WIRED NETWORK CONNECTIONS WILL ALWAYS BE FASTER, MORE SECURE AND MORE RELIABLE THAN WIRELESS.

If you want top speeds in your home, or even office, you'll want to save room in your remodeling budget for running gigabit Ethernet network cables (CAT5e or better yet, CAT6) to every room in your home/office. Ethernet is the only connection standard where the real-world speeds are very close to, or in some cases match, the lofty theoretical speeds.

Of course, wired networking has several drawbacks. 

• Wires are a pain to install, 
• They are unsightly and it's just not fun to be tethered. 
• Not every device is even compatible with wired Ethernet. For your tablet and smartphone, your streaming stick and even many newer printers, you will have to use Wi-Fi. 

But all the devices connected wirelessly often do so at very slow connection speeds.

So, why the slowdown? You need to be aware of the huge gap among these three different attributes: 

1. real-world speed, 
2. ceiling speed and 
3. the advertised speed. 

Ceiling speed vs. Real-world speed

The ceiling speed is the maximum theoretical speed of a connection standard determined in a controlled environment, without factors that would adversely affect the connection's throughput data rate. For example, the ceiling speed of a Gigabit Ethernet connection is 1,000Mbps, fast enough to transfer a Blu-ray disc worth of data (25GB) in less than 3.5 minutes. And in this case, the wiring that delivers this speed is protected inside your network cable by a layer of plastic, isolating it from the outside environment. This is why an Ethernet connection is able to deliver real-world speeds close to or on par with the ceiling speed of the standard.

Note, however, the network speed's rule of thumb: The ceiling speed of a connection is that of the slowest device in the chain. In other words, a connection is only as fast as its weakest link. So if you connect an Fast Ethernet device (100Mbps), like a Roku 3, to a Gigabit Ethernet (1,000Mbps) router using a network cable, the connection speed between the two (and only those two) will be capped at 100Mbps.

Wi-Fi, however, is totally different since it uses radio waves to transfer data. Wi-Fi devices share the same airspace not only with each other, but other home appliances as well. That means the speed of a Wi-Fi connection is subject to the Wi-Fi environment it's operating in. That's why your wireless speeds can flatline when you (or a neighbor in a nearby apartment) fires up the microwave.

Here are the main factors that adversely affect Wi-Fi speed:

• Distance: The farther out, the slower the connection gets.
• Obstacles: Walls and large objects will block the signals and shorten the Wi-Fi range.
• Interference: The more devices of the same radio frequencies being used in the same area, the slower they get.
• Compatibility: When devices of different Wi-Fi speed tiers, standards and manufacturers are used together, they must adhere to a lower speed standard in order for all to function together properly.

This is why the real-world speed of a Wi-Fi connection is always significantly lower than the ceiling speed of the Wi-Fi standard being used. In my experience, at best, the actual sustained speed of a Wi-Fi connection is between a third and a half of its ceiling speed.