Wired Instead of Wi-Fi: When the Cable Wins
Contents5
The usual comparisons put megabits against megabits, and modern Wi-Fi often comes out looking better than the cable. Which is exactly why the comparison misleads: the advantage of a wired link is not peak speed, it is steadiness.
Not faster, just steadier
Wi-Fi shares the radio spectrum with your neighbours, with the microwave, and with every other device in the household. Bandwidth therefore fluctuates second by second. For a streamed series that does not matter — the buffer smooths it out. For a video call it does: every delay counts immediately, and fluctuation turns into dropouts and frozen pictures.
A cable, by contrast, delivers practically constant latency. It does not feel faster, it feels calmer. Anyone who spends a lot of time in meetings notices that more clearly than in any speed test.
Where it really pays off
- Video calls — the most common home-office case, and the clearest gain.
- Large uploads — cloud backups, video editing, photo archives.
- Gaming — not for the bandwidth, for the latency spikes.
- Older flats — thick walls, concrete ceilings, Wi-Fi dead spots in the study.
The other way round: if you write emails at the kitchen table and stream in the evening, you do not need a cable. The effort does not pay there.
Which category you need
Cat5e, Cat6, Cat7 — the numbers read like a ranking, but in practice they mostly differ in shielding and maximum frequency.
| Category | Good for | When it makes sense |
|---|---|---|
| Cat5e | 1 Gbit/s | enough for virtually any Swiss home connection |
| Cat6 | 1 Gbit/s, 10 Gbit/s over short runs | sensible standard, barely more expensive |
| Cat7 | 10 Gbit/s | better shielded — useful next to power cables or inside trunking |
Honestly: on a 1 Gbit/s connection, Cat7 makes no measurable speed difference over Cat6. The reason for the higher category is shielding, when the cable runs alongside mains wiring for longer stretches.
When the laptop has no socket
Most current laptops no longer have an RJ45 port — the chassis is too thin. Two routes still get you wired:
- USB-C to RJ45 adapter — small, cheap, lives in the backpack.
- Hub or docking station — most include the socket anyway once a monitor is connected.
At UGREEN, for instance, Ethernet cables, adapters and docks belong to the same range, which makes assembling a setup easier. The one thing that matters is that the adapter supports gigabit — older and very cheap models are capped at 100 Mbit/s, and that is slower than the Wi-Fi you meant to replace.
A cable nobody sees
The most common reason good intentions stay intentions is the cable running across the flat. Flat ribbon cables slide under carpet edges and door thresholds, and a two-metre run from the router to the desk next door is rarely the problem. Only beyond roughly ten metres is it worth thinking about trunking or powerline.