problems, whereas I'm using them all the time, cos the ping is better than mweb.

So just to clear up any possible confusion... for the webafrica international account, only traffic to the EA master servers which is very very little, will go through this account and use cap, you still use mweb for everything else, except game server traffic if you get a webafrica local only account, and then you route the game server traffic, and only that traffic, through the local only account. Rest of the traffic on your network (irc, torrents, teamspeak, web browsing and so on) still goes through mweb. This is how I have my setup working. So basically I am just paying maybe R20 extra a month for premium ping BC2 gaming, with everything else going through poor ping but cheap for lots of downloading mweb.

But, on the downside for you and Leppy, since mweb only allow one login, TrafficSplitter might not work for you, unless you can put your modem in half bridged mode (not all modems support it) and still use it to login to mweb and then just connect to the two webafrica accounts through TrafficSplitter. I've never tried half bridge mode and Phatso once said, it works so-so. If you bought a 750 or 750G, then it would just login to all the accounts (mweb and webafrica local and international), for both you and leppy. You also don't need to leave the webafrica accounts activated all the time with a 750, you can just connect to the box and turn on the webafrica accounts when needed.

But anyway... I just posted this so people have a better idea of what I'm doing, so they can make up their mind easier if they think its worth doing this. The league is coming to a close soon anyway.

[J_Th4ng]

Murgs, thats all fine and well, but I cannot afford 2 int'l ISPs at the same time.

We used to run Traffic splitter. We had a Telkom account and a 30gig WebAfrica local account.




You don't really need to afford 2 international ISPs. The WA accounts that he uses are both prepaid options, at R70/GB for the international, and R15/GB for local. All you need to do is buy 1GB of it. It never expires, and 1GB will last a long time if it's only used to cater for BC2 gaming when MWEB is down.

http://www.webafrica.co.za/adsl/prepaid/

I see that Murgs' suggestion calls for using the WA accounts for BC2 all of the time. However, for MWEB users, it's probably worth having a couple of prepaid WA accounts that you don't normally use, so that you can flip over to them whenever Seacom is down.

[SlipperyDuck]

Aaah, well, I've just sorted out my 1Gb everymonth free from FNBConnect.
Since I have an FNB Cheque account, I get 1Gb free every month for nada, niks, nothinking.

So I will use that one in case of emergerancians. Nothing beats free

[Megageth]

I also bank with FNB, how do you get the free pornwidth?

Nevermind, called and prefer to stay on my current cheque acc option.

[NiteShade]

Oh, I see... you mean just get a prepaid 1 gig account. Makes sense. I'll speak to the better half about it.