The desire to use both wired Ethernet and wireless Wi-Fi simultaneously stems from a logical pursuit of two ideals: unbreakable reliability and enhanced speed. But is it worth the effort? This guide provides a definitive analysis of the methods, their viability, and real-world value.

Strategy 1: The Failover System (Redundancy)

For users whose primary goal is an uninterrupted connection, the most reliable and cost-effective strategy is to configure a failover system. This provides a crucial layer of redundancy by designating a primary connection (Ethernet) and a secondary backup (Wi-Fi).

Interactive Chart: Windows Automatic Interface Metrics

Windows automatically assigns a "cost" metric to each connection based on its advertised link speed. A lower metric means higher priority. You can override these defaults to force a specific failover order.

Understanding the Failover Event

It's crucial to understand that the failover transition is not entirely seamless for active connections. When the primary link fails, there is a brief interruption as Windows reroutes traffic. For activities like web browsing, this is barely noticeable. However, for real-time applications, the impact is significant: an active VPN session, remote desktop connection, video conference, or online gaming session will almost certainly be disconnected and need to be re-established.

Default Automatic Metric Values

To help choose appropriate manual values, the table below details the default metrics assigned by Windows based on connection speed. This shows why Ethernet is almost always preferred by default.

How-To: Manually Set Interface Metrics

You can set metrics using the classic Control Panel or the more powerful PowerShell. Here's how:

Strategy 2: The Aggregation Myth (Native "Solutions")

Many users attempt to combine, or "aggregate," their connection speeds using native Windows features. Unfortunately, these methods are designed for different purposes and will not work as expected.

Native features like Network Bridge and server-grade NIC Teaming (LBFO) are the wrong tools for this job. They are designed for different network architectures and fail for specific reasons:

• NIC Teaming: This is a Windows Server feature explicitly designed for wired Ethernet adapters only. It is not supported on client versions of Windows and the management tools are missing.
• Hyper-V Switch (`New-NetSwitchTeam`): This is an unsupported, experimental workaround that uses virtualization features. It is not a true aggregation solution and can introduce high CPU usage and instability.

Strategy 3: Hardware-Dependent Routing (Intel® Killer™)

Some manufacturers, most notably Intel with its Killer™ brand, offer proprietary hardware/software solutions that use both connections simultaneously. However, this is intelligent routing, not true aggregation.

Strategy 4: True Aggregation via Channel Bonding (Speedify)

The only way to achieve true, additive bandwidth aggregation on a client PC is with third-party software. These services work like a specialized VPN, splitting your traffic at the packet level across all connections.

Performance Impact: Gaming Latency

By mitigating packet loss and jitter, channel bonding can dramatically improve gaming latency (ping) on unstable connections.

The Trade-Offs: This power comes at a price. These are subscription services (e.g., Speedify costs ~$7.50/month) and introduce external dependencies. Key considerations include:

• Privacy: It uses a closed-source protocol and is based in the US (a Five Eyes member), which may be a concern for privacy-focused users.
• Redundant Mode: For maximum reliability, a special mode sends the same data over all connections, eliminating packet loss at the cost of some speed.

Synthesis & Final Recommendations

The "best" strategy depends entirely on your goals. Here's a head-to-head comparison.

Your Tailored Recommendation

Based on your selected profile, here is our verdict on what's worth it for you.