[JMitchell]

Might've asked this a while ago, but I can connect to my house's wireless router either through a standard USB internet picky-upper-er or through a wireless LAN bridge plugged into the ethernet port. This never goes off and purports to run at 100mbps, but when I try to load videos, it literally takes about half an hour to load a 5 min vid. The USB one is far less reliable, but loads videos much much faster.
Why could this be?



Thanks


Jack

[Markulous]

Originally Posted by JMitchell

Why could this be?

Someone trying to tell you something?
or
Wireless max specs are never reached and are often, as you can see, way under (due to atmospherics, obstructions, etc)

[JMitchell]

But the thing is, they are both connecting to exactly the same network, just through different mediums (medii?), so why should one (that is essentially supposed to be much faster), be loads slower (and pretty much only on videos and downloads) than the other...?

[Markulous]

USB 2 @ 480 Mb/s is faster than WiFi @ 100 Mb/s before you even get into getting a 'clean' WiFi signal.

There is then the overhead of translation to ethernet protocols which might have a bearing, dependant on the hardware (but probably is about the same for USB and WiFi). However, WiFi is usually encrypted and this'll often slow down the transmission/reception

[polka]

The 100mbps that you're seeing is the speed at which the computer connects to the WLAN bridge via the Ethernet port. (The speed of the ethernet cable between your computer and that box)

The speed that the WLAN bridge connects to the rest of the network won't be anywhere near 100mbps

[Dave Canon]

I do not know what router you are using but I have a BT Hub. Two of the computers are connected via Ethernet ports but there are only two. The Laptop and my daughter's PC are connected by wireless. When my son is home he uses a wireless connection for his PDA and the Hub's USB port for his PC. The USB port was very difficult to set up and unreliable. The three wireless connections operate at a max of 54Mb/s but my daughter's PC rarely gets anywhere near this (furthest distance but not that far). The two ethernet connections are rock solid at 100M b/s.

Dave

[VikingPhotography]

First off - the absolute maximum speed you get is dependant on the source file location. If you're pulling your video file over an internet connection - the fastest it will stream or download is limited to the speed of that connection - irrespective of how fast your other data connections can send or receive.

The same thing applies to a local file stored on another computer or HDD. The limitations there are the speed of the disk and the bandwith of the interface it's connected to. Being a hard wired connection, the USB connection will be one of the most efficient means of transferring data since it doesn't "suffer" from the limitations of WiFi. At 480Mbps it's more than fast enough for most uses.

All WiFi protocols are half-duplex - meaning that the stated speed is a combination of their transmit and receive rates. So: an 802.11b connection of 11Mbps can send data at a maximum of 5.5mbps, and an 802.11g connection can send data at a maximum of 27Mbps.

You can see where issues might arise if you have a fast broadband connection of, say, 8mbps or faster... using an 802.11b WiFi connection would mean that you're self-limiting your bandwith!

Also, if you use an encrypted or protected WiFi signal, you lose about anywhere between 20% to 50% of the bandwith due to processing overheads. Some routers allow you to secure your connection without resorting to encryption - so you should check that out too.

Lastly, there's the bugbear of signal strength. WiFi operates on signals in the 2.4GHz range... but so too do microwave ovens, cordless telephones, bluetooth products and many more consumer level devices. All of this causes interference and, in order to combat this, the throughput of your WiFi signal might be lower as it spends more time re-sending data packets to overcome the interference.

[JMitchell]

Thanks for all that info everyone!
Thanks Martin you seem to know the answer