On my Win7 machine, I have BOTH a USB wireless stick AND an ethernet cable to a router plugged in at the same time. They are clearly both recognized as active in Sharing Center. But which one is actually being used? One is connected to a 5 GHz port in my router, and the other is connected to the 2.4 GHz port.
I already answered this in a very technical way. In layman's terms, your Ethernet connection is going to be used if both your WiFi adapter and Ethernet are used at the same time in the computer. YOU WILL NOT find which is being used in the router. There's no facility for that in those crap Xfinity router/modem units.
It's clear you're not a very technical person, so I need to describe this to you as best I can.
When you see WiFi and Ethernet in the router it just means that's a local connection between your computer/device and the router/modem. This doesn't mean an Internet connection. If you one day see the yellow exclamation mark in your network adapter icon in the task bar indicating no Internet but still have an Ethernet or WiFi connection, that's because you have a local connection only and no Internet.
So again, just because you see both Ethernet and WiFi in the router/modem you're not using both at the same time for Internet at all. They just appear because it's a local connection between the router/modem and you, your computer or device/s.
Let me give you an example.
Ever play telephone with a string and tin cans? Lets use that analogy. You and say someone named "Bob" are using both tin cans and you want to relay a message to "Alice" who's your messenger, but in order to do that you have to send a message to Bob. You send a message to Bob and then Bob sends that message to Alice. Now Alice sends you a message by way of Bob and thus to you.
In this example your tin can connection between you and Bob is your local connection (LAN) between the computer and router/modem. Both are established and remain so. Your Internet connection (WAN) outside of your local connection is Alice. Sometimes if Alice isn't there that means you have no Internet connection but Bob remains because that's local. A local connection between the modem and computer or device.
So what you are probably thinking is that there is a Bob and a Bob Jr, when there can only be one Bob at a time. And thus Bob talks to you and Alice the Internet. Bob might use Ethernet or WiFi. It all depends on that technical crap I talked about called a metric.
And yes, this will absolutely apply to Network Shares you may have between computers or what ever. Only one connection, WiFi or Ethernet will be used at once. How do you know which? You should see straight away in your Windows taskbar an icon indicating a WiFi connection or an Ethernet connection. It's quite obvious for a WiFi connection because it'll have an icon with signal strength bars. And like I said, your Ethernet connection will most likely be first in line and thus is what you're probably using now. All on that metric thing I talked about. Remember, Bob can use Ethernet or WiFi, but not both at the same time. To do that requires network teaming and what have you.
This is the best way I can describe it without getting super technical. If you're seeing WiFi network activity in the router/modem it's more than likely simple probe requests and whatnot that all WiFi devices do. It's like constantly saying, "hey! Mr. Computer, are you still there?" "Yes, Mr. Router, I'm still here." And does this all the damn time.
Remember that old Verizon TV commercial, you know the one where dude is constantly saying, "can you hear me now?" Most people don't understand, but that's kinda like a probe request in cellphones. But what they are mimicking in the commercial are the vans that drive around with cellphone testing equipment having the equipment say, "can you hear me now?" to the towers as they drive around testing the surrounding signal quality to create a better product.
Just so you know, I have Comcast. Have had Comcast so long I'm like a gold member or what ever they call it. I ditched the asinine modem and its accompanying $14/month lease fee and went with a Motorola modem compatible with Comcast. It's a model MG7550 and works quite well. I actually bought it brand new at a yard sale for $10. They can be had on eBay. Getting it setup requires a call to Comcast and it'll probably take 30 minutes. It did in my case which was annoying. I didn't think it take that long to sync and whatnot.
The BS part was latter on they sent a letter or email (don't remember which. Think it was an email) stating I had "router performance issues" or some utter crap and we should get THEIR modem. Nothing could be further from the truth and I checked everything, I experienced no issues with my new modem and checked my speed at several websites one of which is speed.cloudflare.com which gives you other information like jitter and packet loss. All were good. I even looked in the modem at the SNR and what have you. Comcast is very good at marketing. I see it all the time and I know about that stuff. It's shyster BS is what it is. My town has fiber now and I may go with them for a massive symmetric upload and download to the tune of 1,000 Mbps. Comcast can't do that on the upload side, only on the download side and they are rolling out 1Gb now. For me, the upload speed is just as important to the download speed. For others probably not.
If you have TV you can stream Comcast without their cable box. Thus you save a fee on that too. You're always better off talking to someone at the Comcast store directly.
Thinking of "cutting the cord?" Read the following:
List of streaming media services - Wikipedia
Streaming television - Wikipedia
So people are going Hulu or whatever but still paying Comcast et al. LOL!
If technical or anyone reading this is, check out Jelllyfin an NVIDIA shield and free IPTV M3U streams.
GitHub - iptv-org/awesome-iptv: A curated list of resources related to IPTV
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Useless fact.
Ben Franklin is burned a few blocks from Comcast's headquarters. LOL!
I kind of find it pathetic there's a stupid kiosk in the cemetery selling little rolled up Constitutions and whatnot.
