ESSENTIAL CABLES AND CONNECTIONS
Super Hero level speed is today’s primary need
CABLE IS NO HARD CHOICE Now Wi-Fi’s everywhere, choosing a wireless system over a hard-wired one would seem like a no-brainer. But is it? Let’s delve into the pros and cons a little, says FS Cable Marketing Manager, Mark Mastrangelo. Wi-Fi has certainly toughened up since the early era of variable signal strength and consistency. We all use mobile devices, and Wi-Fi eases our journey with them but when we need a robust system (for home entertainment for example), wired Ethernet has plenty going for it. And at the heavier commercial end, industry commentators accept that you’re probably better to run Ethernet cabling to your key devices – PCs, gaming consoles, set-top boxes and back-up devices – but exactly how does hard wiring win over top Wi-Fi routers? In three words: speed, latency and connectivity.
SPEED
With recent standards like 802.11ac and 802.11n reportedly delivering speeds of 866.7Mb/s and 150Mb/s, Wi-Fi is in the faster
30 MARCH 2022
lane for sure and can cope with your usual everyday tasks. However, those speeds can jump to 10Gb/s for Ethernet wired with Cat 6 cable, or around 1Gb/s with Cat 5e – consistently. Looking at speed between network devices though, wired Ethernet wins over Wi-Fi –when transferring files between two computers in the house for example. Your Internet connection is not involved here so the bottom line is how quickly your local network hardware delivers the data.
LATENCY
What is it? The delay moving traffic from device to destination – dubbed `ping` by gamers – and it can loom large in network efficiency. When reaction time’s critical, wired Ethernet is for you but ping’s no big thing when web
browsing, streaming videos or listening to music, experts say. You can test latency by pinging your router’s IP address while connected over Wi-Fi then over wired Ethernet, comparing both to see how much latency Wi-Fi adds. It’s a fair bit.
CONNECTIVITY
This really is a no brainer. Wired Ethernet delivers a more reliable connection than Wi-Fi – end of. Interference can dog Wi-Fi connectivity big time. Home layout can offer so many disruptive elements for wireless systems. Some plasterboards can deaden the signal for example, while electrical devices, even your neighbours’ Wi-Fi networks can interfere with it, to lower reliability – but wired Ethernet sidesteps such troubles.
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