2 ms·

I didn't even understand how much better my laptop's wireless could be than my wireless, much less Ethernet. I was using a WiFi repeater to get to the old WiFi

by gwern 10y ago

I didn't even understand how much better my laptop's wireless could be than my wireless, much less Ethernet. I was using a WiFi repeater to get to the old WiFi router, and eventually got frustrated with the random disconnections/freezes and began messing around. I was shocked to see my Internet speed (speedtest.net) go up substantially with a new WiFi router, and then go up to a total of 6x when I cut out the repeater using a big directional antenna - and it still wasn't equal to the numbers I was getting from plugging directly into the router with an Ethernet cable. So now despite the bother, I'm just going to run 200-feet of Ethernet cable from the router to my laptop. I knew Ethernet was better than WiFi but if I had realized just how much, I would've bitten the bullet years ago.

Symbiote 10y ago
I'm surprised a software developer doesn't know basic stuff like that a typical Ethernet connection is 1Gb/s, and WiFi around 20-200, depending on conditions. This is like an engineer not knowing the mains voltage is 230V, or a baker not knowing about standard grades of flour.
- pyre 10y ago
  > Ethernet connection is 1Gb/s, and WiFi around 20-200, depending on conditions I had no idea that WiFi was that much better than Ethernet! ( this is why units matter, kids ;)
- gwern 10y ago
  I knew perfectly well that Ethernet goes up to 1000 megabit/sec and WiFi generally 50-200 megabit/sec, but my reasoning was that the LAN shouldn't matter because my ISP only gives us ~6 megabytes/sec (or ~45 megabit/sec) and as far as I knew, all possible configurations easily saturated that as my laptop and repeater were the only things on WiFi with no interference from neighbors. In performance, you usually focus on the weakest link, and here the weakest link (ISP/Internet) was by far weaker than the other links. Apparently I was grossly wrong, and I still don't understand why I was wrong and why the changes made such a large difference. Something to do with network protocols and response to packet loss or something, I guess.
- flukus 10y ago
  I'm not. Software developers are generally pretty ignorant of things like network latency. You often see things like caching used to improve n+1 database performance problems which doesn't really help when the cache is also on another machine. I'm always posting latency numbers every programmer should know: https://gist.github.com/jboner/2841832 https://gist.github.com/jboner/2841832
digler999 10y ago
> I'm just going to run 200-feet of Ethernet cable from the router to my laptop. Don't do that. Instead get a ethernet powerline adapter: https://www.cnet.com/topics/networking/best-networking-devices/power-line-adapters/ https://www.cnet.com/topics/networking/best-networking-devic...
- gwern 10y ago
  There is no powerline connection, the router is in another building.

by gwern 10y ago

Symbiote 10y ago

I'm surprised a software developer doesn't know basic stuff like that a typical Ethernet connection is 1Gb/s, and WiFi around 20-200, depending on conditions. This is like an engineer not knowing the mains voltage is 230V, or a baker not knowing about standard grades of flour.

pyre 10y ago
> Ethernet connection is 1Gb/s, and WiFi around 20-200, depending on conditions I had no idea that WiFi was that much better than Ethernet! ( this is why units matter, kids ;)
gwern 10y ago
I knew perfectly well that Ethernet goes up to 1000 megabit/sec and WiFi generally 50-200 megabit/sec, but my reasoning was that the LAN shouldn't matter because my ISP only gives us ~6 megabytes/sec (or ~45 megabit/sec) and as far as I knew, all possible configurations easily saturated that as my laptop and repeater were the only things on WiFi with no interference from neighbors. In performance, you usually focus on the weakest link, and here the weakest link (ISP/Internet) was by far weaker than the other links. Apparently I was grossly wrong, and I still don't understand why I was wrong and why the changes made such a large difference. Something to do with network protocols and response to packet loss or something, I guess.
flukus 10y ago
I'm not. Software developers are generally pretty ignorant of things like network latency. You often see things like caching used to improve n+1 database performance problems which doesn't really help when the cache is also on another machine. I'm always posting latency numbers every programmer should know: https://gist.github.com/jboner/2841832 https://gist.github.com/jboner/2841832

digler999 10y ago

> I'm just going to run 200-feet of Ethernet cable from the router to my laptop. Don't do that. Instead get a ethernet powerline adapter: https://www.cnet.com/topics/networking/best-networking-devices/power-line-adapters/ https://www.cnet.com/topics/networking/best-networking-devic...

gwern 10y ago
There is no powerline connection, the router is in another building.