What I mean is that I currently get my internet via a LAN cable that goes into my router box. I have a tower PC hooked via a cable to it and a laptop that connects via WiFi. The tower can achieve the full 5 megabytes/sec I pay for, while WiFi maxes out at about 1½ mbytes/sec. It's slow.
It sounds as if either your laptop's wifi card is old or your router is. 5mb is nothing, 802.11n can easily handle that (its about 20) and dual band connections can push it a bit higher.
Where WiFi at home is breaking down is some cable companies are offering 30, 50, or more down. Then there is Fiber which just blows past what most people will get out of home WiFi networks.
Is that all? I haven't benchmarked mine, but it claims 300Mbps, and I've never noticed any speedup on my video streaming by switching to ethernet (my internet speed is ~28Mbps). It's possible I just wouldn't notice an ~8Mbps speed up though.
