Every packet of protection you add to a live feed costs bandwidth. The art of a reliable broadcast uplink is spending that overhead where it buys the most certainty. Here is the honest budget.
| Technique | Overhead | Use when |
|---|---|---|
| Bonded baseline (encryption + DWB) | ~14–18% | Always — your floor |
| Adaptive FEC | ~6–20% | Lossy links; the cheap first reach |
| FEC (standard) | ~13% low / ~27% high | Measured, steady loss |
| WAN Smoothing | +100% → +300% → +400%+ | The program feed only, on multiple links |
Forward Error Correction adds parity so the far end rebuilds a lost packet without asking for a retransmit — cheap, and it works even on a single link. WAN Smoothing duplicates packets across links and plays the first to arrive — zero loss, but its value comes entirely from path diversity and it is the most expensive tool in the kit.
The rule of thumb
Reach for Adaptive FEC first. Reach for smoothing last, and only on a dedicated sub-tunnel carrying the feed that absolutely cannot tear. If you smooth everything, you have simply thrown away most of your bonded throughput. Budget it like you budget your battery.
If your disaster-recovery plan includes the word “failover,” you’re doing it wrong.
SpeedFusion internet bonding means increased performance, more uptime, and no failover — because the session was already riding every link.
Own your network. Peplink hardware is bought once and it lasts — it keeps bonding and routing with or without an active warranty or the cloud. No forced subscriptions, no required licenses.
Learn the fundamentals at connectivity101.com.
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