Just wondering

[Russellvh]

Not real tech savvy. I have a T-Mobile 5g “home internet”. Overall I’m satisfied with reception and service. There have been a couple of locations with weak service. I was wondering if I ran a cat5 cable to my Directtv box would I get a stronger stream service than the Wi-Fi and streaming in it?

 

[Kevin D Pem]

Hard wire is faster!!!
That said, I'll use a little programmer jargon!
Garbage in Garbage out!!! (Pun intended). The short and skinny is if you don't have signal, nothing will improve.

 

[Diesel Pusher]

After I ran a cat 5 cable (about 3 ft) from router to television, the first thing I noticed was reduced buffering so I'd say, go ahead and give it a try. The shorter the cable run the better.

 

[CaptainGizmo]

Before ruining your expectations, it’s always best to get a baseline.

First, chick th signal using the T-Mobile gateway app.

Then Run a Speedtest via WiFi using the app.

Then connect a laptop directly to the TMO via Ethernet cable. This will, generally give you the best connection and speed to the TMO.

However, ass mentioned, if you don’t have a solid 5G cell signal. Forget the efforts. For example, if you’re on a weak LTE site…hardwiring isn’t gonna solve much in terms of what you are hoping to achieve. I’m basing this on you saying: “I’ve been in areas with weak service”.

 

[tetranz]

There is no reason to think that a cable is going to help.

It sounds like it works well when you're in a location with a good T-Mobile signal. That proves that the connection between the T-Mobile device and DirectTV is fast enough. That doesn't change when you're in a location with "weak service". The incoming speed from T-Mobile is what's changed. That's the limitation.

Think of it like water. Assume that you have a big pipe coming into your house and then a smaller pipe to the bathroom and most of the time you have good water pressure in the bathroom. If on some days the pressure in the bathroom is low and you haven't changed anything in the house then it's almost certainly because the pressure coming into the house is low. Installing a bigger pipe between the entry point and the bathroom is not going to help.

If it's easy to install a cable between them then it's not a bad idea, it does eliminate one variable but I doubt if it will help this problem. Length shouldn't matter. A normal ethernet cable can run for 100 meters.