Cables are faster, more reliable and more secure than wireless, so why don't we use them?

Wi-Fi is so ubiquitous that we don’t even consider going wired, but even if you don’t want to tether your iPad or laptop to an Ethernet cable, you can use cables for other purposes. According to new data from speed testing company Ookla, Wi-Fi is still less than half the speed of residential Ethernet, at best.

"Wireless Internet by itself can never be as fast and reliable as wired Internet simply because of the first-order physics involved," Mushroom Networks CEO Jay Akin told Lifewire via email. "Wireless transport, by definition, is not a completely controlled and predictable environment and is therefore susceptible to fluctuations in performance."

As soon as fiber, cable, ADSL, or even 5G internet comes into our homes, we connect via wifi. And as we all know, wifi isn’t always great. Many people have a corner of their home where they can’t get a good signal, and there are plenty of things other than thick walls that can disrupt a connection. For example, I lived in a house where I lost my wifi connection when I used the microwave.