Wired 100Mb vs wireless?

daninthemix · 9 Dec 2015 at 14:08

I have a Sky Hub, and I was about to start shopping around for an 802.11ac wireless access point, before then realizing...that access point will be plugged into the Sky Hub using Fast Ethernet 100MB...so I won't actually gain anything at all. Is this correct?

bremen1874 · 9 Dec 2015 at 14:14

Even when connected via a 100Mbit port a decent 802.11ac WAP should offer better wireless performance than the Sky Hub.

Avalon · 9 Dec 2015 at 15:29

It depends on what you're accessing.

Firstly your Sky Hub lacks gigabit ports as you're aware, so anything that communicates via the hub's LAN ports will be limited to 100mbit on LAN and the ADSL/Fibre connection via the WAN (internet), this is why most people use a gigabit switch as then all LAN based client's can transfer at gigabit speeds over the LAN. In your case if you just plug in an AP you'll potentially enable faster communication between wireless devices on the AP if they support a faster wifi standard than the hub does, but not between the devices on the LAN or WAN.

DragonQ · 9 Dec 2015 at 15:29

It depends what you're trying to do. Draw a diagram of your network with the "pipes" and their speeds, and you'll see where the bottlenecks are.

Avalon said:
It depends on what you're accessing.

Firstly your Sky Hub lacks gigabit ports as you're aware, so anything that communicates via the hub's LAN ports will be limited to 100mbit on LAN and the ADSL/Fibre connection via the WAN (internet), this is why most people use a gigabit switch as then all LAN based client's can transfer at gigabit speeds over the LAN. In your case if you just plug in an AP you'll potentially enable faster communication between wireless devices on the AP if they support a faster wifi standard than the hub does, but not between the devices on the LAN or WAN.

Yep but even with a Gigabit switch, anything connected to a router via WiFi is going to be restricted to 100 Mb/s communication with anything on that switch. That's why it's useful to have a WiFi access point with Gigabit ports.

Avalon · 9 Dec 2015 at 17:23

DragonQ said:
It depends what you're trying to do. Draw a diagram of your network with the "pipes" and their speeds, and you'll see where the bottlenecks are.

Yep but even with a Gigabit switch, anything connected to a router via WiFi is going to be restricted to 100 Mb/s communication with anything on that switch. That's why it's useful to have a WiFi access point with Gigabit ports.

While your answer is technically accurate, it's not the answer to the OP's question - the OP specifically asks if adding an AC AP will improve speed, nothing to do with the routers inbuilt wifi - we know that's limited by the routers port speed if used, but that's not what was asked or said.

Think of it this way, take an AC capable AP and two devices that are capable of AC, connect the devices to the AP, but don't connect the AP to a switch/router, the AP knows the IP of each device and deals with the transfer at (potentially) full speed. Now add a gigabit switch to the AP and plug in a wired PC to the switch, again capable of gigabit. Transfers to/from that will be at gigabit speeds. Now connect the switch to the router and plug another PC into the router's 100mbit port, any transfers from the wireless devices to the first PC are still at gigabit speeds and anything that goes to the second PC is limited to 100mbit. If you happen to be connected to the routers wifi then yes you are limited by it's switching capacity, but not with an AC AP and wireless to wireless transfers or transfers to devices connected via a gigabit switch.