Ethernet cable is way more reliable than WiFi (a major reason I install it, to just make all of those occasional glitches and disconnections and mysterious gremlins go away), and also pretty much impossible to screw up installing. You plug one end into each device. Not even a password to set up.
I’ve worked with ethernet a lot. I’m nervous to the point that I don’t even want to plug a new cable into the cable modem (which is also an ethernet switch). The cable modem is supposedly some sort of special one that we can’t replace ourself, so if it breaks we have no wired internet for however long it takes our cable company to get us a new connection.
I was considering getting a redundant cable connection (our building can get both Comcast and RCN) but that would involve letting a cable tech into the basement which I’d also really not like to do right now.
Other things I could do include moving the WiFi box up from the basement (the cable from RCN is long enough to reach the second floor) but again that is risky.
(This is not a way I’m used to thinking: normally I just do things and expect that in the unlikely event that it goes wrong I’ll be able to buy what I need to fix it. But covid changes that.)
Another reason this didn’t make sense before is that I didn’t have a desk at home, and used my laptop from a lot of different places. But now that I’m working remotely full time I have a place where my laptop is 80% of the time and where I can easily go if my video calls aren’t working well.
If a failure in connection is really that perilous, sounds like another thing you should’ve done years ago—and setting up a backup Internet connection as well (used to be you might get a DSL or T1 backup connection if you worked from home and really couldn’t afford any interruptions, but these days it can be as simple as making sure you can set up your smartphone as a hotspot). The other two suggestions remain.
We have backup internet via tethering to our phones or else I would have got an extra line to our house in early March. But it would still be really inconvenient to work this way, since 4G is not as good as high speed cable and phones aren’t great at this.
Ethernet cable is way more reliable than WiFi (a major reason I install it, to just make all of those occasional glitches and disconnections and mysterious gremlins go away), and also pretty much impossible to screw up installing. You plug one end into each device. Not even a password to set up.
I’ve worked with ethernet a lot. I’m nervous to the point that I don’t even want to plug a new cable into the cable modem (which is also an ethernet switch). The cable modem is supposedly some sort of special one that we can’t replace ourself, so if it breaks we have no wired internet for however long it takes our cable company to get us a new connection.
I was considering getting a redundant cable connection (our building can get both Comcast and RCN) but that would involve letting a cable tech into the basement which I’d also really not like to do right now.
Other things I could do include moving the WiFi box up from the basement (the cable from RCN is long enough to reach the second floor) but again that is risky.
(This is not a way I’m used to thinking: normally I just do things and expect that in the unlikely event that it goes wrong I’ll be able to buy what I need to fix it. But covid changes that.)
This is overstating the risk. I should do it.
Done. It’s nice and I didn’t break anything.
Another reason this didn’t make sense before is that I didn’t have a desk at home, and used my laptop from a lot of different places. But now that I’m working remotely full time I have a place where my laptop is 80% of the time and where I can easily go if my video calls aren’t working well.
If a failure in connection is really that perilous, sounds like another thing you should’ve done years ago—and setting up a backup Internet connection as well (used to be you might get a DSL or T1 backup connection if you worked from home and really couldn’t afford any interruptions, but these days it can be as simple as making sure you can set up your smartphone as a hotspot). The other two suggestions remain.
We have backup internet via tethering to our phones or else I would have got an extra line to our house in early March. But it would still be really inconvenient to work this way, since 4G is not as good as high speed cable and phones aren’t great at this.