Ethernet v wireless speeds

[PokerFace]

Hi,

My internet will be transferred to Sky tomorrow. Just incase they give me any bull about my line capabilities if I have a problem after the 10 day "stabilising" period, I have been taking screen prints of my Speedtest.net results over the last couple of weeks to have a record of my current connection (just under 2Mb/s).

I happened to look at my internet connections in the Network and Sharing Centre and saw the following results (I currently have my PC connected via ethernet cable and via wireless card):

Ethernet speed: 100.0 Mbps
Wireless speed: 135.0 Mbps

LAN
Sent: 1,340,000 Received: 7,044,000

WIRELESS
Sent: 388,000 Received: 340,161

My questions are:

1) Why does the ethernet speed show slower than the wireless? I thought being directly connected by cable would be better.

2) Is it good, bad or doesn't it make a difference if I have ethernet and wireless both enabled at the same time?

If you're wondering, I have both enabled as a sort of belt and braces in case I get a bit of a glitch in one of the connections I thought the other connection would keep me connected. So I guess Q.3) would be: is my thinking right or wrong on that?

Cheers!

 

[Craig]

It is best to use a cable - no chance of outside interference.

Wireless does have benefits but that you know all that. It's probably because you're using an N card Wireless and Router ( i think ).

 

[LFFPicard]

Your cable is most likely a Cat4 i think it is witch supports 10/100MB speeds.
That and your ethernet port may only be a 10/100MB card.

You can get Cat5e (I think) that is 10/100/10000MB i.e 1GB connection, and you can get 10/100/10000MB cards.

As for your second question if i remember rightly the PC will always choose a wired connection over wireless so if you have them both connected it will only use the wired port, if you unplug the wired connection your internet will drop for a couple seconds and then switch to the wired connection.

 

[PokerFace]

As for your second question if i remember rightly the PC will always choose a wired connection over wireless so if you have them both connected it will only use the wired port, if you unplug the wired connection your internet will drop for a couple seconds and then switch to the wired connection.

That's what I was thinking, but I don't think that's correct, as looking at both connections they both appear to be in use ("sent" and "received" totals both increasing for ethernet and wireless, although ethernet totals higher).

As for the cable, that sounds feasible. So does that mean the router is capable of higher than 100 Mbps, but the cable is restricting the speed? If so, if I buy a cat5 cable, should I see better speeds?

 

[LFFPicard]

You will have to check the stats of the router you have, I believe, again correct me if I am wrong but the majority of home routers are 10/1000 - Commercial routers go 10/100/10000
You may find some 10/100/10000 home routers but they will be a bit more pricey.

As for the wireless/wired thing. I have done this before and the internet does drop when switching connections. I think you will find the reason why they both show traffic is the wired is showing network and internet traffic and the wireless is just the traffic from communicating on your internal network, like pings, periodic checks for shared devices/files/folders and other computers etc.

 

[PokerFace]

As for the wireless/wired thing. I have done this before and the internet does drop when switching connections. I think you will find the reason why they both show traffic is the wired is showing network and internet traffic and the wireless is just the traffic from communicating on your internal network, like pings, periodic checks for shared devices/files/folders and other computers etc.

Ahh, that makes sense. The wireless will be still trying to connect to my other pc in another room (even though the pc is off) and also sending a signal to my mobile phone.

Thanks LFFP