Wired Connection To Bridged Router - Faster Than Wifi?

[Gizmo22]

Currently have a few MacBooks in the stable that are pulling the internet through a couple of Apple routers.

Attached to the Surfboard modem is an A1301 Gen 3 Airport Extreme. This is all on the main floor of the home.

Bridged to the APE is an A1302 Gen 2 Time Capsule, residing upstairs at the other end of the house. As I am looking to possibly replace a Macbook with an iMac, I am curious if the internet would be any faster, reliable, etc. if the iMac was hooked up via ethernet to the Time Capsule upstairs.

Since they are bridged over wireless, will that still be the limiting factor?

 

[krewger]

Bridged wireless will still keep the internet slower, however you would see an improved speed for Time Capsule if you use that feature. If you have an HVAC system in the house (furnace/air conditioning ducts, sometimes if you get creative you can run a wire from one floor to the next without too much trouble. Wiring between airport extremes is always the best way for speed and reliability. I have our office wired up with 4 airport extreme's wire connected to one load balancing router and it's handling DHCP server (we have two internet connections) all the airport extremes are running all the same frequency and channel and all four routers are set up with same name and password. You're able to walk around the office and if you lose connection with one you'll grab another. In your house set the modem to function as DHCP server, set the other two airports to same name, channel and frequency/speed (A/B/G) with a wire between them and you'll see a good improvement on reliability/speed.

 

[glenthompson]

Wired almost always wireless for speed. In my house anything that sits in a fixed location gets a wired connection. While this helps speed between local devices, internet speed depends on your ISP. Most wifi is faster than the speeds you get from your typical cable company.

 

[mmomega]

I agree with both of the previous post and I won't repeat them because they are totally right, IMO.

Everything I have, AppleTV's, desktops, routers are all wired. The only devices not wired are iPhones, iPads and MacBooks.

Even when Airplaying from my MacBook or iPad, I get a much quicker and consistent experience than previously when I used a WiFi to WiFi bridge.

The latency is also lower going from my MBA to my AppleTV when everything that can be wired is wired.

Just like glen said, unless you have ridiculously fast internet most WiFi routers are theoretically faster. My routers are definitely quicker than my 100Mbps download.