Connect to two wifi networks on the same computer

Question

I'm using win 7x64 Is it possible to connect to two different(or the same) wifi hotspots? I have built in wifi receiver and external wifi dongle, but when I connect them both to the same network it seems that only one is actually receiving data (from usage in task manager) Is it possible to double receiving speed doing that?

Answer 1

There are a few things to consider when using this setup:

• When you connect both dongles to the same AP, then they are both in the same collision-domain using shared bandwidth (same frequency). Under heavy use, there is the potential that traffic on both NICs could be slower than one - but that is IF you manage to get traffic on both NICs.
• Thus, it would be better to connect to different APs on different frequencies, thus eliminating physical and data-link layer issues.
• In order to get traffic in and out of both NICs however, you will have to adjust your routing tables (route print or netstat -r) Normally you have a default route that sends all traffic to your gateway router. You will have to split this outbound traffic between both NICs by manipulating your routing tables to load-balance this traffic. One solution is adding both gateways as default routes. See the section on multi-homed hosts in technet here.