Why? Is this an actual problem? I have a bunch of wired connections (or at least had) but I'm not sure I ever saw a difference and I'm certainly not going to spend time or money retrofitting them for some Platonic ideal--ADDED, at least in recent years or outside of specific situations.
Latency. WiFi latency can spike which ruins video calls. Simple speed (given lots of time) on the other hand is rarely a problem.
There’s also the problem of sometimes, video calls just stutter and seize up and it’s the internet’s fault, not the local network. But with a wired connection, I am immediately confident the problem is not in my network. With WiFi, who knows, maybe it’s my fault. I used to continuously ping the router so I could verify this, and indeed ping spikes would happen. Now with a wired connection I don’t worry about this.
But yeah if you run no latency-sensitive applications, WiFi might be fine.
WiFi is convenient and (usually) cheaper (esp if it's a retrofit), but not deterministic. And less 'cluttered' I guess, if that's your pet peeve. All sorts of things can muck around with Wifi speed, reliability and latency and most people have little or no ability to troubleshoot it effectively.
I retrofit wired my house[1] about 20 years ago; I only have had a small handful of issues with it in that time (all basically mechanical fatigue of jacks). If I have speed, latency or connectivity issues, I can be reasonably sure the last thing I have to debug is the physical network.
[1] Copper, not fiber, but no runs are over 50m. Works to 10G so far. I used a Leviton residential structured wiring system (network, coax and phone at the time; the last 2 long since obsoleted). I did a lot myself since I'd done enough quality time in datacenters to be adequately proficient with low voltage Cat5. Not cheap but not extravagant.
For me it's the metal studs in my walls. WiFi reception is truly awful. Fortunately it was prewired with Cat5e. But that will need to be replaced some day.
ghaff|11 months ago
massysett|11 months ago
There’s also the problem of sometimes, video calls just stutter and seize up and it’s the internet’s fault, not the local network. But with a wired connection, I am immediately confident the problem is not in my network. With WiFi, who knows, maybe it’s my fault. I used to continuously ping the router so I could verify this, and indeed ping spikes would happen. Now with a wired connection I don’t worry about this.
But yeah if you run no latency-sensitive applications, WiFi might be fine.
kjs3|11 months ago
I retrofit wired my house[1] about 20 years ago; I only have had a small handful of issues with it in that time (all basically mechanical fatigue of jacks). If I have speed, latency or connectivity issues, I can be reasonably sure the last thing I have to debug is the physical network.
[1] Copper, not fiber, but no runs are over 50m. Works to 10G so far. I used a Leviton residential structured wiring system (network, coax and phone at the time; the last 2 long since obsoleted). I did a lot myself since I'd done enough quality time in datacenters to be adequately proficient with low voltage Cat5. Not cheap but not extravagant.
Symbiote|11 months ago
I'm sure it's less of a problem in houses with other materials.
Arn_Thor|11 months ago
nobleach|11 months ago
heraldgeezer|11 months ago
So worth it as in apartment everyone and everything is blasting wifi. I see like 20+ SSIDs.