Just when you thought that it was fine to ditch that box of ethernet cables that are sitting in your garage or cupboard… it might be time to cable up again.
A recent study by OOkla has brought to light the inadequacies of common Wi-Fi and how you can get huge speed increases via ethernet cable.
A highlight of the study is that “data shows Wi-Fi performance continues to lag behind ethernet performance within home networks in many advanced fixed broadband markets, with Wi-Fi speeds typically ranging from between 30-40% of ethernet speeds during Q1 2023.”
In many institutions, the difference may be more glaringly obvious. Differences can be 10mbps upload/download for Wi-Fi, while ethernet can see you getting 600Mbps upload/ download. This is usually due to weak Wi-Fi signals or relay stations.
In most aspects, we photographers may not notice nor care about getting slightly faster speeds. But as many photographers are now becoming hybrid shooters, we often send huge video footage files to video editors, upload extremely large folders for backup, or even send clients giant folders of print size images from events and weddings.
Slower upload speeds can mean the difference between a five minutes send or up to 10 or more hours sending time. This may be fine for sending overnight, but on location with a laptop, this makes sending impossible. With an ethernet 600Mbps upload speed, a 125GB folder can send in 5 minutes. While at the usual capped Wi-Fi standard of 18Mbps, a 12GB can take up to 90 minutes.
Another interesting conundrum, especially for Australian photographers and consumers is that there is a huge disparity between download speeds and upload speed. Typically, we have a capped upload speed of 20Mbps, while average download speeds are 50-90Mbps.
This is a huge disparity and for no real reason. And if you travel overseas, you may notice that the upload and download speeds are similar.
It is a shame that in Australia we seem to give very low priority to our internet speeds – let alone our upload speed.
A current 2023 ranking sees Australia’s internet speeds placing 79th in the world.
To find out more about the "embarrassing state of Australia’s internet", read this article in The New Daily