[mythtv-users] Wireless Bridges and "Thinking it's wired"

[Brian Wood]

On Thursday 04 February 2010 07:56:26 am Travis Tabbal wrote:

> That's the worst part of wireless networking, IMO. Only one station can
> transmit at a time, so if you have another user (or even a neighbor on a
> close enough channel)  using the network, your stream can't use it. Not
> really a problem for normal internet traffic, but a big deal for HD
> streaming. I found it worked OK if there was nothing else going on with the
> network, but as soon as another computer wanted to do anything more than
> ARP, the stream would stutter. This was a test before I built my house.
> Based on that, I wired every room with cat5e and rg6. WiFi is for my laptop
> and my smartphone to get to the internet. If I'm moving large amounts of
> data with my laptop, it gets a wired connection as well. It's just so much
> faster and more reliable.
> 
WiFi is becoming a real mess, especially in crowded areas. The overlapping 
channels and mass-marketing is making things almost unusable in some places. 
My local cable company is now offering to set up WiFi for customers, touting it 
as an "alternative" to wired connections, which it really isn't.

The plus side is that almost anywhere I go I can find an open system that I can 
connect to.

But for anything beyond very light usage it's not practical, certainly not for 
reliable video.

I know it works for some folks, but I think those cases are exceptions, or 
happen in very rural areas.