Internet speed - WiFi v wired.

[Mottie]

I noticed that I was getting around 80Mbps on my phone and iPad when they were on 2.4Ghz but when I swapped to the 5Ghz I’m getting nearly 140. Checking the speed on my fire TV which is wired, it’s 83. Disconnect from the wired and pick up WiFi, it’s 138. Why doesn’t it run at that speed when wired - there’s no choice between 2.4 and 5 on the wired side of things. Is there?

 

[spile]

Older network interface on the FTV? Cable/infrastructure issue? You need to compare like with like.

 

[Mister Banks]

The TV Ethernet connection is probably only 100mb whereas WiFi can go much faster on a 5g WiFi connection. You are also limited to whatever your broadband speed is.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I noticed that I was getting around 80Mbps on my phone and iPad when they were on 2.4Ghz but when I swapped to the 5Ghz I’m getting nearly 140. Checking the speed on my fire TV which is wired, it’s 83. Disconnect from the wired and pick up WiFi, it’s 138. Why doesn’t it run at that speed when wired - there’s no choice between 2.4 and 5 on the wired side of things. Is there?

I recently came across exactly the same - my wifi (from main router), faster than my wired (via a repurposed router). The main router was a 1Gb wired LAN and wifi 6. Problem was the old repurposed router, was limited to 100Mb. I have since, replaced the 100Mb router, with a 1Gb switch, and now get full speed.

5Ghz is faster than 2.4Ghz, but 5 is much shorter range.

 

[Mottie]

Well, after a bit of tinkering (moved the whole TV/Fire TV cube setup into the hall next to the router) I confirmed that running a speed test onto the TV whilst connected to the ethernet gave me a speed of 141 Mbps. Plugging the same ethernet cable into the Fire TV cube gave me 86Mbps so that confirms it is the Fire TV cube that is throttling the ethernet speed. Running the cube on WiFi gives me 135Mbps so I’ll just have to run it on WiFi. Searching online, it seems it’s a common occurrence with the Fire TV cube. I shoulda checked that first. Live and learn…

Wired connection to Fire TV:

WiFi connection to Fire TV:

Wired connection to LG TV:

 

[Why Not Indeed]

I wouldn't worry about it, 80Mbps is enough to stream basically any reasonable quality video, several times over.

 

[davelx]

Indeed. I can't understand this obsession with bandwidth unless you have a houseful of UHD video streamers and gamers!

The ISPs must love it.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Indeed. I can't understand this obsession with bandwidth unless you have a houseful of UHD video streamers and gamers!

The ISPs must love it.

For years, I struggled with slow dial-up, and disconnections during downloads. My first broadband was maybe 5mbs, better, but it still suffered disconnections/restarts. Once we got 15Mbs it became useful/useable. Then along came 35Mbs, which was more than I needed. The 35 would still be enough today, except now we have fibre, and no reason not to have 150/150Mbs, even though we just don't actually need it. Speedtests, are handy, just to check everything is working as it should - In fact the speedtest, identified a fault on the fibre, soon after installed, a faulty termination, which was quickly repaired.

 

[davelx]

I mean people who want 900Mb/s + speeds, not 150M, I have that and it speeds up software updates and video uploads to YouTube very nicely.

I started out with Demon Internet and a 300bps acoustic coupler.