Change between 2 ethernet sources easily (without having to unplug anything)

Question

I just moved in a new house with very bad internet. At the moment we are using 2 different routers : a 4G router with good download and very bad ping, and an ADSL router with very bad download but a quite good and constant ping.

I would like to use the 4G router to download games and big files for my work, and the ADSL router to play competitive online games.

I would like to know if it is possible to plug both Ethernet cables to a piece of hardware, and easily change which one I'm using. Someone already asked a similar question a few years ago, so maybe something like this is possible now.

I have already used something similar to connect 2 HDMI sources to a monitor, but I didn't find anything for Ethernet.

Answer 1

There are hardware splitter devices for HDMI, audio etc. but I've never seen or even heard of one for Ethernet - there's never been really a market for them. You unfortunately didn't specify your operating system, so I'm assuming you use Windows.

If your system has 2 physical network interfaces, the easiest way is just to connect one to each router, and enable/disable the interfaces as needed. You can do this in the Network & Internet settings / Change adapter options:

Alternatively you can use netsh -command in 2 .bat files:

For gaming:

@echo off
netsh interface set interface "Ethernet1" disable
netsh interface set interface "Ethernet2" enable

For downloading:

@echo off
netsh interface set interface "Ethernet2" disable
netsh interface set interface "Ethernet1" enable

Note - first disable, then enable. Check the correct interface names with command

netsh interface show interface

Or alternatively you can create a PowerShell script.

If your system only has one network interface things get more complicated. You could configure the routers to different subnets (for example 4G for 192.168.0.0/24, ADSL for 192.168.1.0/24), connect both to a hub or switch along with your PC, then use netsh or PowerShell scripts to change the IP addressing and DNS of your system.

I've never tried this myself. You will have 2 different DHCP servers on different ranges running in the same network, which is a very bad network design, but if you're the only one using the routers it should work. However if there are multiple users, every device needs to have a static IP connecting it to the router it's supposed to use...

So at the end, in multi-user situation just swapping the network cable as needed is the easiest solution. Using odd, non-standard network designs is never recommended, as they very easily lead to problems.

Answer 2

You would likely have to change the metric in the Advanced Network properties for each adapter to change the adapter that is being used. This normally involves a restart.

This assumes you have two active Ethernet adapters which may not be the case.

Any way you choose to change Ethernet adapters programmatically will almost certainly require a restart. This will take longer than changing cables.

It is probably easier just to change Ethernet connections when you need to. This will be the simplest way.