Does an Ethernet cord take from the same bandwidth “pool” as WiFi?

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I’m trying to set up good internet for my family here during the quarantine, and I understand the modem but the router and bandwidth have got me pretty confused.

Let’s say for example my family has a 300mbps internet plan and I buy an “AC2400” router.

1) Let’s say my ethernet cord is connected to the router and giving my laptop a speed of 300mbps. Does that mean there’s now 2100 bandwidth “left” for wifi? Or is the 300mbps the ethernet cord is using separate, and there’d still be the full 2400 bandwidth left for wifi usage?

2) Also regarding bandwidth, does this mean that in theory *under perfect conditions*, 8 separate devices could each attain a speed of 300mbps? Just trying to understand how bandwidth works!

Thank you for any help, it is appreciated!

In: Technology

5 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

EDIT:

I just realized (possibly) why I’m getting so confused. My family lives in an old house, so there are no Ethernet ports in the walls. My modem is connected via a coaxial cable, and then to the router.

My “Ethernet cord” is connected to the router, not directly to the house/wall. Would that affect anything?

Anonymous 0 Comments

In addition to the other responses, the nice thing about Ethernet connection (if it’s convenient) is the stability in the connection, rather than any attempt at increased speed.

Anonymous 0 Comments

All of your internet will still only have 300mbps.

Your router can send and receive 2400mbps, to the WiFi and the Ethernet. If you wanted to send something from one computer to another on your “local” network, it could be as quick as 2400mbps.

But, in communication to the outside world? That’s still throttled to 300mbps. That is shared between everyone currently using the internet in your home.

It’s like having a water pipe coming in to your house, and the maximum it will deliver is 300 litres per minute. If you put an enormous pipe system inside your house that will cope with 2400 litres per minute, you can still only get 300 litres a minute into your house because that’s all that comes in.

If you really want to speed everything up, you’ll upgrade the pipe coming into your house. (With your internet service provider).

It’s not a perfect analogy but I hope it helped.

Also, it’s probably 300mbps download & 50mbps upload. They’re measured differently and done by different parts of the system.

Upgrading your router can make the internet it gets, get used more efficiently. But it won’t upgrade your max speed.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Yes. It’s like pulling into a parking lot. No mater what entrance you use, there’s still only X number of spots to park.

Anonymous 0 Comments

That 2400 mbps refers to communications going to/from the router to any wifi clients. All clients, both wired and wireless, can’t exceed the 300 mbps up/down speed *combined* for communications to the outside world.