Why is Wifi faster than Ethernet?

[TomvanWijnen]

Hello everyone,

 

So today I decided to test my internet speeds, because my mother was meeping that watching TV on her iPad kept buffering. I connected a 20M ethernet cable to a laptop, and got a 70 mbits result on speedtest.net. This is "terrible", since I should get 120 mbits. So gave me a bad taste about my ISP (I even looked up different ISPs, but this one was the only in my area that (should) give(s) more than 80 mbits).

 

Later today, I again tried speedtest.net, because I could (good reason, huh?), but this time with Wifi. I got 80 mbits. . 1: that made me wow, didn't think it even could do 80 mbits. 2: that's way higher than ethernet... So I tried ethernet again, and got 70 mbits, again.

 

What?

Wifi = 80mbits

Ethernet = 70mbits

 

Could anyone maybe explain me what is going on here, as I'm really confused...

 

 

Thanks

[PlayStation 2]

Margin of error?

[spwath]

Ok, thoes are both fast.

 

And, you get different results depending on time of day

[Leonard]

It isn't.

[Arty]

Ok, thoes are both fast.

 

And, you get different results depending on time of day

/\ and maybe your doing it wrong ?

 

does it say you will get 120

or up to 120?

[arronleeds]

Well it's 20 metres what to do you expect brah, also your router may only have a 100 mbit Ethernet port.

[TomvanWijnen]

That's a really big margin though. And the connection was pretty stable.

Margin of error?

 

Ok, thoes are both fast.

 

And, you get different results depending on time of day

I know, that's what I thought too, so I ran the ethernet test again, and again got 70 mbits. And I know it's fast, but I still think I should get what we're paying for

 

It isn't.

That's why I made this topic, to find out what I'm doing wrong

 

/\ and maybe your doing it wrong ?

 

does it say you will get 120

or up to 120?

I don't know, but I do know that I should get at least 90, which I did in the past.

 

Well it's 20 metres what to do you expect brah, also your router may only have a 100 mbit Ethernet port.

If the port is only 100 mbit, it should give me 100, not 70 . And I've used this 20 meter cable before (and another one too, actually, and I got up to 90 mbit (then we didn't have 120 yet).

[Guest]

Ethernet can be faster depending on what type of cable your using,if your using some CAT 1 cable or something

Wifi's gonna be faster. If your using a CAT6, Ethernets gonna be faster.

Wired connection can always beat wireless. 

But you have it backwards, Ethernet is faster then WiFi. Speeds transfer faster through a cable then air.

Edit, If you don't have a clue about what I'm talking about, There are different Catagories of Ethernet cables, in short CAT, 1-6. Cat 6 was made standard for Ethernet, there isn't really a way thats too obvious to tell, also What kind of Router do you have? and are you plugged into the router or the modem? 

[TomvanWijnen]

Ethernet can be faster depending on what type of cable your using,if your using some CAT 1 cable or something

Wifi's gonna be faster. If your using a CAT6, Ethernets gonna be faster.

Wired connection can always beat wireless. 

But you have it backwards, Ethernet is faster then WiFi. Speeds transfer faster through a cable then air.

The cable should at least be able to transfer 90 mbit, it did this before, so why wouldn't it now . And I just looked, it's Cat5, so it should be fine.

[Stefan1024]

I'm on short range Wi-Fi (~7m) with 866 MBit/s, so wireless network can be very capable.

 

On the other hand if you have an old / bad cable you can only run 100 Mbit / s. Also some router can configure theyer ports to be only 100 Mbit/s to save power.

[Stefan1024]

The cable should at least be able to transfer 90 mbit, it did this before, so why wouldn't it now . And I just looked, it's Cat5, so it should be fine.

You need to do the test wireless vs. cabel rigth after each other since the load on the WAN will affect the performance.

[TomvanWijnen]

I'm on short range Wi-Fi (~7m) with 866 MBit/s, so wireless network can be very capable.

 

On the other hand if you have an old / bad cable you can only run 100 Mbit / s. Also some router can configure theyer ports to be only 100 Mbit/s to save power.

I guess I learned something new today

 

The cable is pretty old, but it's still Cat5, so it should be enough to at least get me to 100 mbits, and not just cap at 70.

[Guest]

The cable should at least be able to transfer 90 mbit, it did this before, so why wouldn't it now . And I just looked, it's Cat5, so it should be fine.

I did do an edit, What kind of router do you have?

also your ISP might throttle your speeds slightly because they notice you've reached the cap 

[TomvanWijnen]

You need to do the test wireless vs. cabel rigth after each other since the load on the WAN will affect the performance.

I actually kind of did, there were not more than 2 minutes in between the tests. Is that close enough?

[TomvanWijnen]

I did do an edit, What kind of router do you have?

also your ISP might throttle your speeds slightly because they notice you've reached the cap 

I'm plugged into the modem. The router is right next to it, but plugging it into that would be useless, I thought, because then it would have to go through another cable, and another device. The modem does not share any wifi, I think.

 

My modem is an Ubee EVW3200.

[Stefan1024]

I guess I learned something new today

 

The cable is pretty old, but it's still Cat5, so it should be enough to at least get me to 100 mbits, and not just cap at 70.

CAT5 should be fine, but you can't compare the internet speed directly to the LAN link speed sinse you have significant overhead. A 100MBit/s link can be maxed out with 70Mbit/s data throughput.

 

 

I actually kind of did, there were not more than 2 minutes in between the tests. Is that close enough?

2 min is close enougth. You run the test on the configurations more than once, did you?

[Leonard]

 

---gone---

 

That's why I made this topic, to find out what I'm doing wrong

 

---gone---

 

It isn't what yo are doing wrong as what the concepts are. 

 

With wireless you are measuring the speed to the router and not the internet and in most cases that is an overestimate/cumulative calculation as a wireless frequency changes more frequently than wired.

 

To really know if your wireless is better than your wired connection from the same ISP, you would need to configure your LAN adapter settings properly as well as you wireless adapter. Then make more changes to your router and or modem and then configure your OS with the netsh commands then test.

[.spider.]

You should use iperf to measure the throughput of your local network 

[TomvanWijnen]

CAT5 should be fine, but you can't compare the internet speed directly to the LAN link speed sinse you have significant overhead. A 100MBit/s link can be maxed out with 70Mbit/s data throughput.

 

 

2 min is close enougth. You run the test on the configurations more than once, did you?

Do you mean the cable, or the ethernet connector on the laptop or the modem?

 

I did, and now that I did it again, I'm even more confused. Using Wifi, I twice got 70 mbits, and for at least 5 times, I got around 80 mbit.

 

Using ethernet, I got 70 mbit all the time, except the first time, which is where I got 90 mbit.

 

Really confusing.

 

 

It isn't what yo are doing wrong as what the concepts are. 

 

With wireless you are measuring the speed to the router and not the internet and in most cases that is an overestimate/cumulative calculation as a wireless frequency changes more frequently than wired.

 

To really know if your wireless is better than your wired connection from the same ISP, you would need to configure your LAN adapter settings properly as well as you wireless adapter. Then make more changes to your router and or modem and then configure your OS with the netsh commands then test.

Is speedtest.net measuring the speed to my modem? But why does it say it connects to a local servers here (I won't give names, for obvious reasons)?

 

And I got lost on the last part of the last sentence

 

 

You should use iperf to measure the throughput of your local network 

How can I do that? I downloaded the application, but when I open it, only a quick CMD opens, which then immediately closes.

[Leonard]

---gone---

 

 

Is speedtest.net measuring the speed to my modem? But why does it say it connects to a local servers here (I won't give names, for obvious reasons)?

 

And I got lost on the last part of the last sentence

 

 

---gone---

Speedtest measures the ping and then DL and UL speed to the browser but when you configure your network adapters, OS and modem and or router properly with all the QoS(quality of service) and other features you can configure, speeds change.

 

and about the last sentence.... :lol: i thought it would go over your head. Only a network or guy who researched the netsh commands would know what i am talking about. Those commands and all the other configuring can be the difference between 100ms and 9ms ping to the same server, the lower the ping the faster the internet speed.

 

Another thing you should do is check the pingtest from speedtest, it it a option on the top left of the speedtest page, the pingtest shows the quality of your internet speed, this means that you can have a 100mb DL and a 100UL speed but when you have a jitter of say 10 or higher, you can get a grade C for your internet quality. Try the ping test to see your jitter.

[.spider.]

How can I do that? I downloaded the application, but when I open it, only a quick CMD opens, which then immediately closes.

Well you need to PCs

Start it in server mode with -s -p"free port of your choice"

and on another machine with -c IP of server -p"port" -t60 -i5

[TomvanWijnen]

Speedtest measures the ping and then DL and UL speed to the browser but when you configure your network adapters, OS and modem and or router properly with all the QoS(quality of service) and other features you can configure, speeds change.

 

and about the last sentence.... :lol: i thought it would go over your head. Only a network or guy who researched the netsh commands would know what i am talking about. Those commands and all the other configuring can be the difference between 100ms and 9ms ping to the same server, the lower the ping the faster the internet speed.

 

Another thing you should do is check the pingtest from speedtest, it it a option on the top left of the speedtest page, the pingtest shows the quality of your internet speed, this means that you can have a 100mb DL and a 100UL speed but when you have a jitter of say 10 or higher, you can get a grade C for your internet quality. Try the ping test to see your jitter.

I'll try this again tomorrow morning Now it's time to sleep

 

Well you need to PCs

Start it in server mode with -s -p"free port of your choice"

and on another machine with -c IP of server -p"port" -t60 -i5

That sounds a bit difficult for someone who knows almost nothing about networking... And I only have one laptop that I think would be able to have really good speeds, don't I need two for this?

[Leonard]

I'll try this again tomorrow morning Now it's time to sleep

 

---gone---

 Sleep...  sleep.....we tekkies don't sleep until the job is done man......GET WITH IT!