Does an Ethernet Connection Take Priority Over a Wireless One

[Ostrich69]

My stepbrother is getting an Xbox One for his birthday and I suggested getting a powerline adapter or a long ethernet cable. My stepdad heard and is now telling me that he shouldn't as they take priority over wifi so it will impact his devices somehow. I've found sources saying that they're different types of connection so it won't and that it would be better for him to get ethernet as getting wifi will be on the same bandwidth and that would affect it. He's under the impression that the ethernet gets its data first somehow, making the wifi devices slower and have less bandwidth. I don't really understand what he means but that's all he's saying. I'll try to clarify if you need.

 

[slingsrat]

The router will distribute the packets as they come from the internet. It will not allocate them differently depending on the connection type.

 

[atomicWAR]

For gaming no it won't affect the rest of the Wifi "bandwidth". Now if he was watching video or what not that is enough to overpower the internet connection as a whole (say like downloading/streaming at 2.5mbps on a 2.5mbps line). Now if he uses Wifi then he will be added to all the other devices on wifi which generally take turns sending a signal though very quickly (unless on different ghz rating like say xbox is on 2.4ghz and your dad's devices are all on 5ghz). If your dad cares about his Wifi bandwidth then ideally yes you want the xbox on a wired connection.

 

[jsmithepa]

Your Dad is mostly right, a PURE Ethernet connection will want to "hog it." By how much, only by testing would know. Powerline maybe at par with WIFI.

Tell him to implement QOS, that's a bandwidth management feature available on some routers.

 

[atomicWAR]

The router will distribute the packets as they come from the internet. It will not allocate them differently depending on the connection type.

Not exactly Wifi routers actually send and receives data (wireless data) to one device at a time, it just switches between devices very fast. Where as running a wired connection the router can receive multiple connections at once and does much like you said and distributes the packets from there (wireless distributes them as well but the physical switching of devices is necessary for wifi and not wired). It is indeed possible to overpower your Wifi though fairly unlikely in a home setting using AC or better. It would take a lot of devices connected and using the internet at once. The biggest thing you really see is increased latency as it takes time to switch between devices on wifi that you wouldn't have on a wired connection. I hope that helps clear things up some.

 

[atomicWAR]

Your Dad is mostly right, a PURE Ethernet connection will want to "hog it." By how much, only by testing would know. Powerline maybe at par with WIFI.

Tell him to implement QOS, that's a bandwidth management feature available on some routers.

Yes this is what I meant by DLing/streaming a large file. That can hog the line. Enabling QoS will fix the problem if used correctly. But when just gaming the bandwidth is small and should be no problem. Download a fat game on the other hand you could easily saturate the ethernet's connection if QoS is not turned on. There is give and take no matter how you hook it up.

 

[Ostrich69]

For gaming no it won't affect the rest of the Wifi "bandwidth". Now if he was watching video or what not that is enough to overpower the internet connection as a whole (say like downloading/streaming at 2.5mbps on a 2.5mbps line). Now if he uses Wifi then he will be added to all the other devices on wifi which generally take turns sending a signal though very quickly (unless on different ghz rating like say xbox is on 2.4ghz and your dad's devices are all on 5ghz). If your dad cares about his Wifi bandwidth then ideally yes you want the xbox on a wired connection.

I live in Australia with a worse than average connection. I'm not sure what the promised bandwidth is but the average connection I get when I'm alone at home is 2Mb/s. It drops massively when at least 3 people are using the internet but that's another problem. He's just worried that his connection is going to be slower when the Xbox uses ethernet if the router gives preference to ethernet.

 

[atomicWAR]

Also quick note without QoS enabled on Wifi...even if the xbox was connected to wifi it could still saturate the wifi connection when downloading games. If your dad wants the best results for his WiFi, he wants QoS on but the xbox wired..i always run a wire if I can. That way the least amount of devices are connected to WiFi and his will be latency far lower (ie the time it takes any /for the information to get to and from the router...which is not the same as bandwidth which is the total amount of information being sent/received/used). So with lower latency the time you click on a web page or file download...the faster it registers that click and starts to download the page/file. For me latency is just as if not more important then overall bandwidth.

 

[atomicWAR]

For gaming no it won't affect the rest of the Wifi "bandwidth". Now if he was watching video or what not that is enough to overpower the internet connection as a whole (say like downloading/streaming at 2.5mbps on a 2.5mbps line). Now if he uses Wifi then he will be added to all the other devices on wifi which generally take turns sending a signal though very quickly (unless on different ghz rating like say xbox is on 2.4ghz and your dad's devices are all on 5ghz). If your dad cares about his Wifi bandwidth then ideally yes you want the xbox on a wired connection.

I live in Australia with a worse than average connection. I'm not sure what the promised bandwidth is but the average connection I get when I'm alone at home is 2Mb/s. It drops massively when at least 3 people are using the internet but that's another problem. He's just worried that his connection is going to be slower when the Xbox uses ethernet if the router gives preference to ethernet.

Not how it works if he enables QoS. Plus even if your brothers on WiFi...you dad is still going to be pinched for bandwidth if QoS is not on. It makes zero difference if your brother is wired or not in that respect. Being wireless adds latency to all wireless connections (that click time i mentioned)...being wired does not. So you want QoS no matter what if he is concerned with his connection being "stolen" by the xbox. Wired connection for the xbox is just better for everyone involved. Less latency means faster web pages and downloads for those who are on WiFi.

 

[Ostrich69]

For gaming no it won't affect the rest of the Wifi "bandwidth". Now if he was watching video or what not that is enough to overpower the internet connection as a whole (say like downloading/streaming at 2.5mbps on a 2.5mbps line). Now if he uses Wifi then he will be added to all the other devices on wifi which generally take turns sending a signal though very quickly (unless on different ghz rating like say xbox is on 2.4ghz and your dad's devices are all on 5ghz). If your dad cares about his Wifi bandwidth then ideally yes you want the xbox on a wired connection.

I live in Australia with a worse than average connection. I'm not sure what the promised bandwidth is but the average connection I get when I'm alone at home is 2Mb/s. It drops massively when at least 3 people are using the internet but that's another problem. He's just worried that his connection is going to be slower when the Xbox uses ethernet if the router gives preference to ethernet.

Not how it works if he enables QoS. Plus even if your brothers on WiFi...you dad is still going to be pinched for bandwidth if QoS is not on. It makes zero difference if your brother is wired or not in that respect. Being wireless adds latency to all wireless connections (that click time i mentioned)...being wired does not. So you want QoS no matter what if he is concerned with his connection being "stolen" by the xbox. Wired connection for the xbox is just better for everyone involved. Less latency means faster web pages and downloads for those who are on WiFi.

What if my modem/router does not support QoS? I've looked into CFW but nothing supports it. It is a Telstra Technicolour TG797N v3.

 

[bill001g]

You can put a second router in front of the current modem/router and disable the wifi on the main router. You would just have to buy new router that supports QoS.

Still QoS is not some magic solution. It really depends on what the actual requirements are. Say you dad need 5mbps to watch his netflix. If there is say only 7mbps that would leave only 2mbps for the other devices. If the other device also want to watch netflix and only can get a maximum of 2mbps but it need 5mbps it will get stalls in buffering in the video stream.

You have to clearly define what traffic is going to get how much bandwidth. This is a discussion between the people using the network. QoS is just a method of implementing it. Every ones traffic is clearly not the same value...ie he who pays the money to the ISP wins. When you have a small connection this may mean someone can not use the internet at all if the person paying the bill wants to use applications that use all the bandwidth.