Nice. I've noticed that my Xbox downloads things significantly faster than my PS3 because it's wired and the PS3 is wireless.

@Yasarh: Excellent point! Wired connections are better for game consoles, Blu-ray players, Roku boxes, etc.--not just PCs.

I've already gone back to the future by hard-wiring my computers, TVs, Apple TV, and Blu-Ray players. I like to have my movies stream quickly, my downloads arrive faster, and not worry about inexplicable wireless hiccups. If you can't wire your house, you can use broadband-over-powerline network extenders, like WD Livewire, though I've never seen hard data about the speeds they provide. The rule of thumb in technology is that nothing works as well as advertised.

What type of wireless network do you have? If you have a wireless n network and all your devices are wireless n, then you shouldn't see any difference between wireless and wired up to 100Mbps or higher.

At home, I have a wireless g network, and I have to agree. I get about 20Mb down on wirless and about 30Mb down on wired. Which agrees with your point.

Hello! Where has everyone been?? Has everyone really not already noticed this. This is one of the main reason I have always avoided wireless unless I have to use it. You don't need to be any kind of researcher to know this and this article is worded in such a way like it is new information and acutally required some sort of major research. For anyone who really paid attetnion to this sort of thing they would have known this since day one. Yes this information would be usfull to a lot of peeople but please don't act like some you or thes UK people have made some great discovery. It really surpises me someone of your status would word this article in such a way as if this is some big new research. It is as if someone if patting themselves on the back for realizing that most of us should already know anyway. There is no new information to he had here and this is just another example of how lazy we can be.

@speeddog: What may be "obvious" or old information to you might be brand new and totally surprising to someone else. Not everyone spends all their time studying technology--particularly the mysteries of broadband routers! :)

Rick what you say is true however it does not change anything. That is why I worded the way I did. I made it clear that is good info and I made clear what my concerns were.

It took no studying to pick up on such obvious things as this. You don't need to explain to me how things can be old info to one person but new to another. I made it clear that this would be good info for someone who may not already know it. But I can't stand how they act like it is a new discovery and like they have really done anything. I don't sit arouind studying routers and technology all the time. If a person has ever used a computer with a wire and then used wirless it would be easy to pick up on this great discovery witout even trying. Yes not everyone would depeinding on what they are doing so I said it is good information to know. I am not knocking that. Please write articles about it and get it out there sure. But don't act like you have made some great discovery and pat yourself on the back. No serous research needed for this. Your reply to me really doesn't address anything I have said or have anything to do it. I guess you are just putting thoughts in my hea

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This is really handy to know. While I always had my suspicions that my router was slowing down my internet, I thought it was just because I had an old router. I didn't realize until this study came out that this is a consistent problem.

This post is so helpful beyond words. I always looked at the wi-fi as being super convenient until I noticed that my speeds dipped below, let's call it, acceptable levels. Now I consider it more convenient to be connected via a cord.

It appears that an important point has been overlooked in this thread -- regardless of your home/internal network speed, the two "throttles" you cannot control are the ISP and the source servers. If you cannot match your internal speed to the ISP's service level you are "leaving bits on the table" so to speak -- but only if the source servers you are getting your bits from can serve it to you at those speeds. Netfllix routinely serves its movie streams at 1.5 to 3 Megabits per second. It will not serve a movie to you at much higher speeds. Period. No matter what speed your ISP provides you.

If you move big (and we have to be talking multi-gig) files between your computers within your home network, then improving your internal connectivity bandwidth can help -- IF your computer has a Gig-E NIC -- but if you have a 10 or 100-BaseT it won't help at all. Again, if you are streaming a movie from one computer, over your home network, to a display device, then a faster connection will only h

In case you're in a house where you can't go back and install cat5 cabling, look for alternatives. You can find gadgets that run you lan over your electrical wiring at 300 Mbps, for example (I think they refer to them as PNA or something similar). I also found that the ethernet port on my Uverse set-top boxes (which are connected via RG-6 coax to the Uverse router) function as hubs, so I can plug my cat5 into that port if I'm close to the set-top box. Didn't test the speed, but it works fine for streaming NetFlix and even Vudu HD movies.

Two points: (1) if you have multiple, active wireless connections through a single access point, you are further constraining your throughput and (2) WiFi encryption, which I hope everyone is using, puts a strain on the throughput because of the calculations involved. It all adds up to using hard wire when possible, even if those 25' cords are annoyingly long. A good rule of thumb for laptops: if you have to plug it in for power, plug it in for ethernet, too, where possible.