Ethernet Priority Over Wi-Fi

Ethernet Priority Over Wi-Fi

Ethernet Priority Over Wi-Fi
Published on in Ethernet, Internet & Productivity.

Being spoiled with a 100Mbps/100Mbps internet connection in a South Korean apartment by myself 10 years ago, has always made me make sure I'm getting most optimal speeds from my ISP.

What about at your office? Is your main device a laptop? Are you stationary at a desk for a majority of the day Do you have both Ethernet and Wi-Fi available? Which do I choose???

In the contemporary workplace, the answers to all of these questions are usually YES.

Ok, but why would I want to plug in, WiFi is soooo much faster than my home DSL internet, Bro.

Yes, your work WiFi streams Netflix way better at work than home, but unless your corporate laptop along with office APs are 802.11ac 1300+ capable then you're going to see a speed difference between wired and wireless.

I got it. Connect to both of them! Double-Internet!!

Not quite. Without going into the technical details your computer can only use one connection and you would think Ethernet would be the one that gets priority. That's not the case with both OS X and Windows.

Set Ethernet priority over WiFi to maximize your bandwidth.

OS X[1] #

  • Choose Apple menu > System Preferences, then click Network.
  • Click the Action pop-up menu, Tool icon, then choose Set Service Order.
  • Drag a service, such as Ethernet, to the top of the list.
  • Click OK, then click Apply to make the new settings active.

Windows[2] #

  • Click Start and, in the search field, type View network connections.
  • Press the ALT key, click Advanced Options and then click Advanced Settings...
  • Select Local Area Connection and click the green arrows to give priority to the desired connection.
  • After organizing the network connections available according to your preferences, click OK.
  1. "OS X El Capitan: Change the priority of your network connections". Retrieved September 30, 2015. ↩︎

  2. "How to change the network connection priority in Windows 7". Retrieved February 7, 2013. ↩︎