We live in a wireless age. The latest Wi-Fi 6E connections let us stream hundreds of megabytes a second through the air – and next year we expect to see the first Wi-Fi 7 chipsets, promising speeds of up to 40Gbits/sec.
With all this data swirling around, traditional cabled connections may seem old-fashioned to the point of obsolescence. But while Ethernet can’t match the go-anywhere convenience of wireless networking, it still has several advantages over Wi-Fi.
Five reasons why Ethernet is better than wireless
1 You can’t beat Ethernet for simplicity. Just run a cable from one socket to another and boom, the connection is made. Assuming the devices at either end are correctly configured then the link speed, addressing and routing should all be sorted out automatically.
You don’t need to worry about keeping up with the latest high-end standards, either: a £5 cable is all you need to get the fastest speeds. There’s no confusion about different plugs and sockets, as with USB: with the exception of high-end enterprise-grade hardware, all Ethernet links use standard RJ45 (“registered jack”) connectors, with handy plastic latches to ensure the cables can’t be accidentally yanked out.
Ethernet is more secure
