Skip to main content

Wi-Fi or Hard Wired connection?

Is WiFi better than a Hard Wired connection?

Yes and No 😀

If only it was that simple. It really depends on the device, the Wi-Fi version/speed, and the Ethernet speed.


Not that long ago, Ethernet speeds were as low as 10Mbits per second, then we got a speed upgrade to 100Mbits per second and now the standard (though not the fastest) is 1000Mbits per second (also known as Gigabit). You can also get 2.5Gigabit which is becoming the new standard, with 5Gigabit, 10Gigabit and even faster available on high-end equipment.

If you use a laptop or tablet (or anything that you move about with) then Wi-Fi is really the only option you have as you really don't want a cable holding you back.

A desktop PC, or TV are normally in a single place, so you can run a wire from the router to the device (I know that sometimes it isn't that simple).


As you can see in the chart above, the theoretical maximum data rate for Wi-Fi is getting very high (with Wi-Fi 7 saying 46Gbps which is more than 40x that of standard Gigabit ethernet) BUT what you have to remember is that is in an ideal setting.

Personally, if I have a device that sits in one place all the time (like a desktop PC) then I will always run an Ethernet cable to it, my laptop is connected via Wi-Fi as I may move where I am using it.

Something else to remember is even if you have a Wi-Fi 7 device connected to a Wi-Fi 7 router, you are not going to get a 46Gbps connection to the internet as currently our internet speeds are nowhere near that speed.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dynabook Toshiba Satellite Pro 14 C40-G-109 Laptop Review.

  That’s a mouthful… but here we go with another Laptop review. This time it’s a Dynabook (Toshiba) 14” lightweight laptop. Again, this is one of my laptops, and it’s one that I carry around with me in my backpack in case I am onsite, or out, and need a laptop for any reason. It’s a small and light laptop is perfect for light use surfing the ‘net, dealing with emails and the odd bit of word processing, etc. It comes with an Intel Celeron dual core CPU running at 1.9Ghz, together with 4Gb ram (that is expandable), and a 128Gb SSD, loaded with Windows 10 Pro (Education edition). As stated, the ram is expandable and I’ve already upgraded it to 8Gb as Windows runs much happier with 8Gb – the only downside is that to upgrade the ram, you must remove the case bottom, and replace the single ram module with a larger capacity one. In general use, the laptop is fast enough, but not something that I would want to try and game on as the CPU is of an older design and only has 2 cores. It ta...

Is cloud storage all it's cracked up to be?

Cloud storage .... what is it? First things first, it's not actually up in the sky 😀 It is just stored in one of many datacentres across the world. Whether it's the Microsoft OneDrive, Google-Drive, Dropbox or any other cloud storage you may have heard of or used, it's just data stored on a server in a datacentre somewhere in the world. The concept of it is brilliant in that you can send a file from your work PC, and by logging into the account on your home PC you are able to get the file. However, there is a big downside to this. And it's that you need to be connected (or online) to be able to do this. For documents, storing them on the cloud doesn't take much data, so timewise, it's not too bad. Photographs and pictures on the other hand, do have lots of data, and therefore can be slow to send to receive. I was speaking to a customer, and he moved all his photographs to the cloud and was saying that it took 10 days for them to move from his PC to his cloud st...

(Not Responding)

If you see (Not Responding) pop up in the title bar of a program you are using, it doesn't mean that the program has crashed, it's the computer saying this it is busy doing something else, so has just paused the program you are currently using. This normally happens during update downloads or installs. Windows 10 and 11, have a habit of just doing the download and then installing it without showing or telling you that this is what it is doing.  You do have the option of pausing updates, but to be honest it's not something I would recommend as the updates can include security tweaks to Windows, and even include Firmware updates for your PC, so should be done (as should be updates to your Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware programs). Updates are normally released by Microsoft on 2nd or 3rd Tuesday of the month, but it can take a few days (or longer) before your PC will download them (unless you have paused updates!), so don't expect your PC to always do the updates as soon as th...