I have read similar questions in the past (i.e. How do I use my dual band Wi-Fi card to connect to 5GHz and 2.4GHz simultaneously on Windows? and Connect multiple WiFi networks simultaneously), however they don't address my question adequately.
I am attempting to understand if I can use 2 separate wireless cards on my Desktop PC to connect to the same wireless router at the same time, specifically as so:
- WiFi Adapter 1 using 5Ghz 802.11ac to Router
- WiFi Adapter 2 using 2.4Ghz 802.11n to Router (same router)
Currently I have them set to 2 different SSIDs, although that certainly can be changed if needed.
To be clear, I want to use both networks to boost speeds, that's the intent here.
Best Answer
This is no different than connecting 2 wired Ethernet ports on the same computer to the same network... it requires what is called interface bonding, NIC teaming, or link aggregation, which is only officially supported by Windows Server OS for Microsoft products (it worked in Windows 10 up to build 10240, officially broken now), but this also requires a compatible switch or router that supports some kind of networking teaming or balancing protocol, which many enterprise grade switches and routers do, but virtually no consumer products do, and to my knowledge there is no wireless router or AP out there capable of this itself. Although using 2 switch ports that support link aggregation to two unique APs could potentially do this with a compatible OS, which Windows 10 is not (EDIT: Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 10 should have this capability, but it is broken in all builds of Win10 after 10240, with no ETA on fix at this time).
Honestly, your best bet is to just use the 5Ghz 802.11ac connection and not bother with the second wireless connection unless it is connecting to a different network, or switch to a hardwired connection.
I can give multiple links if you wish to confirm all this information, but nitty gritty of this is boils down to this from a Microsoft engineer (Jeffrey Tippet) when discussing this in a Microsoft's Social discussion channel, here is the summary: The NIC Teaming feature is technically implemented using the MAC layer (layer 2), and the MAC layer is different for each media type. You cannot team WLAN/WWAN NICs because we did not build the extra support for that; it wouldn't make sense to spend time building that support when NIC Teaming is squarely aimed as a server feature.