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      01-12-2020, 09:40 PM   #114
sethwas
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I hear what you're saying. And I'm certainly not disagreeing with you anywhere, I just want to add a thought without going off topic.


The speeds and capabilities of the ethernet wiring has become irrelevant. It's current capabilities 'today' are so far beyond what is actually used to the point the various categories have become a distinction without difference. In other words, an HDTV won't work any better or worse on one or the other since it's just not making any meaningful demands on the cable.
After all, an HDTV stream is like 1-5M tops or 0.1% of gigabit capabilities. A 4K stream is maybe 25M tops or 2.5%. And because it's a cable, it's not sharing traffic among many devices since you can only plug one thing in, so there will never be additional load.

However, what ethernet does do, is route internal traffic/congestion far better than wifi. You have exponentially more bandwidth and overhead on ethernet than you do with wifi, and this impacts everything on the network. Most important you have basically no latency (why the gamers and traders don't use wifi).

So with that in mind, in a modern home, the perspective going in is ethernet is just used strictly as a way to get networked devices off the wifi. Wifi becomes a crutch for devices you simply can't connect. Ethernet is not something that gets congested any more, however wireless gets congested still.
So if you have a TV, wire it. They don't move. If you have a nightstand speaker, wire it, because it doesn't move (hide the jack behind the bed so you are flexible). Same for printers (especially printers, they choke wifi the worst) and any other device you can think of that just sits in its place etc. (desktop PC comes to mind or gaming system).

The more devices you can eliminate from the wireless the cleaner the service to the remaining devices that have no option but to be on wifi.
As you mention, more devices are going wifi so any approach towards making the wifi as clean as possible is the best way to 'future proof' the house.

Seth
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