Which is faster, wireless or cable?

Dinarius

I have just moved house. In the old house I had one of Eircom's Netopia modems wired directly to the computer.

This time I order their wireless Netopia modem. It offers the option of either using the wireless feature or connecting an ethernet cable directly to it.

I lived in Brussels for a while and in the basement of the apartment block was a computer room with a shared broadband connection. Those with their own laptops could either use them wirelessly or connect to a CAT point via cable. I used both at different times. My feeling was that the cable was faster. But, I am open to correction.

What do others think? I want to lay out the computers in the house in the most efficient way. But, speed is important to me as I regurlarly send and receive large image files.

Many thanks.

D.

crawler

Dinarius wrote:

I have just moved house. In the old house I had one of Eircom's Netopia modems wired directly to the computer.

This time I order their wireless Netopia modem. It offers the option of either using the wireless feature or connecting an ethernet cable directly to it.

I lived in Brussels for a while and in the basement of the apartment block was a computer room with a shared broadband connection. Those with their own laptops could either use them wirelessly or connect to a CAT point via cable. I used both at different times. My feeling was that the cable was faster. But, I am open to correction.

What do others think? I want to lay out the computers in the house in the most efficient way. But, speed is important to me as I regurlarly send and receive large image files.

Many thanks.

D.

You can run a 100Mbps ethernet connection around your house - which will give you 100Mbps full duplex or thereabouts - an 802.11g wireless router will give you 54Mbps or thereabouts in total.

Dinarius

crawler wrote:

You can run a 100Mbps ethernet connection around your house - which will give you 100Mbps full duplex or thereabouts - an 802.11g wireless router will give you 54Mbps or thereabouts in total.

Crawler,

Many thanks for the reply.

I don't think I explained myself well enough.

All I want to know is, how can I maximize my 1Mb Eircom connection? Should I do it via wireless or cable? i.e. which route will result in the smallest loss of signal?

Many thanks.

D.

Anarchist

Switch it on :v:

123

There the same like im on 2mb when im using wireless its fast like it to 1.0mB not megabit for 1 second before going to 250kB/s
Its the same with cable but maybe thats because i have a router worth €240:cool:
but it should work like that with any router

Malafus

123 wrote:

There the same like im on 2mb when im using wireless its fast like it to 1.0mB not megabit for 1 second before going to 250kB/s
Its the same with cable but maybe thats because i have a router worth €240:cool:
but it should work like that with any router

What??



OP - You won't 'lose' any speed(bandwidth) using wireless as opposed to cable. The only difference it'll make to your internet connection is possibly a very slight increase in ping time. Nothing noticable, unless you're playing online, and even then it's negligable (usually).

crawler

Dinarius wrote:

Crawler,

Many thanks for the reply.

I don't think I explained myself well enough.

All I want to know is, how can I maximize my 1Mb Eircom connection? Should I do it via wireless or cable? i.e. which route will result in the smallest loss of signal?

Many thanks.

D.

Provided you dont get interference on the wirless router ( remember uses unlicensed spectrum!) then it's going to be more or less the same for a 1Mb connection...much or a muchness to be honest....opinions will vary - also depends on how much you actually spend on the router and the type of network interface cards you use - cheap is usually bad in both instances.

layke

Latency is only relivant to how your ISP has their network wrigged.

However today a lot of ISP's are sharing bandwidth and routes to give better latency and centralise traffic in Ireland rather then the old way of hitting your ISP first, then eirom, then up north, then back to eircom, then your destination.

There is sweet FA in a lot off them tbh. Unless your an avid gamer I wouldn't be too worried about latency too much.

Malafus

layke wrote:

Latency is only relivant to how your ISP has their network wrigged.

Latency is the time it takes for a message to get from your machine to its destination.
While the ISPs network has a significant impact on this, it is by no means the only factor. Wireless HAS got a certain amount of latency inherent in it, just not very much (unless over a HUGE distance). Plus, packets can be lost on wireless - which results in lag. (Ok, packets can be lost on CAT5 cable too, but it doesn't occur very often)

paulm17781

If it was to make a difference, the cable would be better. That is only if you were going through a very thick wall that the wirelss couldn't get through. Other wise you probably won't notice.

jor el

As said, if you have a 1Mb broadband and a 54Mb (or 100Mb) router then the router is not going to impact the speeds. The only difference the might occur is with latency. Your pings might be slightly worse with the wireless connection if the router and the destination PC are separated by large distance or thick walls. If your wireless signal strength is good then you won't have any problems with speed.

The 128kb upload will be the biggest hindrance in sending large files.

Mutant_Fruit

I think my wireless router typically adds about 0.001ms to the pingtime. I know, its shocking. But what can i do:(

ballooba

This is all well and good if you have a 802.11g card in your P.C.

With NTL BB approaching the max speed for 802.11b (i.e. 11MBPS) I wonder will this become a factor. Might be time for people to start upgrading to 802.11g???

Dinarius

For what it's worth, I have a US Robotics 22 Mbps Wireless PC Card stuck in the side of my laptop. I'm running XP Pro.

Sound OK in performance terms?

Another thing...........

Someone once showed me how to browse to a window with a check box giving an option, if ticked, something along the lines of: "Allow Windows to choose your connection settings", or words to that effect. They felt that this was at least as good as opting for the US Robotics settings.

For the life of me, I can't find it. Could anyone tell me how to browse to this window?

Many thanks.

D.

Mutant_Fruit

Wireless cards will be different in terms of max throughput. Some are better than others. But for ping times, even a bog standard 802.11b would only add a milisecond (at most). Remember, it doesn't take long for a radiowave to move from your laptop to the wireless router which is typically 100m away (0.1km) considering they move at approximately 300,000km per second..