> Many ISPs, device manufacturers, and consumers automate periodic, high-intensity speed tests that negatively impact the consumer internet experience as demonstrated
But there’s no support for this claim presented frankly I am skeptical. What WiFi devices are regularly conducting speed tests without being asked?ISP provided routers, at least Xfinity does. I've gotten emails from them (before I ripped out their equipment and put my own in) "Great news, you're getting more than your plan's promised speeds" with speedtest results in the email, because they ran speed tests at like 3AM.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's happening often across all the residential ISPs, most likely for marketing purposes.
I used to run a docker than ran a speed test every hour and graphed the results but I haven't done that in a while now.
Really? DOCSIS has been the bottleneck out of Wi-Fi, DOCSIS, and wider Internet every time I've had the misfortune of having to use it in an apartment.
Especially the tiny uplink frequency slice of DOCSIS 3 and below is pathetic.
If you want to spend a really long time optimizing your wifi, this is the resource: https://www.wiisfi.com/
If you are experiencing problems, this might give you an angle to think about that you hadn't otherwise, if you just naively assume Wifi is as good as a dedicated wire. Modern Wifi has an awful lot of resources, though. I only notice degradation of any kind when I have one computer doing a full-speed transfer for quite a while to another, but that's a pretty exceptional case and not one I'm going to run any more wires around for for something that happens less than once a month.
I just now reduced it to 20Mhz, and though there is a (slight) perceptible drop in latency, those 5 extra dB I gained from Signal/Noise have given me wifi in the bedroom again
We have 2 phones, a tablet for the kids, a couple of Google homes, a Chromecast, 2 yoto players, a printer, a smart TV, 2 laptops, a raspberry pi, a solar power Inverter, an Oculus Quest, and a couple of things that have random hostnames.
It adds up.
I had probably 20 prior to swapping out some smart light bulbs and switches for Zigbee.
21 for an average household isn’t nuts.
Router, and extenders (multi floor house): 1-4
Chromecast|Sonos|Apple speaker/Chromecast|google|firestick|roku|apple TV/smart speaker/hifi receiver/eaves dropping devices: 2-10
Smart doorbell/light switch/temperature sensor/weather station/co2|co detector/flood detector/bulb/led strip/led light/nanoleaf/garage door: 4-16
Some cars: 0-2
Some smart watches speak wifi: 0-4
Computers.. maybe the desktops are wired (likely still support wifi), all laptops, chromebooks, and tablets : 3-8
All game consoles, many TVs, some computer monitors: 3-8
Some smart appliances: 0-4 (based on recent news of ads, best to aim for 0)
I currently have 23, my parent's house has 19
People have all kinds of stuff on wifi these days - cameras, light bulbs, dishwashers, irrigation, solar, hifi..
Is that actually a thing? Why would any ISP intentionally add unnecessary load to their network?
PaulHoule•3h ago
The other bit of advice that is buried in there that no-one wants to hear for residences is the best way to speed up your Wi-Fi is to not use it. You might think it's convenient to have your TV connect to Netflix via WiFi and it is, but it is going to make everything else that really needs the Wi-Fi slower. It's a much better answer to hook up everything on Ethernet that you possibly can than it is to follow the more traveled route of more channels and more congestion with mesh Wi-Fi.
JoshTriplett•3h ago
Absolutely. Everything other than cell phones and laptops-not-at-a-desk should be on Ethernet.
I had wires run in 2020 when I started doing even more video calls. Huge improvement in usability.
typpilol•2h ago
So they would have to do quite a bit of work to run cable. Also people living in apartments that cant just start drilling through walls.
I'd say most ppl use wifi because they have too, not pure convenience
ericd•2h ago
PaulHoule•1h ago
0cf8612b2e1e•1h ago
dpark•1h ago
Yes, it’s better if your cable and clips and wall all match, but it still looks bad.
wlesieutre•2h ago
eikenberry•1h ago
passivegains•1h ago
GeorgeTirebiter•1h ago
sidewndr46•16m ago
jdeibele•1h ago
At the 1914 house, I used ethernet-over-powerline adapters so I could have a second router running in access point mode. The alternative was punching holes in the outside walls since there was no way to feasibly run cabling inside lath-and-plaster walls.
I don't know how 2025 houses are built but I would be surprised if they didn't have an ethernet jack in every room to a wiring closet of some sort. Not sure about coax.
My son has ethernet in his dorm with an ethernet switch so he can connect his video game consoles and TV. I think that's pretty common.
runjake•29m ago
Speaking from a US standpoint, it still not common in new construction for ethernet to be deployed in a house. I'm not sure why. It seems like a no-brainer.
Coax is still usually reserved to a couple jacks -- usually in the living room and master bedrooms.
sidewndr46•16m ago
ipython•1h ago
It’s what you do with that cable that matters :)
Even the telco provided router/ap combo units usually have a built in switch, so you don’t even need another device in most cases.
fragmede•2h ago
marssaxman•1h ago
(We do have one internet-connected device which permanently lives about an inch away from one of the ethernet sockets, but it is, ironically, a wifi-only device with no RJ45 port.)
baby_souffle•49m ago
I had a similar situation a few years back. It was a rental so I didn't have access to the attic let alone permission to do my own drops. It'll depend a _lot_ on your exact setup, but we had reasonably good results with some ethernet-over-power adapters.
jeffbee•2h ago
kjkjadksj•2h ago
jeffbee•2h ago
astrange•2h ago
I could go to 10gbit but the Thunderbolt adapters for those all have fans.
pbronez•2h ago
I think this market is driven by content creators. Lots of prosumers shoot terabytes of video on a weekly basis. Local NAS are essential and multi-gig local networks dramatically improve the editing experience.
kulahan•2h ago
bobbiechen•2h ago
kjkjadksj•2h ago
Now lets talk about my actual “old mac” and “new mac” Mid 2012 mbp and my m3 pro. The 2012 only can do 802.11n so not gigabit speeds. It does have a gigabit ethernet however.
Even if I was going m3 pro to m3 pro, I’m only getting full wifi 6e speeds if I actually have a router that makes use of 160hz channels. My router can’t. It is hard to even gleam router offerings to see which are offering proper wifi 6 because there are like dozens of skus sold even to different stores from the same brand getting slightly different skus. Afaik my mac does not support 160hz wifi 6 either.
kstrauser•2h ago
I have Firewalla Wi-Fi 7 APs connected via 10Gb Ethernet to my router. They're brilliant, very expensive, very high quality devices. I use them only for devices which I can't hardwired, because even 1Gb Ethernet smokes them in actual real-world use.
jeffbee•1h ago
I see that you have never tried this. By the way, Mac Migration Assistant doesn't need Wi-Fi infrastructure at all.
kstrauser•8m ago
Running over Wi-Fi dragged on interminably and we gave up several hours in. When we scrounged up a could of USB Ethernet dongles and started over, it took about an hour.
So yeah, my own personal experience confirms exactly what I'd expect: Wi-Fi is slow and high-latency compared to Ethernet, and you should always use hardwired connections when you care about stability and performance more than portability. By all means, use Wi-Fi for routine laptop mobility. If you have the option, definitely run a cable to your stationary desktop computers, game consoles, set-top boxes, NASes, and everything else within reach of a switch.
tass•2h ago
You can find a 2 port 10gbe+4 port 2.5gbe switch for just over $30 on Amazon.
If the run isn’t too long this can all run over cat5. Handily beats wifi especially for reliability but Thunderbolt is fastest if you only have 2 machines to link.
kllrnohj•1h ago
The only way I've managed to convince any Wifi 7 client to exceed 1gbps is by freshly connecting to it over 6ghz while standing physically within arm's reach of the AP. That's it. That's the only time it can exceed 1gbps.
In all other scenarios it's well under 1gbps, often more like 300-500mbps. Which is great for wifi, but still quite below the cheapest ethernet ports around. And 6ghz client behavior across OS's (Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android) is so bad at roaming that I actually end up just disabling it entirely. The only thing it can do is generate bragging rights screenshots, in actual use it's basically entirely DOA.
And that's ignoring that ~$200 N150 NUCs come with 2.5gbps ethernet now.
tryauuum•1h ago
p_j_w•1h ago
We've gone from 100 Mbps being standard consumer level to 2.5 or 10 Gbps being standard now. That sounds substantial to me.
jeffbee•1h ago
dpark•1h ago
It is bizarre that they are putting 100mbps Ethernet ports on TVs though.
baby_souffle•46m ago
It's a few pennies cheaper and i'm sure they have some data showing 70%+ will just use WiFi. TCL in particular doesn't even have very good/stable drivers for their 10/100 NIC; there's a ton of people on the Home Assistant forums that have noticed that their android powered smart TV will just ... stop working / responding on the network until it's rebooted.
lxgr•33m ago
avree•2h ago
mlinhares•2h ago
GeorgeTirebiter•1h ago
paulddraper•1h ago
Wired connection is an absolute hack.
lxgr•33m ago
Now put an access point into every room and wire them to the router, and things start looking very differently.
ipython•1h ago
So true!
Other tips I’ve found useful:
Separate 2.4ghz network for only IoT devices. They tend to have terrible WiFi chipsets and use older WiFi standards. Slower speed = more airtime used for the same amount of data. This way the “slow” IoT devices don’t interfere with your faster devices which…
Faster devices such as laptops and phones belong on 5ghz only network, if you’re able to get enough coverage. Prefer wired backhaul and more access points, as you’re better off with a device talking on another channel to an ap closer to it rather than tieing up airtime with lots of retries to a far away ap (which impacts all the other clients also trying to talk to that ap)
WiFi is super solid at our house but it took some tweaking and wiring everything that doesn’t move.
rbranson•43m ago
Certainly this is the brute-force way to do it and can work if you can run enough UTP everywhere. As a counterexample, I went all-in on WiFi and have 5 access points with dedicated backhauls. This is in SF too, so neighbors are right up against us. I have ~60 devices on the WiFi and have no issues, with fast roaming handoff, low jitter, and ~500Mbit up/down. I built this on UniFi, but I suspect Eero PoE gear could get you pretty close too, given how well even their mesh backhaul gear performs.
xmprt•39m ago
rbranson•24m ago
sidewndr46•14m ago
lxgr•37m ago
TV streaming seems like a bad example, since it's usually much lower average bandwidth than e.g. a burst of mobile app updates installing with equal priority on the network as as soon as a phone is plugged in for charging, or starting a cloud photo backup.
vel0city•9m ago
That's true of any client with older and crappier WiFi chips though, but TVs are such a race to the bottom when it comes to performance in so many other things.
drob518•9m ago