Should I run an ethernet cable instead of using wifi?

Wifi is a shared medium: every device competes for airtime, and the slowest device holds everyone up. Moving the fixed, heavy users onto cable improves both those devices and the wireless network they leave behind.

Safety

Step by step

1. Identify what does not move.Television, set-top box, games console, desktop computer, printer, network storage, and any mesh or access point. None of these needs to be wireless, and all of them benefit.
2. Understand what you actually gain.Consistent speed, much lower and steadier latency, no interference, and no dropouts. For gaming and video calls the latency matters more than the speed, and it is where wifi is weakest.
3. Recognise the indirect benefit.Every wired device is one fewer competing for wifi airtime. Wiring the television alone noticeably improves wireless performance for everything else in a busy household.
4. Wire the mesh units if you have them.A mesh system with wired backhaul performs dramatically better than one relaying wirelessly. If you run one cable in the whole house, run it to the second mesh unit.
5. Use Cat6 and do not overthink it.Cat6 is inexpensive and handles far more than any domestic broadband will deliver for years. Higher categories cost more and change nothing at these speeds.
6. Run it along the skirting if you cannot go through walls.Flat cable, trunking, or under the carpet edge. It is not elegant and it works completely. Cable clips and a couple of hours beat any wireless workaround.
7. Use existing routes.Old aerial or telephone cable runs, service voids, the gap behind a boxed-in pipe. Pulling a new cable through with the old one as a draw is far easier than making a new route.
8. Consider powerline as a compromise.Not as good as cable and much better than distant wifi. Performance depends on the house wiring, they must be on the same circuit, and they should not go through an extension lead.
9. Add a switch rather than running several cables.One cable to a room, then a small network switch there feeding several devices. Switches are cheap, need no configuration, and save running four cables where one will do.
10. Buy the right length and test before installing.Measure the route rather than the straight line, add slack, and plug both ends in before clipping anything down. A faulty cable found after installation is a bad afternoon.
11. Label both ends.Especially if more than one cable runs to the same place. Untangling unlabelled cable behind a television is entirely avoidable.
12. Leave the laptops and phones on wifi.This is not about wiring everything. It is about wiring the things that never move, so the things that do have the airwaves to themselves.

Tips

• A five-metre Cat6 cable costs less than almost any wifi accessory and outperforms all of them for the device it reaches.
• Modern televisions often default to wifi even when a cable is plugged in. Check the network setting after connecting.
• If a cable run is genuinely impossible, powerline to the television is usually the next best thing and much better than a distant wireless connection.

Common mistakes

• Buying more wifi hardware before running one cable — A cable to the worst device is cheaper and more effective than almost any wireless product, and it improves the wifi for everything else at the same time.
• Plugging powerline adapters into an extension lead — The filtering in extension leads and surge protectors degrades the signal badly. They need to go straight into a wall socket.

If it doesn't work

Questions people ask