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Have an older puter that still work wells, Cat 5 not seating well in ethernet port so TW said get USB to ethernet adapter.
Has anyone done this, won't this slow down my broadband speed? I remember in the old days of DSL being new they always said connect via Cat5 not USB because it was faster?
Ethernet runs at either a rate of 10Mb/s (rare these days), 100Mb/s (common these days) and 1000Mb/s (becoming more and more common).
USB 2.0 (almost all computers within the last 5 years) has a rate of 480Mb/s and USB 3.0 (becoming more and more common) has a rate of 5120Mb/s.
Broadband internet in the United States is typically between 6Mb/s and 60Mb/s (however, speeds up to 1024Mb/s are available in very few areas at special pricing)
Also, many modern laptops don't have an Ethernet port built in at all because the laptops are so thin they cannot fit in a port so thick. They use USB adapters for Ethernet. Popular laptops that do this are the Apple Macbook Air, Apple Macbook Pro Retina, Lenovo ThinkPad X1, Lenovo ThinkPad Helix, and more.
With all that information, it is safe to say that it is unlikely that a USB Ethernet adapter will have a negative impact on your broadband speeds.
If you have a desktop, an alternative to a USB Ethernet adapter is a PCI/PCIe Ethernet adapter. These are just as fast as built in Ethernet Adapters.
I hope this post provides you the information you need to make the right decision. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to ask. There are an excellent group of people that regularly visit these forums that will be willing to assist you.
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