News Flash: WiFi Not as Good as Wired Internet
Home WiFi Internet speeds are on average 30 percent slower than wired connections, a recent study by research firm Epitiro suggests, underscoring the importance of keeping an Ethernet cable handy when downloading music online.
These findings indicate that complications with wireless networks can occur for several reasons. Impediments to download speeds may include physical obstructions like walls and doors, interference from devices such as microwaves and cordless phones, and the proliferation of closely situated home networks that utilize the same default channels.
Although data transfer rate declines were negligible when performing routine tasks such as surfing the Web or sending email, differences were clearly more pronounced when executing bandwidth-heavy applications such as streaming multimedia, videoconferencing and playing games.
The research firm reached this conclusion by monitoring broadband connections for more than 14,000 users in the U.S., U.K., Spain and Italty between November 2010 and February 2011.