[SOLVED] 802.11ac vs 100mb fast ethernet

[DonnieSuits]

I have searched around and not found a very conclusive answer to this question. I have FIOS Gigabit internet service with a g1100 router. The router supports up to 1300MBs wireless 802.11ac 5ghz connection and has wired 10/100/1000 LAN ports as per the router specs.

I have a Sony 4K Blu-ray player that also connects to the internet and streams Netflix and Amazon Prime as well as other streaming services that I do not use right now. The Sony Player has 5ghz wireless 802.11ac and a Ethernet port 10/100 and sits within 5 feet of the FIOS router. I have read a lot about Wired is better but they are talking 1GB wired speed vs 802.11ac or 100Mbs wired vs 802.11N (450Mbs) . How about when the device ethernet port is only capable of fast ethernet 100MBs but the wireless is capable of 802.11ac 1000MBs?? I have several other devices with the same hardware setup and was looking to just get rid of all the wired connections at 100MBs and replace with wireless 802.11ac if there is no difference or if in fact the wireless is faster in this scenario.

Also for those that may not know this but Netflix (and probably every other streaming service) sends data packets to your device before streaming your movie and depending on the speed they detect depends on the quality of the movie they send. Poor data transfer speed they send a lower (poor) quality movie. Fast data speed they send the best 4K quality movie they have. So I want the best!!

Thanks for the comments

Donnie

 

[Math Geek]

a 1080p stream uses about 5-10 mb/s and a 4k stream needs about 25 mb/s.

the ethernet is ample speed to get the full stream. so long as the wifi signal is decent, it won't be a problem either. none of those streaming services will ever use anywhere close to either of those bandwidth options. declutter and go for that wifi

 

[kanewolf]

I have searched around and not found a very conclusive answer to this question. I have FIOS Gigabit internet service with a g1100 router. The router supports up to 1300MBs wireless 802.11ac 5ghz connection and has wired 10/100/1000 LAN ports as per the router specs.

I have a Sony 4K Blu-ray player that also connects to the internet and streams Netflix and Amazon Prime as well as other streaming services that I do not use right now. The Sony Player has 5ghz wireless 802.11ac and a Ethernet port 10/100 and sits within 5 feet of the FIOS router. I have read a lot about Wired is better but they are talking 1GB wired speed vs 802.11ac or 100Mbs wired vs 802.11N (450Mbs) . How about when the device ethernet port is only capable of fast ethernet 100MBs but the wireless is capable of 802.11ac 1000MBs?? I have several other devices with the same hardware setup and was looking to just get rid of all the wired connections at 100MBs and replace with wireless 802.11ac if there is no difference or if in fact the wireless is faster in this scenario.

Also for those that may not know this but Netflix (and probably every other streaming service) sends data packets to your device before streaming your movie and depending on the speed they detect depends on the quality of the movie they send. Poor data transfer speed they send a lower (poor) quality movie. Fast data speed they send the best 4K quality movie they have. So I want the best!!

Thanks for the comments

Donnie

If you can use wired, defintely do that. It frees up WIFI for mobile devices. DON'T use WIFI for stationary devices if you can avoid it, especially streaming stationary devices. Wired ethernet is dedicated bandwidth to the router then shared on the WAN. WIFI is shared bandwidth among all devices on the LAN.

 

[bill001g]

BUT if you use the same method of getting "numbers" the ethernet cable is not 100 it is 200. You have to add the transmit and receive speed together if you are a marketing liar. Thing is ethernet can actually run at a full 100mbps up and 100mbps down...gigabit works the same.

There are all kinds of other unrealistic things they assume in those numbers. Most people will get around 300mbps on 802.11ac wifi with a good signal. Some a bit more and other less but it is nowhere even close to 1gbit. And as state above it is shared bandwidth and even worse it is in a way share with your neighbors. If they happen to be using the same radio channels it can damage your data transmission.

It likely will make no difference to netflix because it can get it full rate over ether even with some interference from the neighbors. If you were talking a game console playing online games the story is very different, online games do not tolerate wifi very well.

 

[robert600]

BUT if you use the same method of getting "numbers" the ethernet cable is not 100 it is 200. You have to add the transmit and receive speed together if you are a marketing liar. Thing is ethernet can actually run at a full 100mbps up and 100mbps down...gigabit works the same.

That's interesting. I did not know that.

 

[gggplaya]

For a media player, I don't think it's going to make a difference either way. If you want to free up clutter and delete a cable, wirelessAC is fine. As said, 4k streaming is about 25mb/s at most, it's not full bitrate like you get from a blu-ray disc. So you should have plenty of bandwidth with a 100mbps cable or wireless AC 5 feet away. Also, media playing tends to have a small buffer when streaming, so any interruptions, drops in packets or spikes in latency won't affect movie consumption. It'll stream smoothly regardless.

Now if it were a gaming console, ethernet is the best way to go for the most stable connection possible with consistent bandwidth.

 

[kanewolf]

For a media player, I don't think it's going to make a difference either way. If you want to free up clutter and delete a cable, wirelessAC is fine. As said, 4k streaming is about 25mb/s at most, it's not full bitrate like you get from a blu-ray disc. So you should have plenty of bandwidth with a 100mbps cable or wireless AC 5 feet away. Also, media playing tends to have a small buffer when streaming, so any interruptions, drops in packets or spikes in latency won't affect movie consumption. It'll stream smoothly regardless.

Now if it were a gaming console, ethernet is the best way to go for the most stable connection possible with consistent bandwidth.

The problem is streaming on WIFI, impacts ALL devices on the same WIFI. WIFI is time multiplex shared bandwidth. So streaming taking 10% of the available time, impacts everybody.