I was looking on amazon and noticed these WiFi usb sticks. They boast high speeds for low costs, so I was wondering if they actually have $30 high speed WiFi with no additional cost or simply provide a faster connection to my previously existing WiFi.
In: Technology
Uh……before OP goes out on shopping spree. WiFi doesn’t get you internet. WiFi gets you connected to the base station which has landline internet access. WiFi is not a magic no cost replacement for celullar internet
They contain a WIFI chip and antenna. In many cases (especially on older or cheap laptops) the manufacturer may have chosen poor quality components for WIFI to save cost. Buying a good quality, high end usb one may give you much better performance in such a case.
It’s best to do your research, if you have WIFI issues, often the problem is not on the side of the client, but rather the access point. Often the chip inside a USB WIFI adapter is also of poor quality, so if you go this route check the reviews and don’t go too cheap.
They are intended to be discrete and cheap for people who need to get online and perhaps don’t have the ability to deal with large dangling antennas where they intend to use them. For example some motherboards have USB connectors right on them and can accept small lightweight devices semi-permanently plugged into them. Put this in and your PC has WiFi like it’s a laptop.
Of course, the antenna thing will be the downside. Good wifi devices have multiple antennas at a sizeable distance from each other to assist in signal quality. A tiny USB dongle isn’t going to have that and will certainly not perform as well as something with multiple antennas built-in or attached externally. Eg: laptops often have the WiFi card in the keyboard half, but at least one antenna inside the display half.
The speeds they boast will most likely be the WiFi standard speeds for what they support (2.4 vs 5 GHz, 802.11ac etc) or the optimal speeds they can get. If you already have WiFi, stick with it. If not, slow wifi is better than no wifi, right?
They’ll be limited to significantly below USB, which means ~400Mbps on most computers, many routers can go much faster.
In the end it depends on the specific device, what your router is, and what you consider a significant improvement. Most USB wifi sticks are not particularly fast, but might be faster than what your computer came with.
Nothing will make your speeds faster than what your provider/bandwidth allow. That is, of you get 10mbps at your modem, nothing will make that faster.
Now, the USB sticks are basically external wifi antennas. They can be more powerful than built-in antennas in older computers, but are generally meant to be used with devices that don’t have built-in wifi capabilities (like desktop and tower units).
When they say high speed, they simply mean that the USB device can transmit and receive data at a rate comparable to a Ethernet (or Hardline) connection.
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