Wired connections faster than wireless?

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Hello everyone. I recently moved into a new home and I now have a 50Mb/s internet connection. When my laptop is wired to the wireless router, I get speeds of about 55Mb/s download and 11 Mb/s upload. However, when I remove the wire and go wireless, I only get 34 Mb/s download and 10 Mb/s upload. What is the reason for the dramatic speed difference?

For the record, the wireless modem is in the same room as the laptop I'm using. My wireless card is a Bigfoot Killer-N wireless card. The router (a brand new $80 Netgear router) is broadcasting a 5 ghz network and I'm the only user on the network at the moment.

So what gives? Any ideas of how I can get the wireless speeds to match the wired speeds?
 
Sorry not an expert here but wired is almost always going to be superior. 1 Gbps has been around for a long time and is likely what you are getting when you plug in and then just reach the max of your ISP connection. Sounds like your N router has a max of 300 Mbps (37.5 MBps) in whatever channel configuration you are using. If you can really get 600 Mbps with that hardware (not all routers are created equal) then you need to be playing with its configuration I presume. I think your answer is going to come down to exactly which Netgear router you have.

Check out the wikipedia article here for more technical information though not really useful that useful for configuring stuff.
 
Joined
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Everything else being equal (computers, protocols, etc) wired > wireless as far as speed/latency/etc. Does 34Mb/s really hold you back? If so, stop streaming HD porn, you'll go blind!
 
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Look he is young. There is more than porn on TPB to download. Think of all of the music and movies as well. Though its really mostly just porn. Anyway at those speeds you'll blow through your ISP monthly cap in a matter of hours most likely.

Also KILLER Wireless-N 1102 seems to have a max of 300 Mbps from what I can see. You need to verify that your client is also capable and not just the router.
 
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My card is the Wireless-N 1103 and it supports dual band 5 ghz networks.
 
Look he is young. There is more than porn on TPB to download.

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34 Mb/s isn't holding me back, but nobody wants to lose 21 Mb/s of their connection. That said, streaming videos in 1080p still works well at 34 Mb/s, so I'm not too worried about the loss of speed. If I ever need to download something significant I will just wire it up and get the extra speed.
 
34 Mb/s isn't holding me back, but nobody wants to lose 21 Mb/s of their connection. That said, streaming videos in 1080p still works well at 34 Mb/s, so I'm not too worried about the loss of speed. If I ever need to download something significant I will just wire it up and get the extra speed.

Might be worth it for large game downloads from a service like steam. I have seen steam manage to saturate a 1gbps connection (obviously not during a large launch) so it could mean a significant difference in download times for a large game.

Possibly bigger reason to do your large downloads over wired connection as opposed to wireless has to do with one being half duplex and the other being full duplex. That is assuming you want to use more than one device (or have more than one wireless user) while downloading something from a service that will actually come close to saturating the wireless network.

Basically the system that keeps wireless devices from talking over each other and allows them to share bandwidth produces comparatively and increasingly poor user experience the more "saturated" the network becomes in either of two ways. That is compared to when combinations of these limits are approached on modern wired networks. The first is the number of connections - which would apply most noticeably when usiing peer-to-peer assisted download services such as the patch downloader for WoW. The second way is when any one or more connection can by itself make use of throughput approaching the network's maximum.

If you're the only one using the network and you're only using one device on it at a time for the most part, then this would not be much of an issue. If you were downloading a game from steam or even more especially something that made use of peer-to-peer networks, you could degrade the useability of the wireless network for even low-bandwidth tasks such as web browsing and make it almost useless for gaming or VOiP for the duration. For routers with more basic management tools, it is often best to have devices which are more likely to create such traffic on the wired network and use the wireless when you feel it is too inconvenient or impractical to expect a wired connection.
 
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While it doesn't make a big difference for most day to day uses like browsing and small downloads, some applications actually require a wired LAN connection, e.g. high quality TV using Zattoo doesn't work via Wireless. And yes, it makes a differnce for large downloads too. I have hooked my gaming computer up with a cable now, while our laptops and smartphones connect via wireless, so it's the best of both worlds.
 
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Oct 18, 2006
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Seems hard to believe that the wired would be slower. I would blame either switches carrying the signal or bad Ethernet cables. Also, it's not just that wired is faster, the important thing is that is more consistent, allowing for better online gameplay.
 
Joined
Oct 28, 2013
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I'm basically using my laptop as a desktop these days. I keep internet wired into it. I use my old laptop for any mobile duties, and the Alienware as a desktop replacement basically. Next time I'll probably buy a desktop instead.
 
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