We are usually asked about:

What is the difference between Bonding and Load Balancing?

A Fusion Broadband bonded solution is done at ‘packet level’. This means that regardless of how many connections you are “Bonding” your network only sees one virtual connection. Let’s say you had a “file” that was 100Mb in size, and you had a Fusion Bonded solution that was giving you a 4Mbps uplink connection made up of 4 x 1Mbps services If you were to send this file, it would leave on a 4Mbps connection. All the packets of that single file will flood all the available services at the same time, giving you 4Mbps. A load balanced solution would send the file out on only one of 1Mbps connections. So the fastest connection for that file will be 1Mbps. For more information open the PDF by clicking the button below.

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What is the Fusion System?

The Fusion bonding system (Customer Premises Equipment “CPE”) is a sophisticated device that comes with a number of ports.

We offer two bonding platforms; a rack mount system (Bonded Premium – bond as many lines as you like) and a desktop bonder (nanoBonder – bond just two lines).

The Fusion Broadband CPE is an inline device installed in your premises between your ISP broadband modems and your LAN router or switch. If you have a firewall appliance, our bonding CPE sits on the outside interface (ISP) side of the firewall. We don’t perform any routing, port forwarding etc. We leave that to your Business router.

How does the Fusion system work?

The Fusion Broadband Customer Premises Equipment (“CPE”) is an in-line device installed in your premises between your ISP broadband modems and your LAN router or switch. If you have a firewall appliance, our bonding CPE sits on the outside interface (ISP) side of the firewall.

We present you with a standard Ethernet connection for your network, just like the one from your typical ADSL modem. The bonding appliance (Bonder) breaks files down at packet level to be sent out on each one of the connected services. The Bonder creates a tunnel back to our data centre where all the “packets” are re assembled together by our high performance packet reassembly engines. From there, the file is then sent onto the public Internet via one of our many high speed connections.

Is installation complex? Will someone come into install Fusion Broadband?

No. Fusion Broadband is very easy to install. You don’t need to be an IT professional. The setup and installation is a a matter of plugging the Bonder in and turning it on. You will receive a customer specific installation sheet showing easy step by step instructions. However if you still require assistance, we will be available via phone or email to assist. On site professional installation services are also available through our resellers.

Installation is generally quite easy. The “Bonder” sits between your ADSL modems (in full bridge mode) and your Router/Firewall. The only settings that you need to change on your router is the WAN IP address. This will be changed to the Bonded IP address that is issued by Fusion. You may also need to change your DNS resolvers. We typically recommend that you use Google – 8.8.8.8 / 8.8.4.4

I need an additional broadband connections how does Fusion Broadband help?

Fusion Broadband does not provide ADSL broadband connections. There are several carriers that do an excellent job at this so we leave it to them. We do however have many thousands of tests of connections all around Australia and can certainly point you in the direction for sourcing the best performing connections.

Is this new? How many people use bonding to increase the speed of their connections?

Packet bonding is not new. We have been bonding connections in Australia since early 2010 and are the only provider of a carrier neutral bonding solution. Our technology is in its 4th generation of development and is managing many hundreds of business customers all over Australia. Our hardware platforms are very robust and are designed for business use. Our systems can have options of Quality of Service, where real time traffic is given priority over the connection (ideal for Video and VoIP), as well as Data Compression to even further enhance your broadband connection.

What do I need to purchase?

The Fusion Broadband service includes the Fusion Bonding system (CPE) to bond your existing and new broadband connections. You may need to purchase an ADSL modem for each ADSL service you are bonding. The Fusion Broadband CPE is included in your monthly fee insuring you against platform and technology obsolescence. For the life of your contract, Fusion Broadband will upgrade your Fusion Bonding system and software as needed.

Your business router will need to accept an Ethernet WAN connection and if you are bonding ADSL you will need one (1) ADSL Modem in Full Bridge mode for each connection.

What happens if one of the broadband lines fails?

If any of the services that you have connected through Fusion Broadband fails, the system will automatically keep supporting your network. There will be no disruption to your service except that your bandwidth will drop a little from the lost connection. When the failed service comes back up it will be automatically reconnected usually within 5-10 minutes just to make sure it’s really back online and performing well.

Does this compare to a Leased Line service?

YES. Fusion Broadband is a great alternative to a leased line service. As far as your network is concerned, it is a leased line – without the excessive costs! The benefit is that your ‘virtual’ leased line is not dependent on one single line, so network uptime is much better with a tremendous increase in speed for less cost.

How much bandwidth can I get through bonding?

Quite a lot. Our standard customer appliance will bond up to 5 connections. We can expand this to cater for up to 20 connections. A simple way of working out how much bandwidth you need is to add the sustainable speed of all the connections bonded and take away 10% for overhead. This is the speed you will receive for non-compressible data. If we have compression turned on and the data is compressible, the speeds could be up to four times this amount.

Where can I find your Technical Information?

If you are interested in the finer technical details of Fusion Broadband bonding, they can be found here.

Can I bond 3G/4G connections to ADSL?

Bonding 3G/4G cellular connections together is difficult to do. The main reason is that 3G/4G connections are very unstable insofar as speed is concerned. From minute to minute the speed of a cellular connection goes through massive variations. This has an impact on the level of bonding efficiency. As a guideline we don’t recommend bonding multiple 3G/4G connections together if the service is serving 1-2 users. However if your office has a greater number of users there can be a benefit where we can as we can spread the session load over all the connections (using multiple carriers would be preferable in this case too).

Can I bond Point to Point wireless connections together or to ADSL?

Yes you can! Point to Point Wireless services are usually quite stable and can bond very well; in fact this is a great way to go! Most wireless services come with an ADSL back up link in case of failure. So why not use it? You can get the benefit of both technologies, with seamless failover between them and with the added benefit of having access to the bandwidth of both all the time!

What do I need to do to my existing network?

Nothing! The Fusion Broadband system will present to your network a single Ethernet connection. In most cases there are little changes to your existing network or systems. All you will have is a new public IP address/range issued by Fusion Broadband. Any existing IP addresses you have become redundant.

What speed can I expect from a Fusion Broadband connection?

Fusion Broadband will bond all your connections together, not load balance (there is a difference). The final speed you will see will be the sum of all your connected services less about 10%. Remember that stated performance is most often not real actual speeds. So if your provider says that your connection is ADSL2+ and you can have 24mbps downlink and 1mbps uplink, this is only if everything is perfect. For example, you are inside the exchange, you have a 1:1 contention ratio on all elements of your connection and the quality of the line is optimal. The quality of your broadband connections has a direct impact on the level of bonding efficiency. If your ADSL services are 100% stable then you will see close to 100% efficiency. If one of your connections is unstable in it’s speed it will have an impact of how efficient the bonded result is. A simple rule to go by is if one of your connections has speed fluctuations or 20%, is it safe to assume that this will reduce the bonding efficiency by 20%.

Can I have Fusion Broadband AND run WAN optimisation tools?

YES and this is a great way to go. Here you get the full benefits of both technologies. Faster physical connections and more application efficiency. But don’t forget Fusion Broadband also features compression capabilities in addition to bonding.

Does Fusion Broadband offer any data compression?

Yes. You can have all the data passing through the bonding system compressed. Live site testing has seen that highly compressible data can be compressed up to 400%! Not all types of data are compressible though. JPEG, ZIP file or pre-compressed data will not see much improvement. Other data types like HTTP, text based files, some ftp data, VoIP and some PDF files are very compressible. Generally you can expect to see double the throughput on a cross section of compressible data.

What speed can I expect from a Fusion Broadband connection?

Fusion Broadband will bond all your connections together, not load balance (there is a difference). The final speed you will see will be the sum of all your connected services less about 10%. Remember that stated performance is most often not real actual speeds. So if your provider says that your connection is ADSL2+ and you can have 24mbps downlink and 1mbps uplink, this is only if everything is perfect. For example, you are inside the exchange, you have a 1:1 contention ratio on all elements of your connection and the quality of the line is optimal. The quality of your broadband connections has a direct impact on the level of bonding efficiency. If your ADSL services are 100% stable then you will see close to 100% efficiency. If one of your connections is unstable in it’s speed it will have an impact of how efficient the bonded result is. A simple rule to go by is if one of your connections has speed fluctuations or 20%, is it safe to assume that this will reduce the bonding efficiency by 20%.

What about Latency? Will bonding induce more latency onto my broadband service? And what about VOIP?

Fusion Broadband appliances are built with this in mind. They carry high performance processors and very fast memory to manage latency differences between ISP’s. Moreover each system has a number of algorithms to ensure the effect of latency is minimal. Generally we have seen that latency and jitter is much more stable over a bonded connection than on a single line.

If you are thinking of bonding, then you need more bandwidth as the amount you currently have is limited and insufficient. With this in mind, when you flood an ADSL connection – meaning that you push the connection to it’s throughput limit, as you approach the maximum achievable speed of the connection, packet queuing through the network starts to occur. This then causes the latency of the ADSL service to increase – dramatically. Often a flooded link will show latency at 5-10 times the normal unloaded latency. Our Bonding system is able to detect when this packet queuing event starts to occur and regulate the speed of the specific service to keep latency under control thereby maximizing the user experience.

A 100% flooded ADSL link will suffer a dramatic increase in latency, where a 100% flooded bonded connection will see a much smaller level of latency movement.

If you apply our QoS option on a bonded link, you can further manage and control the quality of the connection and how it behaves for a number of different service types.

Didn’t find the answer?

Fusion Broadband will be happy to answer any of your questions about its broadband bonding service. Complete the fields below and a Fusion Broadband staff member will be in touch with you within one business day. If your preference is for a phone call, please include your number.

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