Ethernet vs Wi-Fi Speed Estimator

Why wired usually wins

Ethernet gives you a full, dedicated cable path from your device to the router, and the only tax you pay is about 6% of protocol overhead — headers, checksums, and the other bookkeeping that every packet needs. Wi-Fi, by contrast, is a shared radio channel. Every device in range takes turns talking, and overhead, interference, distance, and walls all eat into the headline number on the box. That is why even "1200 Mbps" Wi-Fi 6 rarely delivers more than roughly 600 Mbps in the real world, and that figure assumes you are sitting in the same room as the router.

The gap grows the moment you step away. Radio signal strength falls with distance, and every wall between you and the router absorbs a chunk of it. Modern mesh systems and beamforming help, but physics is undefeated: a wire does not care about walls.

How this estimator works

This tool models each connection separately, then compares them. The Ethernet estimate is min(plan speed, cable max) × 0.94: your throughput can never exceed your plan or your cable, and the 0.94 factor accounts for the roughly 6% Ethernet protocol overhead. Cable ceilings are Cat5e at 1 Gbps and Cat6, Cat6a, and Cat7 at 10 Gbps.

The Wi-Fi estimate is min(plan speed, realistic standard ceiling) × 0.9 × distance loss × 0.92^walls. The 0.9 factor is wireless efficiency — a Wi-Fi network spends a share of its airtime on management frames, retries, and contention, so it never sustains the advertised link rate. Distance loss is 0% in the same room, 15% in the next room, 30% far away, and 45% when the router is very far off. Each wall multiplies throughput by 0.92, because walls absorb signal — roughly two walls cost you about 15% of the signal. Realistic Wi-Fi ceilings are Wi-Fi 5 ~400 Mbps, Wi-Fi 6 ~650 Mbps, Wi-Fi 6E ~1200 Mbps, and Wi-Fi 7 ~2000 Mbps. These are the numbers typical hardware actually delivers in good conditions, not the numbers on the marketing sheet.

Worked example

Take a 500 Mbps plan with a Cat5e cable, a Wi-Fi 6 router, the device in the same room, and no walls between. Ethernet = min(500, 1000) × 0.94 = 470.0 Mbps. Wi-Fi = min(500, 650) × 0.9 = 450.0 Mbps. Ethernet is 20.0 Mbps (4.4%) faster here. The verdict: Ethernet is slightly faster — use it for gaming and big downloads, while Wi-Fi is perfectly fine for browsing on the couch. Notice how close they are in this best-case scenario: in the same room, good Wi-Fi nearly matches a cable. Move to the next room with a wall or two, and the wire pulls ahead decisively.

Practical tips

Cat5e is plenty until your plan passes 900 Mbps. Throughput is capped by the slowest link, so on a 100 Mbps plan almost any cable maxes out — min(100, cable) = 100 Mbps regardless of whether it is Cat5e or Cat7. Spend on better cables only when your plan speed actually approaches the cable's ceiling.

Move the router before blaming the ISP. Raising the router, moving it toward the center of the home, and clearing the walls between it and your desk are free upgrades that beat almost any hardware purchase.

Wi-Fi 6E and 7 only help if your devices support the band. A Wi-Fi 7 router talking to a Wi-Fi 5 phone still runs at Wi-Fi 5 rates. Match the client hardware to the router.

Remember the band trade-off. 2.4 GHz reaches farther but runs slower, while 5 GHz and 6 GHz are faster but die at walls. That is why this estimator applies a heavier penalty at distance — most of the devices people care about run on the faster, shorter-range bands.