Comparing wired-in Internet speed to Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi was a total game-changer; no longer was the Internet connection confined to the desk or the reach of an Ethernet cable. Now, whether you’re at home, work or in the local coffee shop, when you access the Internet, chances are good you’re doing so wirelessly.

While the benefits of Wi-Fi are obvious, it has its limitations. The biggest trade-off is Internet speed. If you’re on a gigabit connection, you cannot take full advantage of all the bandwidth that’s available to you on a single Wi-Fi device. The real power of gigabit comes when you have multiple Wi-Fi devices connected to the network with no slowdown whatsoever. That said, for the absolute fastest speeds on a single device (and especially if you’re conducting a speed test to see your maximum throughput) you’ll want to go wired.

If you’ve ever conducted an Internet speed test of your home Wi-Fi and compared it to a wired connection, you’ve seen the difference first-hand. Here’s what’s going on.

It might surprise you to know that today, the main backbone of the Internet in America is fiber. The undersea cables that connect the continents are fiber. Without fiber, the Internet becomes more like the Internot.

So why isn’t fiber to the home (FTTH) more widespread? The fiber gap exists because many ISPs rely on dated copper wiring to connect back to the network. Copper wiring was a purpose-built infrastructure for telephones and later, for cable TV. It wasn’t built with the Internet in mind. It has limited bandwidth, it’s slow relative to fiber and it suffers signal degradation over distances.

The most common question we get about Ting Internet is “when can I get it?” It speaks to the need for infrastructure much faster and more reliable than the old copper networks. Copper simply wasn’t designed to provide Internet access.

While we’d love to get the whole of North America wired (glassed?) up with the access it so sorely needs, it bears mentioning that fiber is a marathon, not a sprint.

As it now seems was inevitable, yesterday the FCC overturned “net neutrality” regulations that were put in place to protect an Open Internet.

Now, Internet service providers – ISPs – will be allowed to prioritize and deprioritize traffic as they see fit. It’s good news for myopic ISPs and their investors but bad news for Internet innovation in North America and, more importantly, for people without choices of ISPs who put their customers first.

Ting’s stance on net neutrality is and will remain unchanged: We will never block, throttle or otherwise interfere with the online activity of our customers.

As a company actively working and investing to build and support fiber networks in Ting towns around the US, we can definitively say that net neutrality had no bearing on our decision to help build the next generation of Internet infrastructure North America so sorely needs. The repeal of net neutrality protections won’t change how we continue this important work, and will not change our continued operation of Ting Internet under the principles of net neutrality.

Starting an online business

We’re lucky to be part of a generation where we can experiment with business ideas and endeavors with relative ease and minimal start-up capital. The resources available for starting an online business and getting it up and running are abundant.

When your business is online there is no need to look for the ideal location within set budget constraints. Much of the start-up stress of setting up a business disappear.

That’s part of the magic of building businesses online. It can often be virtually free or much cheaper than opening and operating a traditional bricks and mortar business.

Here’s just a few reasons why you should consider starting an online business and how to begin building an online presence.

That side hustle cash

Practically everyone has a project that they like to work on during their off hours. Maybe you’ve been thinking about putting your talents to work so you can make some extra cash instead of doing it for free. These five ideas will get you started with your side hustle.