I've been tweaking my home network lately and noticed something puzzling. When I run speed tests, my WiFi shows the advertised speeds, but my Ethernet connection is much slower. I'm using Cat5e cables or better, and I've directly connected to my cable modem, but it still shows lower speeds than what my ISP advertises. When I connect my phone to the WiFi, however, I get the speeds I'm supposed to. My router has two Ethernet ports—one for internet and the other for networking. Every time I connect directly to the modem or the router, the speed is disappointing. Any ideas on what's going wrong?
4 Answers
It might help to try a different Ethernet port or even a different cable. Sometimes the issue is as simple as a faulty port or cable. Just make sure you're using cables that can handle higher speeds, like Cat6 or better, and keep them as short as possible to avoid any signal loss.
How much slower are we talking? What speeds are you seeing on WiFi? Knowing your router model would also be useful. It's often a case of matching the capabilities of your devices to ensure you aren't limited by outdated hardware.
If you're getting close to 100 Mbps on Ethernet, it seems you might be capped at that speed instead of 1000 Mbps. Check the cable, the port you're using, or even the devices at either end—like if your Ethernet adapter only supports 100 Mbps. It’s worth checking if your modem has a gigabit port too, especially if it’s older.
Make sure you're aware that Mbps (megabits per second) and MBps (megabytes per second) are different. If you have a 1 Gigabit connection, that translates to about 125 MBps. Just a little nuance to keep in mind!
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