Does Wired Really beat Wireless?

When using a wired connect the transmission speed is effectively increased because the cat or fibre cable transmits the bytes using multiple pairs of wires simultaneously in both directions. Otherwise that IBM database backup you started in 2010 would just now be ending.

And a 1 gig router can be helpful if you have a multi-client setup through a switch. And with packet overhead and almost all residential routers limited to 1500 MTU you never get more then 89-93 meg of wired throughput minus any ACK latency.

Ethernet has a transmit pair and a receive pair. That’s it - just 2 pair is used of the 4 pair cable. T and R. 


MIMO 2x2 does the same with Wi-Fi.

I have this TP-Link and it works great on the 5 GHz band for wireless N, it’s great throughput for the price:

A lot of the other routers are faster because they are 3x3 MIMO but most clients are still 2x2 so there’s no point in getting a router that’s has more antennas unless you’re future proofing. As well most current clients (Roku 3 and Fire TV Stick), do not use Wireless AC either.

 

what’d he say… What’d HE SAY?


 

Dammed if even I know… 

When dealing with a wired protocol, whether ethernet cat6 or rs-232, some wires assist in reliability and consistency of the data. The actual max wired speed whether 100Mb or 1 Gb, is a given. With WiFI these same concepts need to be addressed with the signal. And thus can affect the throughput.

One purpose of  this forum is to help users avoid some of the pitfalls associated with using a tablo.

What ShadowsPapa is trying to imply is that if you have a router rated at 300 Mbps you will get 300 Mbps. That there is no interference from walls, competing WiFi signals or other electrical appliances. And that this interference doesn’t fluctuate.

This is 2015 not the 1990’s. If a customer is going to investment of $300 for a 4 tuner table, $85 for a disk, $85 for a antenna, and $150 for a lifetime guide, they better have an understanding of the IO capacity of their current LAN. And that includes WiFi. It’s pretty obvious that the forum contains many performance questions/issues. Some of these may be due to under performing ISP routers or over reliance on WiFi.

While I do use WiFi I have a pretty good idea of the WiFi capacity in each room where it’s used.

When dealing with a wired protocol, whether ethernet cat6 or rs-232, some wires assist in reliability and consistency of the data. The actual max wired speed whether 100Mb or 1 Gb, is a given. With WiFI these same concepts need to be addressed with the signal. And thus can affect the throughput.

One purpose of  this forum is to help users avoid some of the pitfalls associated with using a tablo.

What ShadowsPapa is trying to imply is that if you have a router rated at 300 Mbps you will get 300 Mbps. That there is no interference from walls, competing WiFi signals or other electrical appliances. And that this interference doesn't fluctuate.


Uh, no - you need to read my OTHER posts where I give all the ins and outs, up and down with Wi-Fi. That 300 is a max theoretical. I know Wi-Fi well enough and support major networks at work. I have also very plainly stated that even with my router in the same room, I drop back to 150  speeds quite often. n300 is not constant nor consistent but great when it does link and stay there. 


Here-  READ my quote from above - and nowhere did I even imply what you said I did - 
My own words from days ago -
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>>I don’t care how good your Wi-Fi is, wired trumps it unless your wi-fi is perfect. Especially if your Wi-Fi has to go through even 1 wall. Paint causes issues, metal i the walls, AC wiring, etc. i used to support Wi-Fi at work - we pulled all 8 access points and had the building wired. In our only other office that used to be Wi-Fi, we wired that building, too. Wi-Fi is great for convenience, but even wiring just the Tablo to the router helps. <<
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Not only does Wi-Fi fluctuate, it can by the minute - refrigerator kicks in in the next room, you turn on lights or a ceiling fan, A/C running, or heat pump in the winter, walls - walls with metal studs, shoot, we have a massive steel beam down the center of our house and that impacts Wi-Fi through the floor from router upstairs to server downstairs. 
Maybe you’ve not read my posts before, but I’m a big advocate of WIRED and not Wi-Fi as it’s a convenience thing only for most folks. Even a good access point or Wi-Fi router isn’t going to be perfect and is subject to the environment.
I’ve handled top of the line Cisco Wi-Fi gear, set radios according to a complex map, etc. and we still had troubles, so our network admin while he was still here lobbied with management to get the buildings WIRED for reliable speed and connectivity. 
And I’ve stated in a lot of posts how “Wi-Fi is fine for convenience for but stability, reliability and speed, wire it”. 

Ethernet up through 100Base-TX is 1 send and 1 receive pair. Period. 10 and 100 use 2 pair (except for a weird early “fast Ethernet” variation)

RS232 is another animal completely, no comparison. I used to wire a huge financial company for sharing printers over RS232 wiring and print share devices and can almost even remember the pin-outs used!

With Ethernet other than Gigabit the other wire pairs are not used nor necessary. The traffic control and quality is controlled by the protocols themselves - and the only thing the wire does is have twists to reduce cross-talk and interference. I also wired many a building by hand, make and certify and test wiring, cables, etc. 
Of the 4 pairs, green and orange are transmit plus and minus and receive plus and minus. 
The blue and brown pairs are not used for transmission or even control (again, for other than Gigabit). 
Now IF you are talking gigabit and 100Base-T4 and those DO use the other pairs or conductors, but Ethernet in general up to the point before 1000 speeds were 2 pair and only 2 pair.

To be clear,
* Ethernet 10BaseT, 100Base-TX use two pairs.
* Gigabit and an early “Fast Ethernet” type used 4 pairs. And if you make a cross-over cable for those, all pairs must be reversed.  

So unless you have Gigabit speeds you are really using only two pair of that 4 pair cable as that’s all Ethernet up to Gigabit used.
Tablo, for example, can do well with a 100Base-TX cable, Cat 5, using 2 pair. 

Either 568a or 568b cables may be used with Ethernet - (prior to Gigabit) the blue and brown pairs are in the exact same spots in either scheme, the green and orange connections at the RJ45 on the cable are reversed between the two standards - and as long as the cable is the same on each end, it’s fine. Now if you want a cross-over cable to wire devices such as computers NIC to NIC then you do want the orange and green pairs reversed from each other on the opposite ends so the transmit on one end is the receive on the other. Use a cross-over for hub to hub or connecting one switch to the upstream of another switch, MDI to MDI. 
The twists per foot, which is different for each colored pair, helps control signal quality, cross-talk, etc. 
Cat 5 supports 10BaseT and 100Base-TX
Cat 5e is enhanced for Gigabit speeds. 

@ShadowsPapa, interesting you said 300 is the max :stuck_out_tongue: iMac via wifi don’t forget AC



Wireless AC can go up to 1300 Mbps, very fast. But requires a router and device with 3x3 MIMO in the 5 GHz band.

Fire TV and Roku 3 are not Wireless AC just so people know, Wireless N is the best it does with 2x2 MIMO for a max of 300 Mbps when using channel bonding.

@ShadowsPapa, interesting you said 300 is the max :-P iMac via wifi don't forget AC


300 max for my N router… it’s of course not the max possible today, or even next week.
OTOH, the faster you go, the more prone you are to failure at distance. Slower speeds are better up closer to their max distance while the others, sort of like AM compared to FM, have more “issues” when you get closer to their max distance range. 3g and 4g are similar in that regard. 4g is faster than 3g, but 3g keeps its integrity better as it reaches its maximum distance while 4g is more problematic the farther from the tower you are. So if you are close, the AC Wi-Fi is super fast but if you have a distance to span, the slower technologies would be more reliable.

I’m no engineer, no expert by any means, but did train in network wiring with an AT&T lead tech, created and made my own test tools, currently I have state of the art cable making and cable certification tools. I have pulled tricks to get things done that landed me as the one and only tech that PFG ever gave an “exceeds expectations to” in an annual review. As a rule they said they can’t do that because they expected everyone to always do their best and keep bettering themselves. They told me they found I was not only doing my job, but helping others, and doing the jobs of the engineers in some cases, fixing things they were unable to fix. Not only was my supervisor present for the review as is typical, but upper management as well, unusual. 

1 month ago here with my review I got more “Exceeds expectations” when I resolved a few networking issues that the triple-E’s at the OCIO were unable to figure out. We are now at our best ever up-time for all 34 remote office connections due to my revamping the code in the routers. I also put up a virtual VPN gateway that the lead network admin had told the boss wasn’t possible with our equipment. It’s now the VPN model for the state. 

I designed and built the computers that acted as the control interfaces for Compressor Controls Corp’s Series IV turbo-compressor control systems. Touchscreen before most knew what it was, Ethernet interface, etc. and designed and wrote the scripts and test procedures for the equipment to run it through its paces - environmental test chamber under heavy load or working conditions, hammering the drives and so on while cooling them with liquid nitrogen, then heating them up. 
Several of those computer interfaces for the Series IV went to Eastern Europe for use by Gazprom.
My big problem with it all is because of the severe ADHD issues I have, it’s up there, but I can’t explain it or tell others how I got there. It causes a disconnect between what one knows and how one explains or applies it. 
I make mistakes in grammar, mis-type things, and turn things up-side-down now and then, but it’s up there. I just have to sort it out and get it so it can be read and understood. 
Thoughts process so fast, so many at a time, it’s impossible to keep up so sometimes entire pieces are left out, making it look confusing. Luckily I don’t do that in the actual WORK. Just in explaining or typing. I nearly failed high school math, and yet got to skip college math - I “tested out”. My problem in HS was - they wanted me to explain or show my work. That’s just not possible. I know the answer but have no clue how I got there. 
I’m not totally stupid, I just sound that way a lot… but it’s sort of an advantage at times! No one expects me to be able to do what I can actually do so I can play dumb and get people to do their worst… the boss knows I’m quite good at computer forensics and some things are easier if people think you are a clueless dummy… in a way, a bit like Columbo. 
Oh, well.

BTW - Thank you @theuser86 - you say what I think, but in 95% fewer words and more easily understood. Great explanation! Glad you put up with me  ;-)

here’s some of the equipment I am now responsible for …








I think it’s disengenoous to think that wired is the way to go. Here’s why… 


A lot of the “bonjour” compatibility is gone (discovery of devices) with certain frontends (roku and probably firetv) if they are wired along with the tablo. As a matter of fact the FireTV is suppsoed to be wireless (not the stick) when used with the tablo (also needs to be wireless). Even though they are still ont he same network and the switch can broadcast the bonjour (multicast) stuff without filters on the same vlan/bridged network.

I will agree wired is better, but until BONJOUR is fixed in general, it means dumbing down speeds and reliability to get the awareness and protocols to fully work all the way around.

@grazman

I agree.

WiFi can be reliable but most people expect Wireless N 2.4 GHz to be fast enough for local streaning of the Tablo. The recordings are higher bitrate and to get Stable and Reliable streaming I’ve found you have to use Wireless N 5 GHz. A big part of this is these WiFi devices are far from said router or there is a lot of interference from other wireless APs in the same band.

Most people jump to blaming the Tablo before considering their out dated Router may be the issue. Hence the recommendation to use a wired connection.

You’ll see a lot of users in this forum upgrade their routers to dual band routers and are very happy with performance.

I think it's disengenoous to think that wired is the way to go. Here's why... 

A lot of the "bonjour" compatibility is gone (discovery of devices) with certain frontends (roku and probably firetv) if they are wired along with the tablo. As a matter of fact the FireTV is suppsoed to be wireless (not the stick) when used with the tablo (also needs to be wireless). Even though they are still ont he same network and the switch can broadcast the bonjour (multicast) stuff without filters on the same vlan/bridged network.

I will agree wired is better, but until BONJOUR is fixed in general, it means dumbing down speeds and reliability to get the awareness and protocols to fully work all the way around.

None of my devices at home (with the exception of iPads and iPhones) use Wifi.  Bonjour services run perfectly and things get discovered just fine.

You mean when I fire up my arc welder it won’t affect my WiFI?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201542

I have a large house, with a wife and multiple children. The case for using wired versus WiFI isn’t always based on WiFi speed ratings. The family room has a Gig LAN router that uses 5G WiFi to drive a Roku and 2.4 for other local WiFi. But I have multiple tablo’s. They exist up stairs closer to the antenna. The tablos, a Roku, and an access point connect to the LAN router via a Gig switch in the master bedroom. An office, the kids bedrooms are all wired to a different Gig switch into the LAN. Everyone gets to decide whether they use wired or WiFi. And for streaming players over a room away from the LAN  everyone almost always decides to use wired.