Your Ethernet cable might be hobbling your entire home connection without you realizing it. I don’t know if you’ve been keeping up with how fast Wi-Fi has gotten as of late, but it’s pretty fast. In fact, my Wi-Fi is faster than most Ethernet cables in my home. I’ve all but given up on using Ethernet cables, with the lone exception being my desktop PC since it’s directly next to my router and doesn’t have Wi-Fi capabilities. What I’ve realized is that Wi-Fi and Ethernet are close enough in performance for me to be okay with ditching the cables.
I don’t have any internet drops, so stability isn’t necessarily a selling point for me anymore. Strangely enough, my Ethernet cables all ended up expiring around the same time once I found out my Wi-Fi performs just as well, if not better. That’s not going to be the case for everybody, but I would encourage running an internet speed test and seeing if your cable is slowing you down. While your Ethernet cable might be fast, it might run into limitations with the port itself.
Your cable might be holding you back
Ethernet cables don’t have as much value anymore
Ethernet cables used to go hand in hand with internet connections, but that’s not the case anymore. I don’t have any of my game consoles plugged in, and I don’t have my TVs plugged in either. I didn’t realize my router would hand my Ethernet cables an expiration date, but that’s what happened. A lot of people have the Cat5 cables, which offer speeds up to 100 Mbps. In most scenarios, this is more than enough. Netflix doesn’t recommend anywhere close to that for 4K streaming, so if that’s what you’re relying on, there’s no reason to upgrade.
What you might not know is that many Ethernet ports, like my TV and Apple TV 4K’s, are capped at those speeds. Cat5 isn’t the fastest Ethernet cable available, which is a given considering there are Cat7 and Cat8 cables available. Even if you have a faster cable, your ports, if it’s only rated for 100 Mbps, you’re getting the same performance with a Cat6 cable as you would with a Cat8. Yes, that doesn’t matter a lot in practice, but there’s no sense in spending more money for a better cable only to get nothing out of it.
I’m not doubting that a lot of people have a need for high-speed cables, but I think a big chunk of people outgrew the need for these cables without realizing it. A speed test would confirm this, and if you’re not having frequent drops of Wi-Fi, you’re probably better off using Wi-Fi. It’s come a long way, and what you might remember as a spotty connection might be rock solid now.
I’m not exactly lamenting the loss of Ethernet cables because I always thought they were too much trouble for what they’re worth. I don’t like having to run a cable across my house to get something connected to the internet, so I’m glad my connection is both fast and stable. Before I separated my 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz bands, I had to run an Ethernet cable to my spare bedroom underneath some rugs to plug in an Xbox 360, and that was not an enjoyable experience.
Don’t throw those cables out
You never know when you might need them again
Even though I’ve largely moved on from Ethernet, it doesn’t mean I tossed my old cables in the trash. As somebody who’s looking to get more into retro games and building spare computers out of my old parts, having a cable around is great. As I mentioned, it’s already come in handy for my Xbox 360 because it allows you to bypass your Wi-Fi channel and go right to the source. It’s great for computers that don’t have a Wi-Fi chip, and you can also plug in your game consoles to them if you want to take your big download off your main Wi-Fi network. A lengthy download can definitely bog things down, so I understand it from that perspective.
While there are newer forms of Ethernet cables, I struggle to see a mainstream use for things that go beyond the common Cat7 cables. Sure, a data center or a large server could benefit from faster speeds, but that’s not something that matters much for the common man. I can’t find a reason for myself to ever grab something faster than a Cat6 cable, and if you check the speeds on your streaming devices and TVs, chances are good that you might need to go beyond that either. I wouldn’t say they’re completely expired, but Ethernet cables have definitely reached the end of the line for any of my daily needs. They got me through the early Xbox Live days, so I can’t ever fault them for that. However, they can rest easy now.
