Wireless data rate

Is it not true that the wireless data rate is much slower than wired? I
started to download the Windows XP Service Pack 2 with my wireless card, and
it looked like it was going to take forever. So I plugged in a Category 5
cable from my laptop to my router, and the data rate seemed to be at least
10 times faster.

Well, 802.11b is rated at 11mb/s, 802.11g at 54mb/s and a typical Cat5 cable
will be 100mb/s (could also be 10, 1000). But that isn't usually the
bottleneck when downloading something from the internet. Your connection
speed from your ISP is usually the slowest part of the whole process. Cable
is around 1.5-5mb/s, DSL 0.5-3mb/s. So you really shouldn't notice a
difference unless you have a weak wireless signal which will slow your
connection considerably.
Good luck.

"Papa" wrote:

> Is it not true that the wireless data rate is much slower than wired? I
> started to download the Windows XP Service Pack 2 with my wireless card, and
> it looked like it was going to take forever. So I plugged in a Category 5
> cable from my laptop to my router, and the data rate seemed to be at least
> 10 times faster.
>
>
>