Wi-Fi vs. Ethernet - It really matters!

in hive-175254 •  4 years ago 

I am writing this article during a quarantine, and it is written from home-office. Luckily, I live in a home with several rooms, and with several computers. As I also mentioned earlier, I have upgraded most of them with SSD drives, making even my old laptops great again!

But, there is one thing I have noticed and that is important. Recently, I did an ExpressVPN speed test, and it is interesting that on one computer which is connected to the router with an Ethernet cable, I was able to get a download speed of 500 Mbps. Now, this is when it turns interesting. Today, I am working in a different room, further away from the router, and using a Wi-Fi connection. Do you know how that impacted my download speeds?

You can see the Speed test recording right here on YouTube.

I miss my Ethernet cable

So, I had a 500 Mbps download speed as I tested my download speed using the SpeedTest application on my Windows computer connected with an Ethernet cable.

ping.jpg

Today, I am using a Wi-Fi connection, and I got a download speed of 18 Mbps. Do you see the major impact? This is the difference (at least it can be) the difference between a Wi-Fi and an Ethernet connection using the same Internet connection and the same router in the same house.

Of course, this might be impacted by the speed of the router and the network card, but still - it is worth noticing the grave impact on the speed.

Why am I writing this? Simply because I want to make you all aware of something that you might not think about. Simply stretching an Ethernet cable and connecting it might heavily impact your Internet speed, compared to being lazy and just using the Wi-Fi network. If all you do is to write articles on Steemit and Hive, then it will not make much of a difference, but if you do actual downloading of files with large size, stream a lot of content online and so, this might actually make a difference!

I hope some of you have found this article to be useful! Have a wonderful day everyone!

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So this is your own wifi router - not shared?
Most routers are left to default channel; you could try changing channel so less interference with any other wifi signals.
I dislike wifi anyway, so agree with you about just extending the ethernet cable.

Hello @unbiasedwriter
This is something I hadn't even thought about. No doubt I'll check it out, I had no idea how to do those download speed calculations.
I think that from now on I will use cable instead of just wifi.
By the way, I have not yet reviewed how to make the change of SSD Drive, I've been a little busy these days. But I have pending.
Good day to you.

Thanks for dropping by again :) Go to www.speedtest.net, and you can check your Internet speed connection. If you are close to the router, cable is better than Wi-Fi :) I guess we are all busy, but if you ever have the time, and the money to buy an SSD, then that might also give you computer a big boost :)

Wi-Fi is mostly for devices that need to move constantly or are located far from usual places of Ethernet routers... This includes mobile phones, tablets, etc. Some home appliances also use Wi-Fi or mobile connectivity to avoid really long Ethernet cables, or running out of available ports, as there is maximum limit for different types of Ethernet cables.