Which is faster, wireless router or wired internet?

As a tech person I often get asked the question which is faster wireless router connection or wired internet, and to be honest is a tough question to answer right off the bat because even though we know wired Internet speed is faster, we are left with the questions why and how, and the discussion never ends. In this post I want to discuss those why and how questions. Stick on.

Wired Local Area Networks (LAN) speed are usually 10,100, 1000 megabits per second with 100 megabits per second being the most common. The most used standards in Wireless networks these days are the specifications 802.11b and 802.11g. 802.11b operates in the 2.4 GHz band and has a maximum raw data rate of 11 Mbit/s. while 802/11g works in the 2.4 GHz band (like 802.11b) but operates at a maximum raw data rate of 54 Mbit/s, but realistically the maximum speed you can get from a 802.11g wireless device is around 20 Mbits.

With the facts already gathered above, let’s get to the question again. is it faster to use wires than wireless when navigating the Internet? The answer is: it depends how fast your Internet connection speed is, most home Internet providers offer speed ranging from 4 Mbits to 16 Mbits.

If you have a wireless router type 802.11g the Internet speed on your wireless computer will be the same as the wired one, because as I said above, a type 802.11g router will be able to reach around 20 Mbits per second. this is taking into account your wireless connection does not have much interference with other wireless devices and there are not too many people using the wireless at the same time.

Now here is another fact, if you are using the wireless computer to access files on a network the speed will be much slower, because within a network a wired computer can reach almost a 100 megabits per second connection speed; that’s almost 5 times the speed of a wireless device.

My recommendation when using wireless devices is to use them when needed. If you can hook up your computer to the Internet using a cable is better for these reasons: Less interference, more secure, and well, faster.