Here in the next month, if all goes as planned, I will finally be making the jump from 9.6kbps dial-up to 4mbps cable. Now, I want to know what would be the best solution, performance wise, for my home network. Should I go wireless or wired? What would be more reliable and faster? Please give your opinions. Thanks...
Wired or wireless?
- Thread starter beedubaya
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BuckingFastard
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Congrats on your upgrade 
As far as performance goes, even the slowest wireless type (802.11B) goes at 11Mb/s and averages around 3-4Mb/s. 802.11G maxes out at 54Mb/s and averages around 20Mb/s.
Unless you are transferring a lot of files between computers, you won't notice a difference between wireless and wired, or even between 802.11B and 802.11G.
Wired is obviously faster, with your average-store-bought-hardware maxing out at 100Mb/s, however again, unless you are transferring a lot of files between computers, you won't notice a difference between wireless and wired.
As far as reliable, wired is obviously more reliable, but not by much. Although wireless may take a few tweaks in order to get it just the way you want it, once it's set up it's just as good as wired. Also with wired, you have wires to deal with.
There's also the issue of security. Although there are security precautions with wireless (WEP, WPA, turning off SSID broadcast, etc), there are no security issues with a wired network. However with wireless, enabling WEP will probably stop everyone from accessing your network unless you're a specific target.
Wireless is also generally more expensive than wired.
In my opinion, I would choose wireless over wired for the average home network.
As far as performance goes, even the slowest wireless type (802.11B) goes at 11Mb/s and averages around 3-4Mb/s. 802.11G maxes out at 54Mb/s and averages around 20Mb/s.
Unless you are transferring a lot of files between computers, you won't notice a difference between wireless and wired, or even between 802.11B and 802.11G.
Wired is obviously faster, with your average-store-bought-hardware maxing out at 100Mb/s, however again, unless you are transferring a lot of files between computers, you won't notice a difference between wireless and wired.
As far as reliable, wired is obviously more reliable, but not by much. Although wireless may take a few tweaks in order to get it just the way you want it, once it's set up it's just as good as wired. Also with wired, you have wires to deal with.
There's also the issue of security. Although there are security precautions with wireless (WEP, WPA, turning off SSID broadcast, etc), there are no security issues with a wired network. However with wireless, enabling WEP will probably stop everyone from accessing your network unless you're a specific target.
Wireless is also generally more expensive than wired.
In my opinion, I would choose wireless over wired for the average home network.
I would also look at where your computers are going to be set, and what you think is going to be done with your network.
If it's just yours, and you're not planning on moving it very much, I would go with the wired option.
If you've got a laptop, and want to move around your home with it, I would go wireless.
What about having LAN parties, and friends bringing over their computers?
If it's just yours, and you're not planning on moving it very much, I would go with the wired option.
If you've got a laptop, and want to move around your home with it, I would go wireless.
What about having LAN parties, and friends bringing over their computers?
bf said pretty much everything.
if the computers are close together, get wired. if its all over the house, then wireless. if you want to do gaming as hilowe said, go with wired. personally i would go with wireless, cause i hate the clutter of wires. you're 2 questions which one is more reliable and faster, the answer to that is simply wired.
if the computers are close together, get wired. if its all over the house, then wireless. if you want to do gaming as hilowe said, go with wired. personally i would go with wireless, cause i hate the clutter of wires. you're 2 questions which one is more reliable and faster, the answer to that is simply wired.
OIDanTheManIO
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Wired IS better, yes. That's as fast as it's going to get at least for a basic home network.
-Dan The Man
-Dan The Man
One major benifit of wired is you don't get interferance from RF devises in your home. if you can get away with wired, do it. If you have a laptop, then buy a wireless enabled router and use that only when needed. for Desktops, wireless is cool, cause you don't have to run the cable, but it's not cool when your wireless connection dumps and you have to wait for it to comeback up...
my 2 cents...
my 2 cents...
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