Here are some quick things to know about Wi-Fi

• Wired connections are faster than Wi-Fi.
• Wired connections are more secure.
• From a health perspective, you don’t have the number of health risks from a wired connection as you do from wireless connections.
• Odds are that your house is already wired for internet; you would just have need the adapters for a faster and more secure network.

 

Speed.  Speed is everything when it comes to doing things online today.  How fast a page loads.  How fast you upload your video or pictures to Facebook.   How much time you will watch Netflix, Amazon, or Hulu buffer when watching them.   There is nothing more frustrating than when it takes you 2.5 hours to watch a 2-hour movie because it is constantly buffering.   How much lag you have when you are playing games online.  For those that play online games, you know lag will ruin your day.

If you are looking for maximizing your speeds to get the most out of all the services that the internet can offer, then you will want to have everything wired.  Most people today use Wi-Fi because honestly it is easier to set up and a little cheaper.  However, Wi-Fi is slower than a wired connection.  In addition, from a security standpoint, wired connections are also safer.  Now knowing all of this you may think that having a wired network will cost thousands of dollars to place in your home, but the reality is, there is a very good chance that your house is already wired for this.  All you would have to do is have the right adapters.  How can you tell?

If your house was built in the last 15 years, there is a very good chance that you already have the wiring that is needed to achieve a wired network.  Yes, you may have to possibly purchase another adapter or two, however the total conversion will be a few hundred dollars, not thousands.  First thing to do is to understand how your house was wired in the first place.  Look in your rooms and see if there are wall hookups for TV (coax cable) and or telephone jacks in the rooms that you would want internet.  If they are there this is a good sign.  You will need either/or, not necessarily both.   If you have telephone jacks in all the rooms the next thing to look at is the type of wire that is used.  If you have a coax cable jack (what you plug a TV into) you would be good to go, especially for example if you have Charter for your internet service.  Look at the type of wiring that the builder used in the phone jacks.  You can do this by either looking in your basement (where they would have bundled the wires together) or carefully remove the wall plant and look at the wire.   Look at the wire and see if you can see the one of the following written on the side Cat5, Cat5E, or Cat6.   Any one or combination of the three will work.  The difference in the three types is the speed.  They are listed from slowest to fastest.  So if you have coax cable jacks, Cat5, Cat5e, or Cat6 wiring– you are already wired.  All you will really need is the right adapter and you have a wired network that is faster and more secure. If this is something that you want to look into further, I would suggest contacting www.soundinstallationsinc.com for those in the Eau Claire area.  For those outside that area look for an internet/audio specialist in your area.