Cat5e vs. Wifi

Why would I want to wire my home with Cat5e when I already have a wifi network?

We've heard it a million times - and don't get us wrong, wifi is great for sharing an internet connection. There are drawbacks and limitations, though, and we would feel really bad if we didn't adequately explain the tradeoffs.

Advantages
Let's start with the advantages of using wifi:

• Cheap - 1 router and a few network cards vs. running wire through your house. Wifi is definitely cheaper.
• Ease of installation - unless you are building a new house, running cables through your house can be a huge project. In fact, even if you are building a new house it's a huge project, but slightly easier when there is no drywall to cut through. Wifi is just simple.

Disadvantages
OK, there are some pretty compelling reasons to go with wifi, but consider the tradeoffs:

• Speed: You simply won't get the same speeds over a wifi network that you will over copper. While the theoretical limits are comparable, in reality when you move away from your wireless router just a few feet you will start seeing the speed dropping. This doesn't happen with copper (until you hit several hundred feet you won't notice a difference).
• Security: How do you know that somebody isn't sitting in your driveway watching everything you do over your wifi network? Truthfully, you don't - the new standards have made security a higher priority, but the chance of somebody tapping in to your copper line is almost nil.
• Streaming media: OK, so this is kind of rehashing the point of slower speeds, but if you want to stream media you probably won't be happy with the choppy video that usually results when doing it over wifi (from a media device housed in the same location). If you can manage to make it work the compression will compromise the quality.