• PieMePlenty@lemmy.world
    2·
    59 分钟前

    Nah, wifi is pretty good today. I just dont like the consumer devices like the router shown here. Recently redid my wireless and went with a non wifi router, a poe switch and a few access points, connected through ethernet. I wouldnt dream of going back to the conventional one wifi router. Still use wired for stationary devices I can reach with a cable though… TV, AV, consoles, PC are all wired.

  • vga@sopuli.xyz
    1·
    51 分钟前

    Oh shit, I had that exact router before. This is so true.

    It wasn’t a bad router, but way overpriced.

  • Gestrid@lemmy.caEnglish
    1·
    1 小时前

    Given the choice, I’d definitely choose a cable for anything I know will require high internet usage. Wireless is just too slow, even on a 5G connection.

    I still remember I once broke my Windows installation (young me had tried dual-booting the Windows 10 beta and my Windows 7 installation). I had to get system restored discs from the manufacturer. It wasn’t particularly tricky to fix, but it took a long time to download those Windows updates after it finished. I noticed an immediate change once I remembered I had an old 30 ft. ethernet cable lying around and plugged it in. (This was maybe 8-10 years ago.)

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
    8·
    15 小时前

    Wireless tech has improved greatly over the last 20 years. Speed, latency, bandwidth, stability…all generally excellent. 15 years ago I wouldn’t have wanted to use a wireless mouse or LAN connection. Now? NBD. They just work. Still have issues with poor signal in some areas, but mesh range boosters take care of that pretty easily.

    • Racle@sopuli.xyz
      1·
      1 小时前

      Depends on usage. If you don’t need super fast speeds or low latency, go for cheaper model.

      If you need low latency and high speeds (ex. Wireless VR with PC), you need to pay more to get good and stable connection (+ multiple routers as mesh if needed). And more expensive devices have different CPU/RAM which will help you if you have large network + extra security features on.

  • Malfeasant@lemm.ee
    4·
    17 小时前

    I set up a mesh router pair a while back - super easy setup, and the speed is good enough to have multiple TVs streaming at once, and without needing to run cables between rooms… Worth it.

    • AngryMob
      6·
      16 小时前

      The problem with wireless isn’t speed anymore, its stability. For a lot of applications that’s fine since buffering and whatnot hides any hiccups. but gaming for example is a nightmare on wireless still.

      • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
        4·
        13 小时前

        I’ve been playing FPS exclusively on wireless for almost 15 years (802.11n 5ghz) and stability has been fine unless you set up your access point far away from your gaming PC for some reason.

        Back then you had to get a pretty nice wireless router to do it, but it still worked fine.
        Now days even relatively cheap routers will let you game just fine unless you set up far away from the AP and you’re in a pro tournament.

        • AngryMob
          3·
          12 小时前

          If you arent sensitive to jitter, packet loss, etc., and the various ways games react to it, then im happy for you.

          Personally, i and many others hate it. It only takes 1 rubber band moment in a shooter to ruin a round, it only takes 1 round to lose a match. Even if you aren’t playing super sweaty, its not fun. Even my wife who only games casually noticed the difference between wireless vs wired in a few different shooters after i ran a wire to her new desk. And we do have a good setup overall.

          • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
            5·
            2 小时前

            Dude, what you’re describing is not a “good setup overall”.

            I know I’m not sweaty, but what you’re talking about goes beyond being “sensitive” or not. Wtf is wrong with your wifi that you’re getting any packet loss.

            I just ran a speed test multiple times from my phone in another room, and got jitter under 20ms, and packet loss between 0% and 0.1%
            My gaming PC with external antenna in the same room as my wireless AP is going to get even better results.
            edit: for kicks i tested my wireless gaming PC too:
            ping: 2ms
            jitter: 0ms
            packet loss: 0%

            So I’m curious what kind of performance you’re expecting to be noticeable to a casual or even sweaty non-pro player.

  • workerONE@lemmy.world
    22·
    1 天前

    But what if you’re gaming downstairs and the router is upstairs and then you have to go upstairs for pizza rolls so you take your gaming laptop upstairs and you’re eating right next to the router and so you’re just plugged in and then what if you forgot to turn off the oven and your girlfriend is yelling at you “You’re going to start a fire! Why can’t you remember to turn off the oven? What’s wrong with you?” and then you go back downstairs to finish gaming?

  • cmhe@lemmy.world
    9·
    1 天前

    I spend a lot more money on good Ethernet switches. But at least that works and is easier to manage than Wifi.

      • frezik@midwest.social
        3·
        19 小时前

        My house is relatively new (built 2005), and they pulled cat5 for all the telephone lines and just didn’t hook up the extra pairs of wires. Since nobody uses landlines anymore, I rewired most of the outlets for RJ45.

        Have pulled a few more wires, including fiber to my main office PC (so I can have a very fast connection to my NAS). Once you learn a few techniques and the way your building is laid out, it’s not that hard.

        • TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee
          4·
          14 小时前

          Yeah, you got to skip over the “getting the wire there” part. If you wanted to replace all that line with cat 5e or cat6 so you can get full duplex gigabit speeds it’d be a much harder task than slapping some rj-45 end onto some old cat 5.

        • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
          1·
          14 小时前

          My house was built around the same time and had the same feature. I guess VOIP stuff was beginning to take off and people still had land lines. I can’t imagine much new construction has anything for phones.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        18 小时前

        $6.99/5’ of cable. A weekend of manual labor running cable through my walls.

        Or $300 for something I can set-and-forget.

        Decisions, decisions.

        • TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee
          3·
          14 小时前

          $300 in labor is wildly optimistic and true for a simple cable run, maybe

          If run probably even a “short” run will typically be at least 20ft. Think, from a wall plate, up an 8ft wall, across a crawl space, down another 8ft wall.

          Not all cable runs are simple

    • themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works
      117·
      2 天前

      Technically, it does provide better connection speeds by enabling the router to avoid channel hopping, so it can talk to multiple devices (or the same devices if it has multiple antennae) at the same time. This is part of the recent wifi6 and wifi7 standards so more and more devices will start to gain speeds using this technique

      Realistically computers have at best 2 antennae and this is largely marketing wank.

      • Soup@lemmy.world
        41·
        2 天前

        Though if you have multiple devices all trying to connect to wifi, like even a phone for example, then a computer having two antenna that it can actually use 100% of the time still sounds valuable to me.

        • themoonisacheese@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          17 小时前

          Sure, but this isn’t that. That requires actual work put in developing and simulating the product, these are just multiple antennae for multiple channels.

          Source: trust me bro I work in semiconductors at a firm that creates RF chips

    • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      38·
      2 天前

      It does. Wifi uses MIMO (Multi-in, multi-out) to run multiple concurrent data streams over the same channel width, which overcomes individual channel bandwidth limitations (there’s only so much radio frequency space to go around). Each stream having its own antenna, and having larger antennas, gives stronger signal/noise ratios, less retransmitted packets, and overall better connections.

      A lot of those high end “gaming” routers are often oversold though… MIMO improves throughput if you have an Internet link it can saturate; realistically even a midrange 2x2 802.11AC router will provide more wifi bandwidth than your internet does. And for gaming, they do nothing to improve latency no matter how many streams you run, as wifi’s inherent delay (5-15ms) is pretty much a fixed quantity due to its radio broadcast time-sharing nature. The meme is correct. A $6 ethernet cable beats any and all wifi routers and client adapters, and always will.

      • areyouevenreal@lemm.ee
        1·
        2 小时前

        MIMO improves throughput if you have an Internet link it can saturate; realistically even a midrange 2x2 802.11AC router will provide more wifi bandwidth than your internet does.

        And that’s where the fat controller says you are wrong. I have 1000 Mbps down. I’ve yet to actually hit that speed with WiFi 6.

        Also newer WiFi standards significantly improve latency. That’s nothing to do with having more antennas though you would be correct there.

        The meme is correct. A $6 ethernet cable beats any and all wifi routers and client adapters, and always will.

        With current technology you would be correct. But as for the always part: Ethernet is an electrical signal, so it’s actually slower than microwave signals used by WiFi, and the WiFi signals can also take a more direct path. So in the future WiFi or LiFi could in fact be faster. It’s the processing delay, and scheduling that makes WiFi have higher latency. Not the physical medium.

        Before you say this is all academic because of the small distances involved I would remind you that propagation delay is actually a large issue in current microelectronics and computers. Sometimes parts of the same chip are far enough apart to create problems for the engineers due to the high clockspeeds of modern devices.

      • lud@lemm.ee
        3·
        2 天前

        What fast of a WAN connection are you talking about?

        I can’t see how a midrange 802.11AC AP could suffice for a decent WAN connection. IMO you need at least 802.11ax

        • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          5·
          2 天前

          2x2 AC on 5ghz has an 867mbps max PHY throughput, which after a 50% derate for signal quality and overhead is still a very comfortable 400mbps… typical cable internet is around 100 to 500mbps with a lot of places offering “1gbps” that it never actually reaches, so it’s certainly sufficient for 90% of people.

          If you have a very heavy multi user (6+ devices always on) household you may find some benefit from an AX 2x2 or 3x3 router just because it can handle congestion better.

          • MudMan@fedia.io
            6·
            2 天前

            Six plus always-on devices is rookie numbers. I’m in the twenties, in a house with a handful of people.

            And yes, the router I’m currently using is faster than all my wired devices over wifi, save for the two that pair some form of 2.5/10Gb ports. Also yes, my 1Gbps WAN hits about 900-ish on the downstream, with the ISP guaranteeing at least 800 as a legal requirement. I don’t know if other regions allow ISPs to sell connections that run at 50% of the advertised speed, but… yeah, no, that’s illegal here.

            Honestly, full home coverage is the biggest issue I have. If this was a new house I would have wired it as a solution, but as it is, I only got the whole home fully connected with reliable speeds by spending a bunch of money in wireless networking gear.

            • Septimaeus@infosec.pub
              2·
              1 天前

              Well since the ruler’s out, 133 here. It’s hell.

              Explanation: mostly younger roommates. Majority of bandwidth goes to just 21 personal machines, 4 MLO devices in particular, 1 of which uploads a fuck ton of cam stuff.

              That said, most connections are idle. In particular there’s a chunky subnet of energy monitors with a low hum of usage.

              I say “hell” because it takes 7 mesh nodes to reach everyone (while playing nice re: antenna strength in a congested building), maintaining security and privacy for everyone requires planning, and the second anything goes wrong everyone loses their minds.

              • MudMan@fedia.io
                2·
                1 天前

                Woof, yeah, now you’re talking.

                I mean, once you factor in a phone, a computer, probably some gaming device running updates in the background, you’re thinking at least three devices per person, plus whatever tablets, smart TVs, printers and IoT garbage you have lying around the house. And if you live on an apartment you’re trying to service all of that alongside a bunch of other people trying to do the same.

                Honestly, I struggled a lot to get a solid, cost effective mesh to solve the issue. I ended up going back to brute forcing it with a chonker of a router. No idea if that impacts my neighbours and, frankly, at this point it’s every bubble of electromagnetic real estate for themselves.

                It’s honestly crazy how much networking you have to do at home these days, particularly if you work from home or throw in a NAS into the mix. I have no idea how the normies manage. Maybe they pay somebody to set it up?

                • Septimaeus@infosec.pub
                  1·
                  1 天前

                  I’ve wondered the same. Pretty sure they just lean on the ISP equipment offerings and outsource the rest to the cloud. Critically, I envision plug and play users who don’t give a shit about security or privacy, and that simplifies a lot.

                  Honestly if you take that setup from the ISP (which I think is often free and now usually includes a docsis 3.x with at least one repeater, installed) then just bump the default encryption and add a VPN, I wouldn’t say it’s a bad way to go at all, mainly because when there’s any issue it’s on the ISP to fix it.

                  It won’t be bleeding edge and you won’t be able to do any directed networking fanciness without your own gear, but the not my problem perk is nothing to sneeze at.

                  And yeah mesh is a headache. It’s all wired backhaul (sfp+ and copper) but nodes regularly fall out of sync and the mesh doesn’t heal properly. Main reason I kept coming back was the benefit of co-channel stacking, which makes your signal footprint small but really deep so neighboring routers move over.

            • pufferfisherpowder@lemmy.world
              2·
              1 天前

              Yeah the meme is just trying to be superior edgy. We live in an old duplex and no, my landlord won’t let me run networking through the walls and ceiling. I tried cabled network over electricity sockets and it’s worse than a good wireless connection.

          • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
            2·
            1 天前

            It’s not all about the WAN speed. Having fast LAN speeds is always worth it.

            This will help hugely with stuff like PC game streaming (from your PC to a tablet or TV for example), screen sharing to TV, file transfers over LAN, media servers, etc.

          • lud@lemm.ee
            1·
            2 天前

            You won’t ever get anywhere close to that though on 2x2 AC.

            Where do you live where 1 Gbit/s is much lower than 1 GBit/s? When I had 1 GBit/s, I got around 800-950 Mbit/s. When I had 2 Gbit/s I got around 1,7-2,5 Gbit/s

      • zaphod@sopuli.xyz
        2·
        2 天前

        To be more precise it’s not each stream having it’s own antenna, you combine the signals from all antennas and then “spatially filter” it into separate streams, but the number of concurrent streams is limited by the minimum of the number of antennas at both ends of the connection, if your device has only one antenna and your access point has eight you can only have one data stream.

    • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.caEnglish
      11·
      1 天前

      I’m a network professional with a specialty in wireless.

      Yeah, beam forming and mimo are the main reasons for antenna diversity. There’s also more radio chains in those units typically, and more radio chains can provide better speeds if you have client devices that can take advantage of the extra radio chains (both sides need to have the same, increased number of radio chains to see an increase).

      The antennas are fairly small/thin pieces of wire that are not very long, so the antennas don’t need to look like that, but the quantity is useful.

      • lengau@midwest.social
        3·
        1 天前

        As someone with a telecommunications background who’s taken apart some cheap routers that look like that: the only caveat I’ll add is that the antennas are only useful if they’re actually connected to anything. From a decently trustworthy brand you’re probably fine, but I’ve seen a few where only one or two of the antenna couplings were connected to anything internally.

        • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.caEnglish
          1·
          1 天前

          There’s no shortage of liars and cheats everywhere. I’m unsurprised that a company world either intentionally, or through sheer ignorance, have “antennas” that are little more than aesthetic pieces of plastic.

    • CaptDust@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      2 天前

      Some of them are marketing wank, some of them have MIMO channels that need multiple antennas to support independent bands with multiple devices.

      1 MIMO channel = 2 antennas, so this router could theoretically have 4 devices communicating bilaterally without interrupting each other.

  • SleafordMod@feddit.ukEnglish
    29·
    1 天前

    Ethernet is obviously better but running ethernet around your home can be a pain in the arse

    • Belgdore@lemm.ee
      3·
      19 小时前

      Or if you rent. I could run an Ethernet cable to my office from my router, but it would have to run upstairs and across a few doorways.

    • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.caEnglish
      20·
      1 天前

      A pain in the arse you only need to do once, and you can hire someone to do it for you for basically the same cost as a couple of the high end wireless routers, so in like 5 years, you break even.

      Also, how much have you spent on your computer (s), phone(s), tablet(s), and all your other internet connected devices, and you won’t spend like $500 on something that can run all that stuff simultaneously? Pouring literally thousands of dollars on connected devices, but most won’t pay more than they would for a toaster, to get them on the internet, then pay out the wahzoo for gigabit internet that your crummy d-link router can’t handle, and you wonder why all your fancy gadgets run like shit… It’s a lot like buying a Ferrari to drive on dirt/gravel roads.

      • b34k@lemmy.world
        5·
        1 天前

        I think it’s a little more than $500 to get Ethernet ports installed all around your house. Especially if you need to run through fire breaks and insulation. Will have to wait till a remodel before I can get those installed.

        That said, I didn’t skimp on my home networking, even though it’s all wireless. I’ve got 4 WiFi 6 APs on PoE with Cat 6 runs thru the attic. I can get 700 Mbs+ download speeds pretty much anywhere in and around the house.

        • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.caEnglish
          2·
          1 天前

          It could be, depending on where you land on the DIY vs building code spectrum… Also what your local building code details in terms of low voltage cable.

          In my experience unless you’re intentionally going through air handling ductwork, CMG is fine, though I would go with CMR at least, just as a matter of safety. I have yet to see a residential home with any fire protection or fire breaks, at all, nevermind where you would think to put them, like between floors and whatnot. The homes in my area are mostly built from timber, so we’re basically living inside a framework of dried out wood, so putting a fire break between wood framed floors where the floor/ceiling shares a set of wooden cross members for support, seems like it would be unnecessary, since the framing of the building is going to conduct the fire between levels.

          Ethernet is low voltage, so it’s largely unregulated. The only real regulation is regarding plenum or riser spaces, and the latter is mostly when floors are intentionally or naturally separated in terms of shared fate when it comes to fire. I only see fire breaks in concrete structures, usually apartments or commercial buildings.

          YMMV, not every country has the same building codes, so every person reading this will need to do their own research or pay someone who knows.

          My point remains, regardless of all this conjecture: even if it’s $2000 or more, this is structure cabling that should service the premise for as long as it continues to stand, which is hopefully many decades. Over 20 years, at $2000 for installation, you’re looking at a cost of around $8.34/mo for the cabling to exist.

          Considering people will pay 10x that for Internet service, and the addition of Ethernet in the building will allow them to take full advantage of the internet they’re paying for, I’d call that a bargain.

              • frezik@midwest.social
                1·
                17 小时前

                Its purpose is to slow it down, not stop it. There would be a chimney effect where smoke rises out of the channel and fresh oxygen is allowed to come in from below. The blocks here prevent that from happening.

                • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.caEnglish
                  1·
                  17 小时前

                  Oh, I’m not saying it’s not functional in stone capacity. I understand the physics and what is trying to be accomplished with it, but unless it’s done with pretty tight tolerance so any air leakage between the upper and lower spaces is as close to nil as possible, then it’s not going to be super effective.

      • Zetta@mander.xyz
        4·
        1 天前

        Preach! I just finished a long DIY remodel and running ethernet to everyroom was less than a $100 in cable and connectors. Obviously it was easier and cheaper for me because I already had a lot of the drywall down.

        Either way such a good point you make, people will drop 1k on a phone no questions asked but a few hundred is too much to get the best home upgrade a tech enthusiast could ever ask for.

        • GreatAlbatross@feddit.ukEnglish
          2·
          20 小时前

          So far, I’m only £150 down on cable and clips on my rennovation. And this is the decent stuff, AWG23, and double run.

          It’ll probably go sideways when I spec up a switch with enough ports, mind…

        • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.caEnglish
          2·
          1 天前

          I could preach all day about this.

          I have a simple philosophy: wired when you can, wireless when you have to.

          With that being said, doing a site survey for wifi and getting optimal access point locations, then placing Ethernet in ceiling there for said access points, ensures you have good coverage of your space, which then leads into another rant about network hardware and people spending thousands on everything except their router/access points even if they have the structure cables to support such a system…

          Then people wonder why their wifi sucks.

          I mean, spend a couple hundred one time to get Ethernet run, spend some time on an online ap placement tool and signal estimator for it, and then go buy infrastructure wireless for your home, and spend upwards of $1000 on networking hardware. You’ll get more out of it and it will work for longer than your $1000+ smart phone, or many $1000s laptop that use it almost constantly.

          Networking is critical and it should be seamless and blend into the background. You shouldn’t need to mess with it constantly to get it to work. If that’s normal for you, then something is very wrong.

      • frezik@midwest.social
        1·
        13 小时前

        That can be an advantage. Some of the enterprise-level tech has trickled down to consumer WiFi in recent years, which includes browsing between multiple access points. With several access points with relatively weak signal, you get signal right where you need it without broadcasting up and down the street.

  • Midnight Wolf@lemmy.worldEnglish
    32·
    1 天前

    *Excluding running ethernet cables to every room through the attic, down the walls to wall jacks. Also the cost of the jacks, and the various switches needed for several rooms. And the contractor to do it all.

    But hey for like $600 I have cat6a in basically every room so

      • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
        2·
        13 小时前

        Not everyone is comfortable drilling walls and installing plates, stripping wires, etc. and CAT cables aren’t like simple copper electrical wires.

        And not everyone wants to have cables running along their floorboard and up their stairs

    • Zess@lemmy.world
      10·
      1 天前

      And then you still need a wireless router to get Internet on your phone unless you use data at home like a crazy person.