How combine multiple unreliable network connections to get a single reliable connection? On Windows

Question

Situation: Second floor PC needs to connect to a modem in the basement.

Infrastructure: Working Wifi, working powerline adapters. Direct Ethernet not an option.

Reliability is judged by latency over time measured by graphing the ping to the modem with an app such as PingPlotter Pro.

Both connection options suffer reliability issues at different times. Wifi probably due to random interference, powerline networking due to random appliances and the whims of neighbors. (example: recently all those Christmas lights have been making the powerline network a complete mess)

Problem: Find a way to combine Wifi and powerline networking such that one can compensate for failure of the other.

Failure: Latency spikes and packet loss.

Answer 1

There is no easy way to do this without inducing latency spikes and temporary disconnections. You would need some kind of software solution which would take each packet, duplicate it, send one by WIFI and another by Powerline simultaneously, then accept the first one to arrive with a valid checksum and discard the other. I am unaware of any consumer grade software which will do this.

Your best bet would be to focus on 1 technology (I would suggest WIFI), and improving it as much as you can. Expect to drop $$$ on it. For a start, if it is not already, get 802.11ac hardware - ensure that it has at least 1 radio in the 2.4 gig network and another in the 5 gig network, and that both sides work on both bands. Get something which has lots of aerials [ Asus is a good brand ] so that it can create corridors, use more frequencies simultaneously and increase the signal to noise ratio. Look at relocating the AP and AP client so they are as close together as geography provides.

If you are sure the Ethernet over Power Interference is coming from your neighbours, a sparky may be able to fix this using an isolater and possibly also juggling circuits around at the circuit board.