In a previous blog post, we listed five reasons why wired Ethernet networks continue to be more popular than wireless connections for most organizations. Those five points hold true especially for industrial manufacturers, and you can add three more reasons why wired connections work best for manufacturing.

First, a quick recap of the five main advantages of wired Ethernet networks:

  • Wired is more secure – much harder to hack than wireless.
  • Wired is more reliable – signal strength is more consistent, less affected by other wired signals.
  • Wired is faster – and data speeds are more consistent in heavy traffic.
  • Wired provides more control – user access is easier to monitor.
  • Wired is cost-effective – popular for decades, the hardware is widely available and affordable.

For manufacturing, wired connections have at least three more benefits:

Wired Manufacturing Networks Do the Heavy Lifting

As long as wired Ethernet connections are, on the whole, more secure and reliable than wireless networks, they will play a major role in executing companies’ most mission-critical tasks. We see this in all the manufacturers who use both wired and wireless connections, but employ wired for data that controls their most critical systems, and wireless connections for the slightly less important job of monitoring and gathering data. Thus, for the heavy lifting, companies want to rely on what has been referred to as “a physical backbone of connectivity.” This is especially understandable on a high stakes production line, where a malfunctioning connection could result in physical injury or potentially thousands of lost dollars due to network down time.

Wired Manufacturing Networks Block Out the Noise

In the Ethernet vs. wifi discussion, a second big advantage of wired connections is that they are generally less sensitive to the EMI and RFI that is so common in industrial environments – the interference created by electric motors and generators, power supplies, transmitters, transformers and the like.

ShowMeCables offers outdoor and industrial Ethernet cables that not only shut out EMI/RFI, but are sheathed in a variety of rugged jackets that will protect your signal from not only oil, fire, and welding sparks and spatter, but also from rain, snow, ice and direct sunlight. Our high-flex Ethernet cables perform under the repetitive motion of industrial automation robots.

Wired Manufacturing Networks Help Provide Redundancy

A final reason industrial wired connections will be around for many years is that companies will always want redundancy. If connections fail in one system or network, an additional or alternate system must be always available.

We have everything you need to keep your wired Ethernet network up and running in industrial, manufacturing environments. This includes Ethernet cables, Ethernet connectors, Ethernet adapters, Ethernet patch panels, racks and cabinets and more. Visit ShowMeCables and browse our 15,000-plus in-stock products that are available for same-day shipping. If you have any questions, we would love to hear from you at 1-855-958-3212.