The Internet has become a vital part of our lives and we are so much dependent on it, whether it is watching movies online, socializing, online dating, online shopping, remote working, or attending online lectures.
A huge part of our lives is now dependent on the internet without us even realizing its importance and taking the internet for granted.
The modern technological advancements have also brought the convenience of being able to access the internet from anywhere, whether it is a coffee shop or an airport, we can access the internet with WiFi technology. Although WiFi is very convenient to use, in the olden days, Ethernet cables were the real OGs and the switch from ethernet cables over to has cost us a lot. We are giving up a lot for the convenience of WiFi without even realizing it.
Most people nowadays don’t even know what an Ethernet cable is. It is basically a wire that is used to transfer information and using it, people can connect to the internet, which may sound absurd to some people, but that was the case a few years ago. Even after it was replaced by WiFi, a wired network is better than WiFi in several ways which we are discussing as under:
Wired Networks Are Easy To Set Up
Since an average internet user does not have the required knowledge to set up a wireless network, it can be troublesome for most people to even set up their wireless network after buying a WiFi router. To set up a wireless router and network, one needs to visit the default gateway address of the router like 192.168.0.1 but for every router, this address is different and most users are not even familiar with the default gateway address of their router. It could be 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.1.2 or any other.
Even after figuring out the gateway address, it is a long process to properly set up the network. In addition to that, connecting to the network can also create problems for some users that can also be hard to troubleshoot. As far as a wired connection is concerned, these are the things that you needn’t worry about
Wired Networks Are Reliable
Wireless networks are also prone to a lot of connection issues especially if the range of your wireless router is weak. You will have trouble even connecting to the wireless network, let alone accessing the internet. It is also not uncommon for the wireless router to crash and not be able to perform as it should. This is a problem that you wouldn’t face with a wired connection and a wired connection never has any connection problems unless the power of the whole building goes out.
There is also another problem with a wireless network that the signals are prone to obstruction and getting blocked. Dense things like walls and metal objects can get in the way of the signal and prevent the signal from being transmitted, resulting in a poor internet connection.
Speed
We are a part of a society where no one likes to wait. The culture all around is an impatient one where no one wants to waste their few seconds just for a web page to load up or a file to download, we just want everything to be super fast and this is where ethernet connections or wired connections have an edge over the wireless ones.
There were days of wired, dial-up connections where you would have to wait a few hours just to download a 10-15 MB file but now, you can get speeds up to 1 Gbps with an ethernet cable. If you compare these speeds with the fastest WiFi connections out there then these speeds would be 2-3 times more than the fastest WiFi connections available and this speed of a wired connection is simply unmatched.
Security
The security of a wired connection is much better than a wireless one and is the most important differentiating factor between a wired connection and a wireless one. Wireless networks aren’t very secure and even after changing different encryption standards, they are still prone to security breaches and getting hacked.
With a wired connection, you just need to block physical access to the network in order to prevent anyone from accessing your information. So, unless someone is from a national spy agency, there is less likely any security breach to happen with a wired connection, which makes it better than a wireless connection.