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Video Uploads, Wired vs WiFi
- Thread starter mrsr71
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It should just work with possibly a few setting changes. Here is an article walking you through the settings. https://www.dummies.com/computers/macs/macbook/how-to-install-a-wired-network-on-your-macbook/
And I prefer Cat 6 over cat5, but it likely will not matter.
1. what is the speed of your internet?
2. what are your MacBook pro speedtest results using wifi?
3. what are your MacBook pro speedtest results if you connect directly to your router?
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Unless you have some super internet connection like a large corporation has, or your WiFi is absolutely HORRIBLE, connecting a cable is not likely to speed anything up. Most home internet connections cap at 100-200 Mbps but those are also generally asynchronous (meaning upload and download speeds are different, with upload being slower), unless you're lucky to have available and pay for a fiber connection that gets up to 1 Gbps synchronous (same upload and download speed). The typical home connection, through the cable company, is never going to saturate a good WiFi connection.
Cable is more consistent. When in doubt, go cable.
Wired is NEVER slower!
Wired is NEVER slower!
Generally yes. It can be slower, depending on other network traffic, switch type, etc.
Again, unless you have really poor WiFi or a really good internet connection I highly doubt uploads to the internet are going to be appreciably faster using a LAN connection.
Just doing some quick searches -
Cox - Upload speeds up to 10 Mbps (even on the Ultimate plan)
Xfinity - upload speeds up to 10 Mbps (even with a GIGABIT plan!)
Spectrum - upload speeds up to 35 Mbps (with the Gigabit plan)
Those are the 3 major cable providers covering probably the majority of cable customers in the US (or even the majority of broadband customers?). I would venture to say that if someone's WiFi was SO BAD that using a LAN connection for faster uploads makes a difference they have other issues and would benefit from evaluation of their setup.
Just doing some quick searches -
Cox - Upload speeds up to 10 Mbps (even on the Ultimate plan)
Xfinity - upload speeds up to 10 Mbps (even with a GIGABIT plan!)
Spectrum - upload speeds up to 35 Mbps (with the Gigabit plan)
Those are the 3 major cable providers covering probably the majority of cable customers in the US (or even the majority of broadband customers?). I would venture to say that if someone's WiFi was SO BAD that using a LAN connection for faster uploads makes a difference they have other issues and would benefit from evaluation of their setup.
Xfinity Gigabit uploads around 45 Mbit/sec at my home. My daughter with fiber gets 1 Gbit/sec up AND down with latency under 2 ms.
More important though, when comparing Wifi versus Ethernet in your home, ethernet is not subject to wifi interference. This can provide a more stable and consistent performance during a potential 30+ minute upload. And is less impacted when the person next door starts streaming a movie or uploading their Youtube video on their Wifi.
Also, there are only 3 non overlapping channels for US 2.4 Ghz Wifi. There are more with 5GHz, but there is always some guy that wants max speed regardless of the impact others and sets their channel width to 80 Mhz for more performance. This reducing 5Ghz to 5 non-overlapping channels. DON'T BE THIS GUY.
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Unless you're in a VERY congested area or you and your neighbor's networks are set manually to overlap, this is not really a worry. I have 16 VISIBLE networks available to me when I scan from my Mac, yet I reliably get BETTER speeds than advertised (both up and down) when I do speed tests over my WiFi.
Yes, Verizon and Google fiber I believe are synchronous and get 1 Gbps up and down speeds. I was shooting for the most prevalent providers - cable. But it is correct that upload speeds, for now, when using a fiber connection like that would benefit from using the LAN cable.
Run a Wifi Analyzer on your phone and see how many of those network overlap. I bet there are quite a few.
And are you loading large videos like the OP is? Even small decrease in upload speed due to collisions on an overlapped channels (only 1,6,11 do NOT overlap in US 2.4 Ghz Wifi) can have a substantial impact when uploading large video files.
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I'm in a rural location and DSL (that maxxed out at about 0.6 mbit) was all I could get for the first 12 years in my home. Then an army of Verizon installers descended on my little town and suddenly I had 150/150 mbit service (the fastest they offered at the time). I was uploading 1gb videos to vimeo.com in about 1 minute.
Last winter I upgraded to 400/400 mbit FIOS which didn't cost any more. Recently, they gave me an unsolicited free trial of gigabit FIOS but I didn't feel the increase was worth the additional $20/month. Anyway, there are lots of different ways to check speed, but just for fun I used OpenSpeedTest and got the following from my 2018 Mini with hardwired gigabit ethernet
And this is what I got on my 2013 MacBook Air connected to an Airport Time Capsule with 802.11ac wifi
As they say, "your mileage may vary" but I'm convinced that a hard-wired ethernet connection is better. Also makes a big difference copying files between network drives on my LAN. Of course, the OP has not given us enough details about his setup to know whether it would help in his case.
Last winter I upgraded to 400/400 mbit FIOS which didn't cost any more. Recently, they gave me an unsolicited free trial of gigabit FIOS but I didn't feel the increase was worth the additional $20/month. Anyway, there are lots of different ways to check speed, but just for fun I used OpenSpeedTest and got the following from my 2018 Mini with hardwired gigabit ethernet
And this is what I got on my 2013 MacBook Air connected to an Airport Time Capsule with 802.11ac wifi
As they say, "your mileage may vary" but I'm convinced that a hard-wired ethernet connection is better. Also makes a big difference copying files between network drives on my LAN. Of course, the OP has not given us enough details about his setup to know whether it would help in his case.
First, some nice upload speeds. So wish we had fiber instead of a copper cable.
Also agree about ethernet. When I run Time Machine (writes to NAS) and the backup size is much over a Gigabyte I plug my ethernet adapter and cable into my MBP.
Most likely you are limited by your service provider as the upload speed is rarely the same as download.
A little known fact though: if you use WEP or WPA protocols as opposed to WPA2, then your device will be limited to a download speed of 54Mbs. I imagine in that case upload can't possibly be more than that either.
Of course, whatever your maximum bandwidth, it's shared by the devices that are connected. So even if you have 1Gb of bandwidth, if you have 4 or 5 devices connected you will get a fraction of that on each one.
But yes, ethernet will usually work out faster.
A little known fact though: if you use WEP or WPA protocols as opposed to WPA2, then your device will be limited to a download speed of 54Mbs. I imagine in that case upload can't possibly be more than that either.
Of course, whatever your maximum bandwidth, it's shared by the devices that are connected. So even if you have 1Gb of bandwidth, if you have 4 or 5 devices connected you will get a fraction of that on each one.
But yes, ethernet will usually work out faster.
Testing with a server on the local LAN will show a difference vs going over the internet
The results I posted were done over the internet using the MCI Communications Services (Verizon Business) server in Philadelphia, which was the default for that speed test. I get about 800 Mbps accessing a 2012 Mini Server over my LAN, but that is something completely different.