What the author actually did
Singh used to run Ethernet to the living room, the entertainment room and the PC room, whether or not he needed it right away. By 2026 only one room is wired. He says he upgraded from a Wi-Fi 5 router to a Wi-Fi 6 model. In his telling, that brought OFDMA, MU-MIMO and Target Wake Time, and made 160 MHz channels available. The biggest change he noticed was lower latency. Web pages and social apps felt snappier, and a chronic dead zone went away.
His smart TV is the main example. In a previous home it was wired. It has now been on Wi-Fi for years. He says it gets the full 200 Mbps of his internet plan, with no slow loading and no drops in streaming quality. He calls running a second cable to the TV room a pointless exercise.
His desktop PC stays wired, and so would a future home server or NAS. His stated reason is large game downloads and a dedicated line to the router, not online gaming. He admits that much of his gaming is local. He also admits some bias, since Ethernet has been on his PC for as long as he can remember. He concedes that the PC could do almost everything over Wi-Fi.
The technical claims, with caveats
The article leans on a long list of Wi-Fi features. Some are described more firmly than the evidence supports.
- Real features, uneven delivery. OFDMA, MU-MIMO, Target Wake Time and Multi-Link Operation are real parts of newer Wi-Fi generations. Support is listed per certified product, though. Owning a Wi-Fi 6 or 7 router doesn't mean every client in your home uses every feature.
- "Latency is a thing of the past" is too strong. The author's own wording is that these features have made conventional Wi-Fi latency a thing of the past. No measurements back that up. Real results depend on the router, the client, signal quality, channel use and competing traffic.
- Restricted Target Wake Time (r-TWT). Research papers do describe r-TWT as a Wi-Fi 7 mechanism. It reserves time intervals for particular stations with real-time traffic. The picture is less rosy in practice. One experimental study found that tests with mass-market devices disproved a key protection assumption, revealing significant inconsistencies between the standard and widely used devices. A survey paper adds that R-TWT operation is confined to its own BSS and cannot regulate transmissions from stations on neighboring networks. So the feature exists, but it is not a guarantee of contention-free Wi-Fi in a crowded apartment block.
- Trade-offs. The same survey notes that r-TWT prioritizes deterministic behavior over maximum throughput. That fits low-latency traffic. It is not a free speed boost.
Windows-specific caveat: Wi-Fi 7 is not automatic
The article doesn't test any Windows networking behavior. One boundary is worth stating, though. Microsoft's hardware test documentation for Wi-Fi 7 devices calls for a Wi-Fi 7 Multi-Link Operation capable access point configured with a WPA3 network that can establish at least two links. That is the test setup for driver certification, not a consumer guide. It does show that MLO depends on a compatible access point, adapter, driver and connection setup working together. Buying a Wi-Fi 7 router won't turn on MLO for a PC with an older adapter.
A practical framework for deciding where cable still matters
The author's takeaway is sound if you drop the sweeping language. Base the cabling decision on each device's real behavior in its real location. Don't base it on a blanket rule.
- Test before you drill. Use the device in its normal spot at busy times. Look for buffering, weak signal, stuttering calls or slow downloads. If you see none, a cable may add little.
- Compare against your plan. On a 200 Mbps plan, a TV that sustains that rate with stable streaming gains little from a faster local link. Heavier users and multi-gig plans change the math.
- Wire what is stationary and demanding. Desktops, consoles, NAS boxes and home servers are good candidates. They are often the ones moving large files or pulling big downloads.
- Fix coverage first. FCC consumer guidance, as summarized in the research brief, recommends placing the router centrally. It also suggests mesh or extenders where needed, and notes that 5 GHz is faster but shorter-range than 2.4 GHz. It also says direct Ethernet gives the highest speeds and can relieve Wi-Fi congestion.
- Count the busy hours. A household where several people stream, game, join video calls and use work VPNs at once puts more strain on wireless than a quiet one.
Where the argument is weakest
- One home is not every home. Wall construction, home size, neighboring networks and the number of devices all vary. A smaller space with a modern router is the easy case.
- No test method. The article gives no device models, test times, streaming resolution or concurrent load, so the 200 Mbps result can't be checked.
- The PC argument cuts both ways. The author says Wi-Fi 6E or 7 makes even a gaming PC fair game. He also says he won't pretend Wi-Fi can match Ethernet where peak throughput and reliability matter. The fair reading is that it depends on your workload and how much variability you can tolerate.
- Wired still has no airtime cost. Moving a heavy device to Ethernet also frees wireless airtime for everything else. That benefit can matter even when the wired device itself would have worked fine on Wi-Fi.
Bottom line
Singh's experience shows that you don't have to wire every room just in case, especially for a streaming TV in a home with a decent Wi-Fi 6 router. It does not show that wireless has replaced Ethernet everywhere, or that latency and congestion are solved. Keep cables for the devices that move a lot of data or need consistency. Let the rest earn their place on Wi-Fi by performing well in the room where they sit.