Why the hell would you buy the Apple TV with the bigger drive?

[Nycturne]

Not to mention that a house hooked up like mine with ethernet and a good switch can route a lot more traffic than Wifi 6E ever could, by the nature of "everything lives on one shared link via time division" vs "everything has a dedicated 1Gbps link to the switch". Even unmanaged switches can generally keep all their ports saturated in both directions (full duplex ports being incredibly common) if needed. I'll admit that can be overkill for a home network, but it does avoid congestion on the network when there's stuff in the home that folks are trying to reach (media servers or a NAS, etc), not just the internet. Also, the aggressive drop-off in signal strength with the 5Ghz and 6Ghz bands isn't great.

 

[Roller]

I started using Ethernet for my Apple TV 4K a couple years ago. It seems to go more smoothly than when I was using Wi-Fi.

I didn't know the new version was coming out today and bought a second ATV a couple weeks ago. This was the last day to return it, which I just did at the Apple Store.

 

[Cmaier]

I know apple tv sucks as a homekit hub. I bought one for that and it worked for a bit then the last big update it started causing issues with it.

Works fine for me. I use it to control 2 door locks, 2 thermostats, a garage door opener, numerous in-wall light switches, and numerous smart plugs.

 

[rdrr]

Wired is definitely needed. wifi is too subject to interference. You may get better speed from wifi 6e than from 1G ethernet, but you won’t get better reliability.

Actually 6e will have a lot less interference with the 6 GHz spectrum. While the 2.4 GHz had its problems, there is tremendously less with the 6. Just have to wait for the consumer chipsets to catch up with the technology. And as far as ethernet goes I have seen copper wires take down an edge switch, and people tend to cheap out on their ethernet cabling and get crappy speeds. Not to mention the computer makers buy the cheapest component to have as the onboard ethernet (if they have one). While ethernet has been more(ish) reliable its not 100% reliable, wifi is catching up and if you build the network right you could find your speeds are faster on wifi than ethernet.

 

[rdrr]

Not to mention that a house hooked up like mine with ethernet and a good switch can route a lot more traffic than Wifi 6E ever could, by the nature of "everything lives on one shared link via time division" vs "everything has a dedicated 1Gbps link to the switch". Even unmanaged switches can generally keep all their ports saturated in both directions (full duplex ports being incredibly common) if needed. I'll admit that can be overkill for a home network, but it does avoid congestion on the network when there's stuff in the home that folks are trying to reach (media servers or a NAS, etc), not just the internet. Also, the aggressive drop-off in signal strength with the 5Ghz and 6Ghz bands isn't great.

Unless you have a 10 Gb/sec ethernet card, Wifi 6e will beat out ethernet. Granted the 5 and 6 GHz have drop off, but that is what a mesh system is for. And if you don't have greenfield installation going on cabling a house can be expensive. Unless you don't mind wires laying across the floor and god help you if you have a house built before 1980. Besides if you want to get 10 Gb/sec at any distance you will need expensive cabling, or worse installing fiber (and don't get me going about those problems).

 

[Pumbaa]

Actually 6e will have a lot less interference with the 6 GHz spectrum. While the 2.4 GHz had its problems, there is tremendously less with the 6. Just have to wait for the consumer chipsets to catch up with the technology. And as far as ethernet goes I have seen copper wires take down an edge switch, and people tend to cheap out on their ethernet hubs and get crappy speeds. Not to mention the computer makers buy the cheapest component to have as the onboard ethernet (if they have one). While ethernet has been more(ish) reliable its not 100% reliable, wifi is catching up and if you build the network right you could find your speeds are faster on wifi than ethernet.

For sure! If you are using ethernet hubs your wired network speeds will be crappy.

 

[Cmaier]

Actually 6e will have a lot less interference with the 6 GHz spectrum. While the 2.4 GHz had its problems, there is tremendously less with the 6. Just have to wait for the consumer chipsets to catch up with the technology. And as far as ethernet goes I have seen copper wires take down an edge switch, and people tend to cheap out on their ethernet hubs and get crappy speeds. Not to mention the computer makers buy the cheapest component to have as the onboard ethernet (if they have one). While ethernet has been more(ish) reliable its not 100% reliable, wifi is catching up and if you build the network right you could find your speeds are faster on wifi than ethernet.

6GHz wouldn;t even get out of my room. The wavelength is too small, so if you have cabinets, walls, etc., it’s not very useful. My house has a mixed network - cat 6 wiring connecting some rooms but not others, so I use synology mesh routers. I have four Apple TVs, three wired, and they are much more reliable when streaming.

 

[Herdfan]

I use a mac to stream movies to the Apple TV.

We went to Pigeon Forge a couple of weeks ago. If you have ever been there you know some of the cabins are up the side of a mountain. Just so happened the one we rented didn't have cable or satellite TV (too far out for cable, no LOS for sat) so we were thinking for any TV (they did have an antenna for local channels) we would need to bring it with us. So we loaded a few movies and TV shows on the wife's old Mini and took it. Worked great.

But a Hard Drive in the ATV that you could downlaod content to would have been better.

 

[rdrr]

For sure! If you are using ethernet hubs your wired network speeds will be crappy.

Not sure anyone here would use an ethernet hub these days. People who do, tend to be looking for the deal and heard that wired speeds are the best. What I have seen is a 5 year old pulled out of the moving box ethernet cable or one they hand out with your router take down a $14K managed edge switch.

6GHz wouldn;t even get out of my room. The wavelength is too small, so if you have cabinets, walls, etc., it’s not very useful. My house has a mixed network - cat 6 wiring connecting some rooms but not others, so I use synology mesh routers. I have four Apple TVs, three wired, and they are much more reliable when streaming.

Sure that works for you, but I tend to put my APs in areas I need the speeds in, living room, office, bedroom. Otherwise the lower speeds work fine and dandy. The whole point is that I have mobility and can stream anywhere without any issues. Plus I am not re-terminating or fishing cables because of a dead one due to corrosion or mouse eaten cable plenum. And nothing makes me swear more than the tape giving way on a snag while I am pulling in a new line. I am done with those days... Getting too old I guess.

 

[Cmaier]

Not sure anyone here would use an ethernet hub these days. People who do, tend to be looking for the deal and heard that wired speeds are the best. What I have seen is a 5 year old pulled out of the moving box ethernet cable or one they hand out with your router take down a $14K managed edge switch.



Sure that works for you, but I tend to put my APs in areas I need the speeds in, living room, office, bedroom. Otherwise the lower speeds work fine and dandy. The whole point is that I have mobility and can stream anywhere without any issues. Plus I am not re-terminating or fishing cables because of a dead one due to corrosion or mouse eaten cable plenum. And nothing makes me swear more than the tape giving way on a snag while I am pulling in a new line. I am done with those days... Getting too old I guess.

I had it relatively easy - about a dozen years ago we did a major remodel, and most of the sheetrock in our lower floor was gone for awhile. I ran the wires then, and was able to hit a couple rooms upstairs through the floor. I still need wireless-back haul mesh points in a couple places though in order to be able to roam throughout the house. (There are access points everywhere - it’s just that some are connected to wire and some use 5GHz for backhaul. )

 

[Pumbaa]

Not sure anyone here would use an ethernet hub these days. People who do, tend to be looking for the deal and heard that wired speeds are the best. What I have seen is a 5 year old pulled out of the moving box ethernet cable or one they hand out with your router take down a $14K managed edge switch.

You’re the one bringing them up, I just agreed about getting crappy speeds with them.

people tend to cheap out on their ethernet hubs and get crappy speeds.

 

[rdrr]

You’re the one bringing them up, I just agreed about getting crappy speeds with them.

Whoops, meant to say ethernet cabling. DOH! I will correct, thank you for point it out. I have seen way to many people invest a lot of money in switches and gear, only to buy the cheapest cable possible.

 

[Nycturne]

Unless you have a 10 Gb/sec ethernet card, Wifi 6e will beat out ethernet. Granted the 5 and 6 GHz have drop off, but that is what a mesh system is for. And if you don't have greenfield installation going on cabling a house can be expensive. Unless you don't mind wires laying across the floor and god help you if you have a house built before 1980. Besides if you want to get 10 Gb/sec at any distance you will need expensive cabling, or worse installing fiber (and don't get me going about those problems).

This isn't the argument I was making. If all your devices just talk to your ISP, sure, wireless only is fine. But if a lot of devices start talking to each other, then you get a bunch of noise going that eats into your bandwidth. Have some older devices? Make sure you isolate them from your faster devices so they aren't taking up time slices broadcasting at slower speeds that could have been used for faster devices. Start talking about mesh without ethernet and we start needing to talk about the backhaul used and how that potentially limits (or eats into) your available bandwidth getting from point A to B (or limiting how you can isolate your slow/old and fast devices). Meanwhile, I can push 1Gbps to my NAS, the TV can stream a fat 80-100Mbps 4K BD rip from the Mac Mini Plex server, and a PC or two can be downloading updates from Steam, saturating the 1Gbps ISP download, and nobody "feels" it, despite pushing a little over 2Gbps of data around the network. That does change if everyone was just hammering the ISP connection all day, but we aren't setup like that, so we do get benefits.

And yes, I'm aware of the costs since I paid them on our current house that was built in 1969, but if we're going on technical merit, I'm still not convinced WiFi is better, just good enough for most. I lived with "WiFi + a ethernet switch for the desktop + media center" in an apartment for years, and even just getting a couple key data hogs off the wireless helped make the experience better for everyone. Hooking up the Apple TV meant saying goodbye to buffering lag when streaming Netflix or Plex. When we bought the house, we had ethernet installed, and don't regret it for a minute. We're wired to be able to move to 10Gbit down the road, but honestly, the NAS is about the only device where I would see the benefit at the moment. I'll still happily take some updated WiFi APs here soon though, as my older AC access points get about 200-400Mbps in practice, and can't saturate the ethernet backhaul they are hooked up to.

 

[Citysnaps]

Following the conversation, and out of curiosity, I just ran a few tests, something I haven't done in a couple years.

My internet provider in the San Francisco Bay Area is Sonic. They offer 1Gb/sec over fiber.

Today, the rate coming directly out of the ONT (optical network terminal) mounted in the garage (fiber pokes through the garage wall into the ONT) is around 745 Mb/sec. In the past, I've seen it as high as 940 Mb/sec.

I suspect that has to do with time of day, usage in the area, etc. Sonic uses AT&T fiber for backhaul between neighborhoods, which no doubt has ups and downs. If I measured again tomorrow morning I wouldn't be surprised if it's 900+ Mb/sec. This was measured using the Speedtest app on my M1 MBA with an Ethernet to USB-C adapter. I have no idea how accurate, reliable, or meaningful that is. But that's all I have to go with.

Hooked up to a port on my router the rate is 730 Mb/sec. That drives a POE switch that connects to three ceiling mounted APs. The router also connects to another switch which drives a bunch of RJ-45 jacks around the house (not connected to anything now), and another POE switch which handles outdoor cameras.

Connecting (at 5Hz) to the AP in the living room at a distance of around 7 feet, the rate is 567 Mb/sec. I've seen that as high as 700+ Mb/sec in the past (no doubt the rates out of the ONT and router were correspondingly higher). These numbers vary, so I just mentally averaged a half dozen of them.

Where I previously lived for around 20 years I suffered with AT&T DSL where rates were around 1.5 to 2 Mb/sec! So... for me, with only two people living in the house, I'm living large with anything above, oh, I don't know, 50 Mb/sec.

 

[Cmaier]

Following the conversation, and out of curiosity, I just ran a few tests, something I haven't done in a couple years.

My internet provider in the San Francisco Bay Area is Sonic. They offer 1Gb/sec over fiber.

Today, the rate coming directly out of the ONT (optical network terminal) mounted in the garage (fiber pokes through the garage wall into the ONT) is around 745 Mb/sec. In the past, I've seen it as high as 940 Mb/sec.

I suspect that has to do with time of day, usage in the area, etc. Sonic uses AT&T fiber for backhaul between neighborhoods, which no doubt has ups and downs. If I measured again tomorrow morning I wouldn't be surprised if it's 900+ Mb/sec. This was measured using the Speedtest app on my M1 MBA with an Ethernet to USB-C adapter. I have no idea how accurate, reliable, or meaningful that is. But that's all I have to go with.

Hooked up to a port on my router the rate is 730 Mb/sec. That drives a POE switch that connects to three ceiling mounted APs. The router also connects to another switch which drives a bunch of RJ-45 jacks around the house (not connected to anything now), and another POE switch which handles outdoor cameras.

Connecting (at 5Hz) to the AP in the living room at a distance of around 7 feet, the rate is 567 Mb/sec. I've seen that as high as 700+ Mb/sec in the past (no doubt the rates out of the ONT and router were correspondingly higher). These numbers vary, so I just mentally averaged a half dozen of them.

Where I previously lived for around 20 years I suffered with AT&T DSL where rates were around 1.5 to 2 Mb/sec! So... for me, with only two people living in the house, I'm living large with anything above, oh, I don't know, 50 Mb/sec.

How do you like sonic? Is it 1Gb in each direction?

a half year ago, AT&T showed up and was about to dig into our cul-de-sac. We went out and stopped them, since it’s private property, and asked what’s up. Turns out they were going to drop fiber. The HOA discussed and voted against it (for good reason - we just paid $12k to pave the cul-de-sac, and every time anybody does work on it like this it causes problems that end up requiring us to replace the whole thing).

Anyway, i noticed that AT&T now shows that I can get fiber. It turns out that I am on the corner of the cul-de-sac and my house fronts the road, so it must be that I can get it even though my neighbor’s can’t. I see that Sonic also says it’s available. I know they have a great reputation.

 

[rdrr]

Nothing to see here, just go about your business.

 

[Citysnaps]

How do you like sonic? Is it 1Gb in each direction?

a half year ago, AT&T showed up and was about to dig into our cul-de-sac. We went out and stopped them, since it’s private property, and asked what’s up. Turns out they were going to drop fiber. The HOA discussed and voted against it (for good reason - we just paid $12k to pave the cul-de-sac, and every time anybody does work on it like this it causes problems that end up requiring us to replace the whole thing).

Anyway, i noticed that AT&T now shows that I can get fiber. It turns out that I am on the corner of the cul-de-sac and my house fronts the road, so it must be that I can get it even though my neighbor’s can’t. I see that Sonic also says it’s available. I know they have a great reputation.

I love Sonic. It just works. I’ve *never* had a dropout (at least whenever I was using the internet) over the last 1.5 years of service. Before that I had a little less than a year of xfinity and we’d get these random 15 minute dropouts during the evening, every single day. And before that, at a different house, it was 1-2 Mb/sec ATT DSL - in a word, horrible.

Sonic is a relatively small private company that is headquartered in Santa Rosa. Thus, their network buildout has been slow. I had to wait around 4 months (a guess) from my first inquiry to when it was available mid-Peninsula. Everyone I’ve talked to, mostly friends in SF, likes their service.

Xfinity was sort of OK, I think the advertised rate was around 100 Mb/Sec for the service we had. Don’t remember what my actual measured rate was - maybe around 80 Mb/sec. When it was announced the price was going up to $119/mo I signed up (and waited) for Sonic. There are discounts for the first year, along with the first three months free. The new subscriber discount package is probably different now.

Right now we’re paying $63/mo including a voip line (which I rarely use, but wanted to keep the custom phone number I requested years ago when I was in my early 20s) and around a dozen tiny federal and Calif regulatory taxes.

IMO, it’s an excellent value compared to other services in my area.

Sonic uplink rates are similar, sometimes they’re faster than downlink rates (kind of makes sense). Just did a check via 5 GHz wifi and it’s 543 Mb/sec down and 485 Mb/sec up.

Hope this helps…

 

[Cmaier]

No offense but you are not talking about an average user. By no means am I talking about NAS devices or servers being on wifi. Client devices like, laptops, phones, Apple TVs, and all the slower IoT devices will be fine on wifi for most of users out there. Wifi 6 has made a lot of advancements with multi users transmissions, and multiplexing will exceed the needs for all of these devices in just a few years for consumers, I strongly believe that for a majority of users it will be fine, and in a couple of years spending the money to wire a house is not good ROI.

I guarantee you that a majority of the onboard ethernet adaptors in most consumer devices are substandard, and the good luck with having the average user downloading and installing the correct driver from the manufacture, or worse yet asking them enable a feature that they have no idea what it does in a property file. Heck I just ran into a problem where Sophos was reducing the bandwidth on web traffic by more than a factor of three. Sophos had the evidence and had an open case for 5 months, but hadn't done anything about it. It's just too easy for the average user to blame the slowness on a wifi problem. Bottom line is that the wifi 6 has standard is good enough that are some of my peer institutions are now building wifi only dorms. We finally got the approval that the next on on our campus will not have wired jacks in the room. Thank god!

Who’s installing drivers? The devices in my house that are on wired ethernet don’t require me to install drivers. LG smart tv (with smart features now turned off other than airplay), dish network boxes (yay me! I got rid of those last week!), 3 NAS’s, 2 Macs, A/V receiver, Nintendo switch, 4 Apple TVs, a few unmanaged switches, a router and 4 mesh points …. All of those are wired and none involve drivers.

 

[rdrr]

I love Sonic. It just works. I’ve *never* had a dropout (at least whenever I was using the internet) over the last 1.5 years of service. Before that I had a little less than a year of xfinity and we’d get these random 15 minute dropouts during the evening, every single day. And before that, at a different house, it was 1-2 Mb/sec ATT DSL - in a word, horrible.

Sonic is a relatively small private company that is headquartered in Santa Rosa. Thus, their network buildout has been slow. I had to wait around 4 months (a guess) from my first inquiry to when it was available mid-Peninsula. Everyone I’ve talked to, mostly friends in SF, likes their service.

Xfinity was sort of OK, I think the advertised rate was around 100 Mb/Sec for the service we had. Don’t remember what my actual measured rate was - maybe around 80 Mb/sec. When it was announced the price was going up to $119/mo I signed up (and waited) for Sonic. There are discounts for the first year, along with the first three months free. The new subscriber discount package is probably different now.

Right now we’re paying $63/mo including a voip line (which I rarely use, but wanted to keep the custom phone number I requested years ago when I was in my early 20s) and around a dozen tiny federal and Calif regulatory taxes.

IMO, it’s an excellent value compared to other services in my area.

Sonic uplink rates are similar, sometimes they’re faster than downlink rates (kind of makes sense). Just did a check via 5 GHz wifi and it’s 543 Mb/sec down and 485 Mb/sec up.

Hope this helps…

I also hear great things about Fidium Fiber and the up and download speeds people are getting on them, but there deployment is in only a small number of states.

Fast, Reliable Fiber Internet Service Locations | Fidium Fiber

Get fiber optic internet service & speeds you want in your area with new Fidium Fiber. $-friendly internet service with latest fiber tech. Sign up today!

www.fidiumfiber.com

 

[Cmaier]

I love Sonic. It just works. I’ve *never* had a dropout (at least whenever I was using the internet) over the last 1.5 years of service. Before that I had a little less than a year of xfinity and we’d get these random 15 minute dropouts during the evening, every single day. And before that, at a different house, it was 1-2 Mb/sec ATT DSL - in a word, horrible.

Sonic is a relatively small private company that is headquartered in Santa Rosa. Thus, their network buildout has been slow. I had to wait around 4 months (a guess) from my first inquiry to when it was available mid-Peninsula. Everyone I’ve talked to, mostly friends in SF, likes their service.

Xfinity was sort of OK, I think the advertised rate was around 100 Mb/Sec for the service we had. Don’t remember what my actual measured rate was - maybe around 80 Mb/sec. When it was announced the price was going up to $119/mo I signed up (and waited) for Sonic. There are discounts for the first year, along with the first three months free. The new subscriber discount package is probably different now.

Right now we’re paying $63/mo including a voip line (which I rarely use, but wanted to keep the custom phone number I requested years ago when I was in my early 20s) and around a dozen tiny federal and Calif regulatory taxes.

IMO, it’s an excellent value compared to other services in my area.

Sonic uplink rates are similar, sometimes they’re faster than downlink rates (kind of makes sense). Just did a check via 5 GHz wifi and it’s 543 Mb/sec down and 485 Mb/sec up.

Hope this helps…

Yeah, thanks. Sonic is quoting me the same price, though it looks like i have to use their router or something (hopefully it can be put in bridge mode?). I see it also has the VOIP thing, but I wouldn’t use it - ditched my phone years ago.

How is it wired into your house? That would be a concern for me - the wiring would have to get to someplace that probably wouldn’t be all that easy to get to - I understand an AT&T person does the install and I had problems with them back in the DSL days when I needed them to do some wiring.