this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
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[–] [email protected] 224 points 9 months ago (4 children)

"Make do" with ethernet? Charlie Brown, ethernet is the superior networking interface. People "make do" with wifi.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I'm enjoying ethernet on my phone too

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I can tell that you're being sarcastic. But if I'm playing ranked match on my phone, it's always with an Ethernet dongle. Way more reliable and definitely lower latency.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 9 months ago

People actually play competitive games in their phone? I thought that was just marketing spin so apple didn’t have to put graphics cards in their macs

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's hilarious that you insist on the ethernet cable but not an actual computer.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I don't have a gaming computer (i7 3770K with integrated graphics from 2012)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

You don’t get cellular data? Okay, sure it’s faster for that too.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Problem solved i guess, that's progression.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

lol your comment made people salty for some reason

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

It's absolutely making do. Having to plug an Ethernet cable in every time you take your laptop to someone else's office, break room or conference room simply doesn't work. Offices aren't designed for it.

[–] [email protected] 67 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That's when you make do with WiFi.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

Conference rooms, yes. Break rokms, yes. Offices? No. Use a docking station? Are you working solely from your laptop screen or do you dock and use monitors mouse and keyboard? Generally, there's ethernet attached, too.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Conference rooms should have ethernet connected to the USB-C dongle that's attached to the TV and the Jabra or whatever alternative you use.

Wouldn't want to take my laptop to the break room, I go there to take a break from work, not continue it in a different setting.

I'll agree on going to someone else's office, or using your laptop in a meeting where someone else is connected up, but that's where Wi-Fi works as the back-up.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Lol! One Ethernet cable in a conference room? What if someone else is using it? Next you'll proudly state that you carry an Ethernet switch everywhere you go. But, you be you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I just said wifi works as the backup solution if you're not the one presenting. If you ARE the one presenting, wouldn't you want to have a more stable connection?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Wireless sucks. Wired is always better.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Just gonna ignore those real-world examples and insist on fantasy land, eh?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Wireless is always better than no connection at all if you need a connection and you’re not wired.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Can't realistically plug your phone into the wall every time you want to use the internet

The whole point of a mobile phone is that it's mobile

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ok Zoomer.

We're talking about offices where people generally use laptops for work. Why are you mentioning mobiles?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What if I want to move my laptop around the office, say for example to make a presentation, or work in a different area? If I'm just working on some documents online, I don't need a fast connection, just 30-50Mbit is plenty enough for pretty much everything, including video calls etc

And what you're telling me you never use a mobile at work? You still need a signal to make/receive regular phone calls

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

That's true, which is why the article mentions one of the things googlers are doing is using their phone as a hotspot.

Y'see the phone gets it's internet from the cell tower. It then passes the internet to the laptop via a local (i.e. 2 feet) wifi or bluetooth connection.

That's an entirely different thing than enterprise-wide wifi. And if the building was blocking cell phone signals - well, first of all I'd be impressed, and secondly they would tear it down.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Moan and groan all you like, it doesn't change the fact that wireless is almost always an option and wired is almost never an option.

Even desktop PCs come with wifi adapters. Finding a laptop with an Ethernet port is damn near impossible.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Don't most of (maybe all) dell and lenovo laptops come with ethernet ports by default ?
And nowadays, with thunderbolt docking stations, you have more or less every connection available anyway.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Don’t most of (maybe all) dell and lenovo laptops come with ethernet ports by default ?

Nope. Ethernet ports are gone.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If ethernet is not an option, you're just wasting time. Ethernet-to-USB dongles are cheap and plentiful.

It's crazy that people with no experience with it have no idea why anyone would want to fuss with a direct wired connection when it's objectively faster and more stable in every metric possible.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Assumptions, assumptions... My company is a communications company and actually produces networking equipment. Almost no one uses Ethernet because we have the knowledge and experience to implement reliable wifi. Perhaps your company should hire us since they've done such a bad job with their own implementation.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yes, but tell that again when you and 19 other people bring your laptop to a conference room and try to login on the network at the same time.

Different things have different strengths, and losing one of those things means your experience will be subpar.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So, I haven't worked in IT in a couple decades, but back in the late '90s/ early '00s, all the conference tables at the companies I worked for, had Ethernet ports built into the table towards the center, and a switch mounted under the table so that everyone could just plug in. Did they stop making those tables once WiFi became ubiquitous?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Yes, they stopped. The ports were never sufficient, people always wanted to move the table around, and the cables and connectors in the table were always breaking.

Besides, there are always people far from the table.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

It's true, they used to be more available and then they stopped making those tables for those reasons (and they were more expensive).

Yes, in a conference room setting with more than 3 people it's better to have wifi, no disagreement there. In google's case here it sounds like they'd bring a mobile hotspot in so everyone could see the documents together, which is not ideal but would work.

Still, they'd have ethernet for the video sharing so they could just put a router in each conference room (a huge pain to admin, but - it's google) and everyone gets wifi in the conference room and no one is very slightly inconvenienced.

OR - y'know. Bring back the ethernet. Werd.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

What do they think their precious wifi routers plug into?

An actual cloud?

When it rains are they terrified of losing their data?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

And a lot of people do. Cellular and satellite internet is excellent for rural and certain business use cases. I have gigabit fiber, and I'm considering one of those in case the Internet goes out if fiber is hit or if we lose utility power (I have a battery backup system).

Yes. Those folks are scared when it rains too hard. The connection does become more unstable.

I still acknowledge that your point is valid for everyone else however.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I was just making a cartoonish joke about clouds leaking.

Wasnt thinking rain fade lol.