Wired or Wireless? Networks have changed over the years….
Once upon a time on a network long forgotten you needed to be fully wired for great performance, but now things have changed, or have they?
A long time ago when wireless networking was first released, a lot of people found that it was great to be able to pick up their computer and work in a different room if they wanted to, but that was about the extent of wireless use. Yep, one computer in the next room. We were really flying then….. At this point wireless networks were running at a maximum (which never actually happened) of 54Mbits and frankly somewhat unstable and wired networks were running at 10/100 Mbits and very stable.
As time moved on, more computers and more devices have become wireless and signal strength for wireless networks have gotten stronger and faster. We’ve gone from 802.11 “a” (1999), to “b”, to “g”, and now currently being used “n”. Hardware developers are even working on the next generation wireless which will be “ad”. Each of these have either increased the speed, distance, or stability (normally all three). There have been other letters in between, but they were more for development and testing and therefore not released for general use.
At this point most updated SOHO (Small Office / Home Office) networks are running on 802.11 n on either 2.6GHz or 5GHz (possibly both), and they give the stability and speed (54Mbits to 600Mbits) good enough for most small use networks (1-10 devices). Larger wireless access points and wireless routers can handle more as they were designed for. Smaller wireless networks are great for a few laptops/desktops, a couple of streaming boxes, some tablets, a printer or two, etc. Although this is all great, wired networks are now running stable at 100/1000Mbits and these are the small networks running on copper cable. Fiber on larger networks are getting even faster.
It comes down to need… What needs to be wireless and what can be wired? Wireless is convenient, but wired is still faster and more stable (less susceptible to interference). A lot of devices are now coming with the ability to be either wired or wireless, and if they can be wired, they should be. Not only will those devices be easier to setup wired, run faster wired, and be more stable wired, but by them being wired the wireless side of the network will have more bandwidth for use by those devices that have to be wireless.
I truly believe that there will become a time that wireless is just as fast and reliable as wired. Although we are getting there, I don’t think we are there just yet. We also haven’t discussed security, and as long as the network is only wired, then just due to physical limitations, it is more secure.
Jason Thomas
J&J Computers
