[SOLVED] Does the ethernet and wifi get different bandwidths in a router?

[sburhan10]

I have a Netis WF2411 150 Mbps Wireless router. The router is placed in my bathroom. The signal strength is very good in every case.

I tested some scenarios for the best possible speed for my PC.
Case 1: Connected the PC through ethernet and no other device was connected to the Wifi.
Case 2: Connected the PC through ethernet and most of the devices (4 devices) were connected to the Wifi.
Case 3: Connected the PC through a wireless adapter and no other device was connected to the Wifi.
Case 4: Connected the PC through a wireless adapter and most of the devices (4 devices) were connected to the Wifi.

All the wireless devices were streaming 1080p video on Youtube at the same time when connected to Wifi.

Speed in all the scenarios (Measured by downloading from Steam and game ping in case of PC and in case of other devices, measured by buffering 1080p video on Youtube) :
CASE 1 --------> ~6.5 MB/s for PC
CASE 2 --------> ~6.0 MB/s for PC and all the other devices were also having high buffering speed.
CASE 3 --------> ~6.5 MB/s for PC
CASE 4 --------> ~1.0 MB/s for PC and all the other devices were suffering similarly.

The problem is that when everything was connected to Wifi, all the devices were suffering extremely. But when PC was connected to ethernet and everything was connected to Wifi, everything was going great.

So does the router divide the bandwidth when a LAN is connected and the rest, it gives to the Wifi??

 

[nigelivey]

What bandwidth do you pay for from your ISP?
The total throughput on wireless is shared, If you are connected via ethernet you have a dedicated link to your router of either 10/100/1000Mb/s depending on the port speed.
How traffic passes from your router to the internet is complicated when it comes to priority and youtube isn't a great way of testing as each stream will "burst" the connection every second or so.

Also be mindful of MB and Mb!!

 

[bill001g]

Your router is kinda old and only has 100mbps ports.

You have to be careful how you test. When you test to your internet connection that will likely be the limiting factor.

Now lets say you have 2 pc connected to ethernet ports and another connected to wifi. Your 2 pc could transfer 100mbps of traffic between each other at the same time the wifi could use the internet and it would nto be affected.

Now to some extent you will get your best speed transfering between the wifi and ethernet. On a so called 150 wifi you might get 60-70mbps in best case. It will be far worse if you are far away from the router. Now if you have mulitple pc on wifi they share the total wifi bandwidth. Ethernet each port gets a dedicated 100mbps up and down. On wifi all the machines share the same pool of bandwidth.

 

[sburhan10]

What bandwidth do you pay for from your ISP?
The total throughput on wireless is shared, If you are connected via ethernet you have a dedicated link to your router of either 10/100/1000Mb/s depending on the port speed.
How traffic passes from your router to the internet is complicated when it comes to priority and youtube isn't a great way of testing as each stream will "burst" the connection every second or so.

Also be mindful of MB and Mb!!

My ISP provides a 50Mbps speed for upto 500 Gb a month.
I know Youtube isn't the best way to test the connection but I only used it to test the Wifi connected devices. And the test speeds that I wrote previously were in MB/s and not Mbps.

I just want to connect one PC to the router. The other devices will be connected to the router via Wifi. So I just wanted to know that does ethernet get a dedicated link to the router?

 

[sburhan10]

Your router is kinda old and only has 100mbps ports.

You have to be careful how you test. When you test to your internet connection that will likely be the limiting factor.

Now lets say you have 2 pc connected to ethernet ports and another connected to wifi. Your 2 pc could transfer 100mbps of traffic between each other at the same time the wifi could use the internet and it would nto be affected.

Now to some extent you will get your best speed transfering between the wifi and ethernet. On a so called 150 wifi you might get 60-70mbps in best case. It will be far worse if you are far away from the router. Now if you have mulitple pc on wifi they share the total wifi bandwidth. Ethernet each port gets a dedicated 100mbps up and down. On wifi all the machines share the same pool of bandwidth.

Okay. Thank you for your advice.
Does a dual band router helps in any case?
So if I use a Powerline adapter to connect the router to the modem and then connect my PC through the ethernet to the router, will it affect the speed in any way???

 

[bill001g]

Your limiting factor is going to be the 50mbps internet you have. It really doesn't matter how your devices are connected when the connection is that slow They all together must share only 50mbps of bandwidth.

If you had a much faster connection dual band might help, hard to say. Since there are 2 radio chips you in theory could put some of your devices on each and the total bandwidth you can use would be higher. In your case it is not as much benifit because just 1 ethernet connected device can use 100% of the bandwidth you purchase. The wifi on your older router will have issues getting a full 50mbps but if you are close enough it might.

Powerline is another technology that the performance depends on your house so there is no clear answer. You will get nowhere near the magic numbers they quote. Even the very best units get well under 200mbps at normal usage conditions. Obviously you can do stupid stuff like put 2 units in the same outlet to get higher numbers.

If you are considering powerline be sure to buy the newer av2 technology. Most these are marked 600.1200 but there are also units called 1000.

I am not sure I would put it between the router and the modem buy you can I guess. It generally is put between a end device and the router.

Powerline tends to work better than wifi when you have issue with the signal being able to go through walls or floors. People with concrete walls get almost no wifi through them. Powerline in general has more consistent latency but that really only is a concern for people that play online games.

 

[sburhan10]

Your limiting factor is going to be the 50mbps internet you have. It really doesn't matter how your devices are connected when the connection is that slow They all together must share only 50mbps of bandwidth.

If you had a much faster connection dual band might help, hard to say. Since there are 2 radio chips you in theory could put some of your devices on each and the total bandwidth you can use would be higher. In your case it is not as much benifit because just 1 ethernet connected device can use 100% of the bandwidth you purchase. The wifi on your older router will have issues getting a full 50mbps but if you are close enough it might.

Powerline is another technology that the performance depends on your house so there is no clear answer. You will get nowhere near the magic numbers they quote. Even the very best units get well under 200mbps at normal usage conditions. Obviously you can do stupid stuff like put 2 units in the same outlet to get higher numbers.

If you are considering powerline be sure to buy the newer av2 technology. Most these are marked 600.1200 but there are also units called 1000.

I am not sure I would put it between the router and the modem buy you can I guess. It generally is put between a end device and the router.

Powerline tends to work better than wifi when you have issue with the signal being able to go through walls or floors. People with concrete walls get almost no wifi through them. Powerline in general has more consistent latency but that really only is a concern for people that play online games.

I am going to buy a new router anyway. The old one is very bad and is used for another connection. I already ordered one. It is a TP-Link TL-WR840N 300Mbps router. Also, I have ordered the Aztech HomePlug AV 200 powerline ethernet adapter. I will test all the scenarios possible using this.

So my question is what do I need to do inorder to get a good latency in my gaming? One thing's for sure that the PC needs to be connected to router via ethernet. But if I connect it to the ONT modem directly using ethernet will it do any better??