On the Internet, you can find many articles with pro or contra WiFi topics. After reading a few of them, I was disappointed. They don't describe the big picture. That's why I had the idea to write about my personal vision of the situation.
This is a translation of my article in Zen. Also, do not forget to read us in other services: Instagram, telegram (RU, EN, DE). Medium, LiveJournal, YouTube.
I should have raised this issue earlier when I described building a WiFi Mesh (RU) network in the house. In addition to the distributed WiFi network in the apartment, I also actively use a wired connection. Both optics and copper are used as a wired connection (100Mb/s and 1Gb/s). Another 6 routers are installed in different parts of the apartment, so there are more wired connections than just in the photo below.
Let's figure it out. The Wikipedia (EN, RU) article does not describe all the details, but I recommend reading it. I will not rewrite all the pro's and con's; I will list only those that I highlight myself:
+ Quickly provide internet throughout the apartment
+ It's cheap to start building your network
+ Allows you to use hundreds of smart WiFi devices (which are also cheaper than ZigBee versions
+ Compatible with older devices
- Speed
- Range
- Security
If everything is clear with the pros, then the cons are often hidden. The speed is always indicated not real, but laboratory. In real life, it depends on how much the radio air is used, and in the city, it is not necessary to count on its cleanliness (the number of channels is limited, and if you and your neighbor are on the same channel, then you share the speed with each other). If several devices are connected to your network, then you divide the remainder between the devices. If you calculate it quickly, then in a situation where you have 10 neighbors and each has 10 devices, then each device will receive only 1% of the maximum possible speed. Of course, this calculation is incorrect, because in practice there are hundreds of factors and the speed may be both more and even less. Here is a test of air speed for you. Conditions: 1 client is connected to the router at a frequency of 2.4 GHz, a Gigabit channel is connected to the router. And the difference with the wire on the last screenshot.
Someone will want to object and remind you about the 5GHz frequency, but we will also talk about it below...
The range depends on many factors, but for simplicity, we can assume that there are all the same conditions as with speed. And by the way, speed and range depend on each other. Move away from the router and the result that we calculated above will become even less. The reality of the picture is that in the city the network may not work already in the next room. A special topic (pain) that people like to use is a repeater. On the one hand, it really solves the problem of range, on the other hand, it cuts the speed in half, and as we remember from the calculation above, we already have little of it. Below are screenshots from 2 devices connected to the same point at a frequency of 5GHz. Guess who's closer...
Of course, someone can refer to expensive routers that are doing well both with speed and range, but this will not be true. They are only trying to be louder than their neighbors due to powerful transmitters. Sometimes they show better results simply due to a strong stuffing that processes data better (cheap routers are often not able to work for a long time and stably with many devices, they work poorly when processing data). But the performance of the router has nothing to do with WiFi technology. I will give an example from my life. The D-Link DIR-300 router in 2008 cut the Internet speed by ~5Mb/s simply because of low performance, but then it was not important, because the Internet was even slower in my house. Of course, in later revisions, this problem has gone away.
Well, the last minus is security. Data flies through the air encrypted, but the simpler the encryption, the easier it is to crack it, and the better the key and algorithm, the more resources we need from the transmitter and receiver. And by the way, encryption takes a little bit of speed.
In general, if we solve some of the disadvantages, then some of the advantages may disappear. Therefore, televisions, cameras and computers can be connected safely with a cable, and smart devices that transmit data rarely and in a small amount of wireless network will be enough.
We will add the words with tests. The speed test on the wire is lower.
We see that this is higher than all of the above wireless. Of course, I have already said that the situation in each apartment is individual. With a wired connection, the situation is predictable, and you can also power (RU) the devices.
And that's all, subscribe, likes, repost... And we will soon be a small lottery ☺.