Wireless is the simpler choice when setting up a home network, but even with today’s speeds many people still find that a wired network has advantages. What do you do in your home?
Wireless networking has come a long way. The chances are that a decent modern wireless network outstrips your Internet speed, so for most applications it works just fine. But with online gaming, streaming video and audio, and more happening over that network, wired still offers better speed and a more reliable connection. Even on your local network, you may be streaming from a media server or backing up to a central location, so a good connection matters even more.
We’ve shown you before how to upgrade your home network. But for now, we’d like to know:
Feel free to tell us about your setup in the comments.
Comments
29 responses to “Is Your Home Network Wired?”
I have an ethernet cable from my modem to my router.
Everything else is WiFi, media server, Apple TV, Laptops, iPads, iPhones all of it, I got sick of running cables everywhere, and the Media streaming on the Apple TV works great over WiFi.
My wifi connection is absolutely shite. My Fiance can’t even stream iView to her iPad over it… Pretty sure it’s my shitty Billion router that’s at fault here, not sure what to do about it though, I don’t really want to keep buying new shit just to try stuff out, and I’ve got no real good way of telling if replacing it will even help out… So it’s wired for everything that can be wired, and anything else had just better hope you don’t want too much, or consistent bandwidth.
I would check out WiFi Stumbler first, your channel may just be over crowded. I find this is the case in over 90% of the calls I get.
Channel is fine, every WiFi tool I use tells me the same thing. “there’s nothing wrong”, well except for the shite and completely intermittent reception.
Perhaps you could also try this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOBfxbpxosA
I’ve got a pretty good WiFi network set up, and everything uses it. It’s definitely a lot easier to connect a lot of devices to the network quickly, from PC’s and laptops to phones, game consoles and media players.
There are times when I sometimes wish I had an ethernet connection to my PC at least though, but overall the network I’ve set up is pretty solid and reliable.
Wired all the way! I have 100mbit cable Internet, and you can only get the most out of it with a wired connection. Also, streaming 1080p files to my TV is a bit too strenuous for wireless. Anything that can be wired should be.
Don’t get me wrong though, I have a WiFi router and a second access point down the other end of my house, so I get near-perfect signal up to 50 meters from my house. Laptops, Phones, Tablets, WiFi definitely has its place.
Same. But mine is mostly gigabit.
PC’s, Laptops, Server, Consoles, TVs, WDLive, Printer & Cutter are all wired.
Wi-Fi is exclusively for phones and visitors.
Wired just seems way more efficient to me.
I use wired where I want to try and ensure speed and connection i.e. Xbox 360 and Desktop computer. All other devices i.e. Laptop, Mobiles, Smart TV, Apple TV etc all connect via wifi.
My main desktop’s always been wired, mainly because it’s right next to the router anyway. (Handy for WakeOnLAN, too.)
Recently, however, I wired the media PC to get the heavy traffic out of the ether and into the conductors.
I added an extra wifi access point while I was crawling around in the roof space, to allow us to use phones and laptops in the garden more reliably.
WOL is the main reason I keep our HTPC wired. I know there are some ways to remote wake across WLAN, but most are beyond the scope of my expertise/care factor.
Plus I regularly backup everything to a big NAS and gigabit ethernet still beats N-wifi
The problem with rental properties..
that’s your only problem with rental properties?
That was really witty!! Good work!
I have never had a rental complain about me wiring the whole house … I generally add a tv point to most bedrooms and run ethernet all over the house … 2 per room (xbox & computers) 4 to the loungeroom (bluray player, htpc, time capsule and xbox) as well as generally another few powerpoints everywhere … although I am a licensed electrician which probably helps my cause.
My Router is hooked up to the phone line in the living room, also hooking up my consoles and TV with a wired connection. Then I have a loooong cat 6 cable running behind the couch, along the walls, through the gates or Mordor and under a bit of carpet and into a network switch in my computer room so that my pcs can have a wired connection. I don’t even notice the cable anymore, it blends in pretty well.
I still have wifi for the laptop but everything else I prefer wired because the wireless signal strength can be dodgy at times.
I was the same, but I recently got some EoP adapters to replace the long cable. Works pretty well.
I have about 2km of network cable in my house, and about 1km of video cable. Basically, I did things properly. I use WiFi, but move to Wired where I can, for the performance and reliability.
BUT… I had pathetic WiFi for about two years, until two years back. It was basically unusable. Buying new routers would not help. I could not understand it. Eventually I tracked it down to the CROW brand PIR detectors I installed with my alarm. They were microwave sensing, and also operated on 2.4 GHz. Replacing them really improved not only my WiFi, but one of my neighbours too!
Similar situation here with the wireless in our previous place, except that we never were able to determine the real cause. My partner is a network engineer, and borrowed a bunch of equipment from work to try and track it down. The most we could determine was that it was a fixed device in the street somewhere that was basically screaming across the entire frequency. Because it was a rental, we just had to live with it.
When we bought a place, the first thing we did was cable the whole place top to bottom. Each room has 6 ports – 3 for basic Ethernet, 2 for HDMI-over-Ethernet, and one for USB-over-Ethernet, so we can play PC games on the big lounge room TV easily. Works a treat, and doesn’t have the horrible latency we used to get over wireless all the time. Wired FTW!
Given the choice, I go wired every time. TV, PS3, media server, all in the lounge room connected to the modem/router. But it’s unreasonable to run cables throughout the unit so my PC and various portable devices are all on WiFi.
My wifi router is 2 yrs old ( live induplex) apart from turning on off again once a weekish,all seems fine.any reason to buy the latest and greatest ( two iPads,3 iPhones 2 laptops)? ( mostly media browsing/ downloading)
I have wireless for my laptop, tablet, phone etc… but for my PC, i have to connected to my modem through Ethernet over Power.
+1 – Ethernet over Power / WiFi mixture. Modem router downstairs and a second wireless router running the same SSID upstairs, connected by EOP. Use the extended wifi coverage from this for the iPad and IP cameras that my wife uses as baby monitors. CAT5 from the routers to the various stationary devices (PS3/AppleTV/TiVo etc). Will get it cabled up properly one day (post NBN probably), but EoP has proven a solid stop-gap.
Things in the same media cabinet as my modem/router are wired (Apple AE / WD.TV Live, Apple TV, XBox). The rest are all wireless.
I use wired to my server. Everything else is wireless. No problems streaming 2 movies off the server at once. Occasionally run a wire when copying large amounts of files.
Wired for the main PC, wireless for everything else…. the everything else is a laptop, iphone and ipad.. so the latter two are not wired possible anyway.. the laptop is just out of convenience..
Oh yes.. and when I actually have the PS3 setup and running (it’s been in storage for about 6 months), it is wired.. so I guess.. if I could wire “fixed” things, I would.. anything that moves around, like the laptop, doesn’t get wired.
Ethernet for anything expected to work, so the NAS, Media PC, TV, Stereo, Desktops and anything else that has an ethernet jack and wants the internet.
Wireless in my house is strictly reserved for devices that don’t offer ethernet.
IF NBN ever gets to my house, I’ll properly wire the places (blue cords and tape EVERYWHERE) and then upgrade the wireless (three different brand routers all running the same SSID and password makes for some interesting packet loss)
Everything is wired except my xbox 360. It’s wired to a Air Port Express.
Laptops and phones are wireless. File server, media streamer, and TV are all wired.