Small Business Networking Review: Connectify Dispatch

When mobile professionals need Internet access from the road, they frequently have multiple connection options available at any given location. For example, you might have access to an Ethernet jack, one or more Wi-Fi networks, and perhaps even 3G/4G connectivity, too.

Windows has the capability to connect to several networks at once, so when you link your notebook to several of the aforementioned network types, they’re all available to use simultaneously. But if you thought this would automatically place the most demanding tasks (e.g. media streaming) on the fastest available connection, or boost your download speed by pulling files down across multiple links simultaneously, you’d be wrong. Windows can use multiple connections, but not in any particularly intelligent or efficient way.

Connectify Dispatch dashboard

When we happened to check the same day from Internet Explorer or Firefox (18) on a Windows 8 PC, the price list was quite a bit different, with no standalone Dispatch subscription options offered, and the aforementioned lifetime bundle listed for $64 rather than $55. From Chrome on Windows 8, the pricing was the same as on a Windows 7 PC, which was the same irrespective of browser.

A couple of days later we checked the pricing again, and the price for the lifetime bundle was listed as $59 — either a $4 hike or a $5 discount depending on your perspective. We tried contacting Connectify for an explanation, but we didn’t receive a response. Perhaps prices will have stabilized by the time you read this. Note that currently, pricing seems to be holding at $12 per quarter and $45 for a lifetime subscription.

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