I get it – Wi-Fi is everywhere. Smartphones, laptops, printers and more all want to run wirelessly on Wi-Fi networks. Why not? Wireless network speeds have improved tremendously. Speeds on Wi-Fi now exceed what many people used to get on their wired networks at home. As an example, just look at the download and upload speeds on my phone here in our shop:
What you see is awesome speed with the phone only connected to our wireless network and not the cell tower. (The phone was in Airplane mode with Wi-Fi turned on. Also, for the record, my laptop, running wirelessly, showed speeds almost identical to the phone.) Pretty much everyone would be satisfied with these speed results. Here are some other test results to consider:
The results in the second photo were from my wired computer. While there’s little difference in the Upload speed, you can see there is a significant deviation when it comes to the Download speed. Why? Because, generally speaking, Internet download speeds are always faster when a device is connected with an Ethernet cord.
Let’s compare some pros and cons of wired vs. wireless:
| TYPE | PROS | CONS |
|---|---|---|
| Wired (Ethernet) | 1) Download speed is almost always faster. 2) It is rare to “lose Internet” because of a bad cord. | 1) Your device can’t be moved farther than the length of the cord. 2) Not all devices can be hooked up to an Ethernet cord easily. |
| Wireless (Wi-Fi) | 1) Your device doesn’t have to be stationary. 2) Wi-fi speeds are now fast enough to be acceptable. | 1) Your connection is limited to the range of your Wi-Fi network. 2) The Wi-fi signal can be interrupted and/or drop-out. 3) Devices, especially printers, can come off the Wi-Fi network. |
Why am I bringing up this issue of wired vs. wireless? Because many times, when I go into a customer’s home, I find a computer sitting beside the modem/router and it’s running wirelessly. If your computer is close enough for an Ethernet cord to be used between the computer and the modem, you should be running wired. (Of course, it is true that many new laptops don’t have an Ethernet port. In that case, you either need an adaptor to use Ethernet or you just have to be satisfied with the slower Wi-Fi speed.) For the moment, based on today’s technology, wired download is always faster than wireless.
By the way, when I ask a customer why they are running their computer wirelessly when it’s sitting beside the modem, I often get the response, “Well, my printer is wireless so I wouldn’t be able to print if my computer wasn’t wireless, too.” Let me clear up this error right now. The only thing that matters when it comes to printing to a wireless printer is that both devices (printer and computer) are on the same network. How they connect to that network (wired or wireless) makes no difference.
In my next post, I’m going to talk about Wireless Con #1 (see the chart above) which is listed above and I’m going to share a solution. Don’t miss the post, “An Electrifying Thought.”
In case you’re wondering, I use the app, “Speedtest” by Ookla which is available in the Windows Store, the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. It’s free, easy to install and use. I would mention that you should always check your speed at various times of the day and even on different days. Internet speed does vary. It’s better to use multiple tests and “average out” your results.