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Network connection: way faster connected to LAN than wireless?

post #1 of 11
6/3/06 at 9:53pm
Thread Starter 
I'm guessing LAN with a cat 6 cable is faster than my wireless with a/b/g on a m1710. Is that true?

Is the cat 6 way faster than a cat 5?

Where do you get the cheapest cables? I'm looking for a 15'
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post #2 of 11
6/3/06 at 9:57pm
Yes, I've never found any wireless setup to be as fast as a hard wire connection... Not sure about the cat 5 cat 6 etc?
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post #3 of 11
6/4/06 at 3:37am
Quote:
Originally Posted by codek
Is the cat 6 way faster than a cat 5?
cat 5 and cat 6 are types of cables, and while they do have different characteristics, the physical cable type does not directly impact the speed (that is, a 10 megabit ethernet connection is going to be the same speed regardless of cat5 or cat6.) cat6 is a higher end cable with more headroom than cat5, however cat5 can support gigabit ethernet, and gigabit over cat6 is not going to be any faster than gigabit over cat5.
Quote:
Originally Posted by codek
I'm guessing LAN with a cat 6 cable is faster than my wireless with a/b/g on a m1710. Is that true?
Yes, for a lot of reasons 802.11b is slower than 10BASE-T ethernet and 802.11g is slightly slower than 802.11a which is significantly slower than 100BASE-TX (which is significantly slower than 1000BASE-T.) This is even more true with a switched network, since a switch can allow for simultaneous transmit and recieve (that is never possible for 802.11a/b/g.) Edited to also note, this is generally a non-issue. If you aren't doing something like transmitting gigabytes across your lan you really won't see a noticable difference. For instance, you aren't likely to get less lag (to the point you'd notice) between a good wireless and a wired connection (similarly, a good wireless connection is fast enough to eat all of the WAN bandwidth you are likely to have.)
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post #4 of 11
6/4/06 at 5:07am
From my understanding (didn't check google), the difference between cat 5 and cat 6 is like the difference between 533mhz ram and 667mhz ram. Some 533mhz ram can run as 667 mhz. Cat6 has a higher requirement to be able to label as cat6 and guarantees 1000MB/s.
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post #5 of 11
6/4/06 at 5:16am
Wired is always going to be faster with less latency than wireless. A propagated signal takes time to recieve, convert, and process. Wireless is getting better, though - but it'll never be as patently reliable as wired will be.
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post #6 of 11
6/4/06 at 5:18am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Fragged
cat 5 and cat 6 are types of cables, and while they do have different characteristics, the physical cable type does not directly impact the speed (that is, a 10 megabit ethernet connection is going to be the same speed regardless of cat5 or cat6.) cat6 is a higher end cable with more headroom than cat5, however cat5 can support gigabit ethernet, and gigabit over cat6 is not going to be any faster than gigabit over cat5.



Yes, for a lot of reasons 802.11b is slower than 10BASE-T ethernet and 802.11g is slightly slower than 802.11a which is significantly slower than 100BASE-TX (which is significantly slower than 1000BASE-T.) This is even more true with a switched network, since a switch can allow for simultaneous transmit and recieve (that is never possible for 802.11a/b/g.)

Edited to also note, this is generally a non-issue. If you aren't doing something like transmitting gigabytes across your lan you really won't see a noticable difference. For instance, you aren't likely to get less lag (to the point you'd notice) between a good wireless and a wired connection (similarly, a good wireless connection is fast enough to eat all of the WAN bandwidth you are likely to have.)


do you work in IT? you sound very knowledgeable.
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post #7 of 11
6/4/06 at 5:28am
CAT5E (Enhanced) is capable of gigabit.
CAT6 is certified for gigabit.

There are 240 mbps wireless solutions from Netgear


* Actual performance may vary due to operating environment


But you will always have problems with "noise" in the air and it will kill alot of wireless traffic so it will have to be resent which makes it slower.

Im not syaing that cables cannot be affected but they are not that sensitive if you compare to wireless.
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post #8 of 11
6/4/06 at 5:39am
When playing games online, i've found even putting your wireless even right next to the router there's enough lag to be felt, much better on wire.

Also for transferring data, I've never been able to get speeds even half of what my connection should be able to handle (54 mbps), not sure if it's overhead or what.
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post #9 of 11
6/4/06 at 11:50am
well, within the next year you can say byebye to ethernet being absolutely necessary. Wireless N technology is being researched and soon we will be getting 300Mbps and range will be lengthened significantly. I really cant wait to see that come out :-D
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post #10 of 11
6/4/06 at 4:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pdonket
well, within the next year you can say byebye to ethernet being absolutely necessary. Wireless N technology is being researched and soon we will be getting 300Mbps and range will be lengthened significantly. I really cant wait to see that come out :-D

802.11n is Ethernet, just in wireless form. Speed and Range are not the only factors in networking. A wired connection is inherently more secure and reliable. Especially if you have a lot of nodes operating in a small area.

Ethernet, in whatever form, is going to be with us for quite some time. Anyone who takes networking seriously will see Wireless access as more of a convenience than a staple. 300Mbps speeds still won't be much of a difference over 100Mbps when you take into account that wired Ethernet will currently do 1Gbps, which is more suited to use with large transfers. A group of users doing heavy graphics, audio or video work would appreciate being able to access their documents faster and not have to worry that they'll be sniffed by a war driver or crippled by RF noise.
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post #11 of 11
6/4/06 at 6:36pm
wireless is excellent in the bathroom
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