Raspberry Pi Bonded Router Boosts Speed for Rural Networks

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A network for your network.

Raspberry Pi
(Image credit: Jona)

The Raspberry Pi has a knack for bridging the gap between different technologies but, in this project, it's combining the power of multiple routers into one connection point. This setup is referred to as a bonded router by its creator, Jona, and operates using a platform called Speedify.

The best Raspberry Pi projects tend to come out of necessity—often providing a solution to a specific problem. According to Jona, he was tired of the bandwidth limitations of rural internet and decided to merge multiple sources into one, stacking the available speed. Before this project, his network speed was capping around 2 - 5 Mbps but now it reaches up to 120 Mbps.

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Raspberry Pi
(Image credit: Jona)

The Raspberry Pi is responsible for distributing network traffic between four individual internet access points (in this case, two LTE lines and two 5G lines). Jona also included a DSL failsafe to act as a backup in the event the bonded router connection drops.

If you'd like to recreate this project, you can download Speedify from the official website. It's available for Linux machines like the Raspberry Pi but also on Windows, Mac, iPad and Android devices. In Jona's setup, he's using an 8GB Raspberry Pi 4 with a 4G LTE HAT. It also has a USB hub connected to a 4-four gigabit Ethernet adaptor and a 5-port Netgear gigabit switch.

Read more about this project in detail on the project thread at Reddit and be sure to follow Jona for more cool Pi projects.

Ash Hill
Ash Hill
Contributing Writer

Ash Hill is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware with a wealth of experience in the hobby electronics, 3D printing and PCs. She manages the Pi projects of the month and much of our daily Raspberry Pi reporting while also finding the best coupons and deals on all tech.

5 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Friesiansam
    I don't know about US prices but, in the UK, 4 simultaneous internet connections is going to add up to a fat monthly charge, that is just not going to be worth it.
    Reply
  • anscarlett
    I've been running a speedify system for over a year now, using two 4g sim cards. One in a usb dongle, and the second in my phone.

    The nice thing about speedify is that as soon as my phone's hotspot comes in range of the pi, it automatically connects to my phone and bonds the connections together, increasing my bandwidth, and when I leave the house, my network still has internet with the usb dongle.

    I just wish they'd make the vpn optional, had loads of issues with prime video and netflix
    Reply
  • kb_
    This is pretty useful for France! Mobile plans tend to have huge data caps for an ok price (I have 50 GB for 8€ but only use about 9 GB) and many are still stuck with slow DSL.
    Reply
  • jpe1701
    This is a pretty cool project. If I could get cell service here I'd try it. The fastest internet we can get is 4Mbps dsl. Our internet is horrible in my corner of new England.
    Reply
  • dparsons
    I’d really like to see someone recreate this setup connected to an iPhone 12 with a 5G hotspot.
    Reply