I Let Claude Build My Home Network: Two ISPs Bonded, $312/Year Saved

Summary

The Problem: Dropped Connections and Inconsistent Speeds My Xfinity cable internet was becoming increasingly unreliable. I'd be in the middle of a video call and suddenly lose connection for 30 seconds. Download speeds would swing wildly between 30 Mbps and 150 Mbps throughout the day. Latency spikes during peak hours made real-time collaboration frustrating. And when my connection did drop completely, I had zero redundancy—just dead air until Xfinity's service came back online. I tried using T-Mobile data sharing as a backup, but I only get 1 bar of signal in my area, making it essentially unusable for anything beyond basic web browsing. When Xfinity dropped, I was stuck waiting. I was paying $90/month for this inconsistent service. The traditional solution would be upgrading to a business line for $150+/month, but even that wouldn't solve the fundamental single-point-of-failure problem. The Solution: Downgrade + Second ISP + Bonding Instead of throwing more money at a single unreliable ISP, I took a different approach: Downgraded Xfinity from $90/mo to a basic $50/mo plan (still usable speeds, just lower tier) Added AT&T Fiber as a second line at $55/mo (different infrastructure = different failure modes) Bonded both connections using WireGuard VPN and OpenWRT routing The result: For $105/month (vs my previous $90), I now have: ✅ Combined bandwidth from both ISPs (faster than either alone) ✅ Automatic failover (if Xfinity drops, AT&T keeps me online) ✅ Lower, more consistent latency (packets route through whichever path is faster) ✅ No more dropped calls or connection interruptions The best part? With Claude AI and Cursor handling most of the technical complexity, this went from a multi-week networking project to a 5-hour Saturday afternoon build. What is a Bonded Internet Connection? A bonded internet connection combines multiple internet connections (ISPs) into a single, unified connection. Unlike traditional multi-WAN setups that route different connections thr...