Is it better to have a wired or wireless home network?

I will be restoring am 1970 era home which includes pulling off all the old wood paneling, therefore I will have the ability to easily run cable through-out the house. Is it worth the trouble and expense or should I just stick with a wireless network?

Public Comments

1. I personally believe that it would be worth it to run the wires. You get better reliability and better security.
2. Definately wire!!! wohooo
3. wire is more reliable, faster, and proven. wireless gives you flexibility to move around the house, but given the choice..WIRED!
4. Portable computer = use wireless Home computer = use wired Both = use wireless
5. Having done both in my time, I'm gonna go with the contrarian opinion here and say wireless. Wired networks can transfer data much faster than wireless networks, but honestly, there are very few applications in a home environment for which a wireless network isn't fast enough. You don't need to move 1Gbps from the bedroom to the living room today (and by the time you need to, there'll be a new wireless technology to do it). Either type of network is going to be an order of magnitude faster than your Internet connection anyway. Wireless will be cheaper to install and maintain. Eventually, a wired installation will become obsolete and unusable. Then it will cost you big bucks to rewire. When your wireless hardware becomes obsolete, just chuck it and get with the newer standard. Wired is more secure, but wireless isn't all that insecure if you take the time to configure it properly and keep your firmware/drivers updated. Besides, every other house on your block probably has an open network. Why would someone waste time trying to hack your secure network when they can just use the open network next door? More and more network clients are mobile devices. Does your telephone do wifi? Your music player? Do you have laptops? Why would you plug these into a wire by the wall, rather then using them on your couch or bed or back yard? In summary: wired gets you geek points, but it just isn't worth the hassle and expense.
6. Definately wire it, cat5 cable is so cheap these days you could put 4 or more cables for every room back to a services cupboard or wherever would be suitable and just have them there in case you ever need them. Remember cat5 cable can cope with almost any signal with the right baluns/adapters at either end so you could use it for audio, video, telephone, networking, cctv etc etc.
7. Yes get wired ha no pun but the wireless device goes out in a year or two and you have to purchase a new on -- been there done that
8. It depends on the length you will be running. If any of your wires will be running close to or exceeding 300 ft, you will need what is known as a repeater to maintain the integrity of the signal. It may not be worth it to run wires. What about laptops? If you stay wireless you can take the laptop anywhere in the house. If it is wired, you'll be limited. Also, if you decide that you want to rearrange furniture, you won't have to worry about the cable access points. Wireless is very secure if you set up a password or security key on the wireless router.
9. Wired... That way the only way someone can access your network is if they are IN the building using a wired connection. Just do yourself a favour, and make sure to buy a router with enough ports to cover the whole house. Wireless networks are a security nightmare. You have all parts of the network (if passcode protected) screaming the security code at each other continuously. Even if encrypted, a war driver with 10 minutes of time can hack your network. Good Luck!
10. Run the cable while you can. My home is mostly wireless, but I'm constantly wishing I had an ethernet drop here or there, and it's a real pain to install them into finished spaces. At the very least, I'd run some CAT5e to anywhere where you might expect to have a television or a desk. Wireless is fine for a lot of things, but a wired connection is often better and sometimes necessary. My living room has an Xbox, Slingbox and Apple TV on my wired network. The Apple TV will work wirelessly, but it drops its connection every time someone uses the microwave. (You can use those CAT5e/RJ45 drops for telephone locations, too. It never hurts to have some flexibility there.) When I built a house in 2002, I ran CAT5e and RG6 all over the place, along with in-ceiling speakers and an alarm system. It ended up being a key selling point when I put the place on the market a few years later.
11. Wired. Cat6, if and when the standard finally comes out, otherwise Cat5e. Run it in pipe, so you can replace cables without tearing up the walls. Make sure that your wiring closet (the place all the cables come together) also has access for a phone line and a TV cable. You never know which provider you're going to be using in the future. Also make sure it's centrally located in the house, or you have a separate cable run to a central point, so that any wireless access point will be usable through most of the house.
12. if your going to stay in this house you should just prolly make the good investment and save the trouble later, if you use a laptop w/ wireless just don't bother.