Hi, seems I’ve been falling behind in technology again and just now discovered 1000baseT ethernet technology from a book printed in '02, hah.
I have have only limited network knowledge, so if we have cable modem via a router would a 1000base T ethernet card increase my connection speed?
I would have posted this in GQ, but I had to ask what people thought was the best?
Thanks in advance.
No.
The Gigabit Cards or 1000base T cannot possibly help cable modem speed. No commercial cable modem has even hit 10-megabit speed yet. 1000 base T would allow extremely fast transfer rates between computers on the same 1000baseT router or switch but this is generally overkill for home use. Both Computers and the router or switch and the cabling would all need to be up to spec.
Jim
Very few American broadband providers offer any consumer plans over 10Mbps. 1000Mbps is pretty much the definition of overkill. It’s also very likely that your router only has 100Mbps ports, so the data transfer rates on your local network (assuming you have multiple computers in your house), wouldn’t even be affected.
Let me amend that statement to agree with jrfranchi. No American providers (DSL or cable) have hit 10Mbps, at least as far as the results of a quick Googling have determined.
Some days I wish I lived in South Korea or Sweden. 
Oh, good point and my bad, I was speaking USAcentric. There are some cities where you can get High Speed Fiber hook-up but the only ones I have heard of were NYC & SF. They were still under 100Mbps.
Jim
As jrfranchi and neutron star have said, you can only go as fast as your slowest link to the internet, which is your cable modem/dsl modem, not your network card.
One thing I wanted to point out is that, contrary to what seems reasonable, sometimes a faster network card will actually cause your connection to be slower.
On a basic level, there are two settings, speed and duplex, that can be negotiated when a network connection is established. Mismatched hardware and other circumstances can cause these settings to be mis-negotiated, or never properly set, which leads to errors, and re-sends, and just general chaos on the wire that actually will cause your network to degrade to the point where the connection becomes nearly unusable.
Most newer hardware negotiates these settings properly, but I still find problems in inter-operability between some vendors.
And I still have yet to see a home/SOHO router (which I assume is what you are talking about) that supports GigE, but don’t follow that market much.
There are a few of them out there (e.g. Linksys RV0041), but they are expensive enough that it’s highly unlikely that the OP or anyone else would have purchased one without being familiar with its capabilities.
Whoops, my mistake. That’s a 10/100 router with a built-in 10/100/1000 switch. A SOHO router that accepted a gigabit connection would be rather pointless.
neutron star, meet FIOS from Verizon:
How fast is Verizon FiOS Internet Service?
Verizon FiOS Internet Service is the fastest and most powerful connection we’ve ever offered. With FiOS, you have the choice of several packages to meet your needs. We offer downstream connection speeds (the speed that data is transmitted to your computer) ranging from up to 5 Mbps all the way up to 30 Mbps.
I believe that the fastest speed Verizon guarantees is 15Mbps - assuming that you pay for that tier - although 30Mbps is quite possible.
Nice. I wonder if it’s available in more than the tiniest handful of places. Verizon is my local DSL provider and we don’t have it here. I haven’t noticed them even start to lay fiber in the area.
Also, I have to say that if it’s fiber and they’re not offering anything over 30Mbps, well, that’s just stingy.