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[Amanda_George]

Totally agree with you about wireless being better!  Does your connection ever just totally drop out though?  Not just for minutes but for hours at a time?

[Pip]

No, we were on Plusnet for a few years and never had a problem with it but we have gone over to Virgin which has just started up in our town.  We got signed up quickly so got a good deal and haven't had any problems so far.  We were on Sky before Plusnet which was good to start off with but then it started going slower and dropping out.  It got so bad that engineers started coming out as Sky was convinced the problem was inside our home.  It wasn't and the engineers would ring up Sky in font of us and told Sky the problem was their end and in the end we lost the internet connection completely.  That's when we went over to Plusnet and we were relieved to get back online as we went two weeks without the internet.  Sky never admitted the problem was their end.

[Amanda_George]

It sounds like you were having the same problems with Sky as we recently had with Virgin... I hope your connection stays up for longer than ours does sometimes!  Do you have your landline phone and TV with them too?  We do and we are usually happy with them but when things go wrong, they go splat in a big way!   

[Pip]

It's about 6 years ago and we just had our phone and broadband with Sky.  That's when we went over to Plusnet which is good for broadband & telelphone although we did have Sky for about 6 years for the television until we went over to Virgin about three weeks ago.

[Amanda_George]

We've been with Virgin since they bought out Blueyonder and they are usually really good, but when something goes wrong it goes wrong in a big way  lol

[lostmyway]

You can always just use WiFi, if it's practical to do so.  Wired Internet can be more stable, but WiFi quality will get better in time e.g. faster, more reliable etc.  5G is about to happen soon with tablets and smartphones, if it hasn't already done so. 

[Amanda_George]

We've used wireless for at least a decade and it just wouldn't be safe to go back to wired any more 'cos the router is upstairs and the computers are downstairs.  T'was fine and dandy when we both used desktops upstairs, but we use laptops downstairs now 

[lostmyway]

It will get faster, more stable and reliable, more secure and so on.  The older standards are more unpredictable and unreliable, with people nearby using the old 802.11 b/g standard and sharing channels. Like everything else, it just evolves with time.

[Amanda_George]

That's just gone flying over my head lol

[lostmyway]

There's a lot of techy language and acronyms that are used. WiFi 6 is coming soon, but what does this mean, ultimately?

1. Increased battery life for devices
2. Efficiency of networks improved
3. Throughput speed is upgraded by up to 40 percent.

Also, in areas of network congestion you will get better speeds overall.  With WiFi 6,  your signal won't conflict with other neighbourhood wifi signals aka interference as much any more.  Mostly, it was because routers were using the same WiFi channel.

[Amanda_George]

I understand number 1 but the other two have gone flying over my head again lol

[lostmyway]

Network efficiency is basically how well a network exchanges information (send/receive).  Throughput speed is how much data can be sent from one location to another within a given amount of time, it is also used to measure RAM and hard-drive performance levels.

[Amanda_George]

Waaay beyond me I'm afraid... sorry!   

[Pip]

I'm impressed with your knowledge