One of the most frequent problems when setting up your home network is whether you have enough capacity to satisfy everyone in your household.
There are a few reasons why you might want to switch from wifi to an ethernet connection, depending on your needs. Whether it’s for gaming or something else, an ethernet connection can sometimes be preferable to wireless.
You may be worried if someone uses an ethernet cable, it’ll reduce the speed for other devices relying on the network.
We’re going to investigate whether an ethernet connection can impede the speed of other devices on your wireless network and how you can prevent a sluggish wifi connection.
Does using ethernet slow down wireless?
Actually, connecting your device to the internet with an ethernet cable rather than wifi will speed up not just your device but all the other ones connected to your home network. This is because there is one less device on the Wi-Fi bandwidth.
If you’re using an ethernet cable, it’s probably because you want a reliable and stable connection. People usually only use this type of connection for gaming or streaming 4k videos i.e. activities that require higher bandwidth than just browsing the internet.
If you do any of these things, it might slow down your network speed. This all is based on the bandwidth capabilities of your home internet and how many devices are using the network simultaneously.
If you only have a cheap broadband plan, you might only be getting 30-50 Mbps as a typical connection speed. If you’re living alone or won’t be connecting a lot of devices to your access point, this should more than enough.
The idea that one device might use an unreasonable amount of data simply because it’s linked to the router via an ethernet cable is incorrect. It will improve the internet speed and dependability of the connected gadget, but it should not affect your wireless connection.
If there are too many devices using wifi, will it then affect ethernet connections?
Many people focus on their devices slowing down when they connect to the internet via ethernet, but it is also possible for other devices to cause issues with your connection. For the most part, you won’t need to worry about this issue affecting your connection quality.
This is because you’ll typically have enough internet bandwidth for both of them, and everyone will be able to surf the web at their leisure. Even if you’re using your phone and iPad to connect to the house network, your ethernet connection should stay fast.
Having too many devices on your ethernet connection will slow down the speed for everyone in the house. Just because it’s an ethernet doesn’t mean that suddenly 20 devices can be connected to your home router at once without consequence – it still uses up the same amount of bandwidth.
The answer is that yes, too many devices connected to your home network can affect your ethernet connection. However, unless you have a lot of gadgets connected, this will not make much of a difference.
Related: Why Your Ethernet Connection is Slower than WiFi!!
How to keep everyone happy with the wifi – QoS/Prioritisation
If someone else in your home is always hogging the wifi, there’s no need to worry! You can go into your settings and give certain devices preference over others. This way, you won’t have to fight for space on the internet ever again.
Quality of Service (QoS) is a feature in most routers. As the name implies, it lets you control which devices and software have access to faster internet speeds.
With these custom settings, you have the power to choose which devices in your home receive wifi first. You can typically do this by priorities, or designating a device as “highest priority”, which will make it the first to get wifi.
You can also do this on a per-application/program basis on certain routers. It’s an excellent method to ensure that someone using Netflix in UHD doesn’t degrade the rest of the family’s internet connection.
Many routers can’t do this, and some of the free ones that come from your internet service provider won’t be able to either.
Should I have QoS on or off?
In most situations, people are undecided about whether to have QoS enabled. Whether to use these parameters or leave things as they are may be perplexing.
In an ideal world, it would be better if we could discuss when and who uses the internet at a specific time. Putting on QoS settings isn’t difficult, but doing so might cause limitations on your entire network.
You could also think about upgrading your internet connection if you want to be sure. If you do this, you won’t have to worry about connecting to the internet at a specific time.
If you want a better internet connection while working from home, then consider enabling these settings. You’ll be able to work with fewer interruptions as your kids play video games simultaneously.
Even better, connect your work computer or laptop to an ethernet port for an even stronger connection.
Older routers used to have issues delivering both wireless and ethernet connections at the same time, but modern routers don’t have this problem.
