Why ethernet is faster than wireless

I looked up the specs of the ethernet port on the Elitebook to make sure it had an ethernet port that supported faster speeds than my personal computer. This removes the bottleneck from the previous experiment. I ran a wireless speed test on on the same 5 GHz wireless connection that I used in the previous test.

As you can see, I got much faster wireless connection speed with this laptop at Mbps. Not only is the ethernet port better on this laptop, but the wireless adapter is better as well. As expected, my maximum wireless internet connection speed is higher on the better internet adapter card on the HP Elitebook From a pure speed perspective, it is true that an ethernet connection can be faster than a wireless connection, but only if the ethernet port of the device you are using can support it.

So is that it? Has our investigation concluded? Can we definitively say that ethernet is faster than WiFi? Latency is another term that is used when analyzing the speed of an internet connection. It describes the time it takes for one device to respond to another device. In other words, latency is the amount of time from when a device sends a request until the time it receives a response.

If a bandwidth test is the speed that someone can run a 40 yard dash, latency is how quickly the person starts moving after the starting gun goes off. This often results in people talking at the same time because they hear silence from the other end of the call. In online gaming, latency can cause you to shoot at someone on your screen but in reality they are no longer there. This is often referred to as lag. Latency is important because users want instant feedback from the other end when they perform an action.

High latency leads to a poor experience and frustration for everyone involved. Similar to what I read about bandwidth, I read that there is less latency in ethernet connections.

Less latency means there is less delay from when a request is made until a response is received. I felt the HP Elitebook would provide more accurate results because the ethernet port would not limit the ethernet connection. To test the latency of a connection a ping test can be performed. Anyone can perform a ping test on their computer by opening the command line interface. In order to compare the latency of an ethernet and WiFi connection, I decided to perform the ping test to my router.

The router is the first device that receives an internet request that comes from a laptop, so I felt it would allow me to directly compare the difference between a WiFi and ethernet. For the ethernet latency test, I used the same Cat5e ethernet cable that was used for the bandwidth test. Technically no, as all communications between devices take at least a fraction of a millisecond. We can safely say that the ping from the HP Elitebook to the router using the ethernet cable took less than 1ms.

For the wireless connection, an average of 2ms was experienced between the laptop and router. For the wired connection there was an average latency of less than 1ms. To take this experiment one step further, I pinged Google on a wired and wireless connection to see if anything changed. I also pinged Google 10 times instead of 4 so the average latency would not get distorted by a bad ping.

The results agree with our initial test. Therefore we can confirm what I had read: ethernet connections experience less latency than WiFi connections. To summarize my findings, it did not appear that the type of internet connection greatly affected the upload speed. For your reference, the upload speed is included as part of the Ookla bandwidth tests that I ran.

As you can see no matter what connection or device was used, there was an upload speed of about 18 Mbps. If you frequently upload to the internet e. WiFi connections transfer their signals through the air and these signals can be interfered with by other electronic devices e. Unlike Wi Fi, Ethernet transmits data over cable. This quality makes Ethernet almost always faster than any WiFi. The fastest speed of Ethernet top out at around 10 Gbps or even higher.

While the quickest speed of WiFi max out at 6. Even this Wi Fi speed is theoretically because actual speeds are much slower, usually less than even 1Gbps. This goes without saying that WiFi is subject to much more interference than a wired connection. There are many things that contribute to your WiFi being frequently less reliable. These interferences then lead to numerous problems while you connect to the web, especially in online gaming.

It is quite tough to quantify wireless interference due to the fact that it tends to ebb and flow, especially if you are moving around your place with your device. We have listed some of the most common issues that occur due to these interruptions that may cause data loss:. Occasionally, your WiFi will start losing the signal, and it has to reacquire it again.

Since the reacquisition happens quite quickly, you might not find it a huge hassle while doing daily browsing or streaming videos as videos get buffered even on the local device. Once you have interferences, it affects the quality of your signals. In other words, the more interference, the lower will be the signal quality. Lower signals lead to slower and reduced connection speeds. And one thing no user can tolerate is lowered speed. Latency essentially means the impediment that occurs before a transfer of data starts following guidance for its transfer.

Having higher interference can also lead to higher latency. Latency causes problems exactly like when you face a drop in signals. Ethernet: Which Connection to Use? Allen Jame July 25, Thus, WiFi is the first choice for anyone who intends to connect to the internet and get online.

For this, you must know how to convert a WiFi signal to an Ethernet connection Does all this advancement in IoT application development and wireless technologies mean that the time of Ethernet is over? Are you interested in becoming an IoT developer? Learn More. About Allen Jame Allen Jame is a blogger and a web developer. Allen loves reading and writing blogs.

Previous Post. July 05, Next Post. September 11, Verizon Selling PS5. Windows 11 SE Explained. Windows 11 SE. Microsoft Default Browser Firefox. Google's New Pet Art. Robinhood Hack Find Downloaded Files on an iPhone. Use Your iPhone as a Webcam. Hide Private Photos on iPhone. Take Screenshot by Tapping Back of iPhone.

Should You Upgrade to Windows 11? Browse All Windows Articles. Copy and Paste Between Android and Windows. Protect Windows 10 From Internet Explorer. Mozilla Fights Double Standard. Connect to a Hidden Wi-Fi Network. Change the Size of the Touch Keyboard.

Check Bluetooth Device Battery Life. Reader Favorites Take Screenshot on Windows. Mount an ISO image in Windows.