Security → WEP vs WPA and Speed

I recently set my router up with WEP encryption, rather than WPA. I noticed that my wife's iPAD was quicker with WEP. Does WPA take longer to decode?

i dont have any data, or specs, but i believe that WEP is older and "simpler", so it probably takes less crunch-cycles to deal with.

It's probably better to use WPA or WPA2, especially if you are going to be out and about in strange locations. It might well be quicker with WEP, but definitely not so secure.

I have noticed that some of the older routers do end up having slower data transfers when set to WPA/WPA2 as vs. WEP. That's because a the encryption on those older routers is done in software.

The newer routers end up having WEP being slower than WPA/WPA2 because the newer routers feature dedicated encryption chips for WPA/WPA2 so that the encryption is done in hardware which is always faster than software.

Before just asking that question..I would first make sure my IPAD had the latest software not only for the IPAD but also it's bulit in Wifi

see here...
iPad: Troubleshooting Wi-Fi networks and connections
»support.apple.com/kb/ts3237

Then just to make sure nothing is fishy with what it might have stored to date..Since I think when you turn it on it will try to connected to anything stored to date.

Topic : Manually removing stored Wifi networks from iPad?
Settings > General > Reset network settings
»discussions.info.apple.c ··· =2738932

Since we don't know what router you do have this might also help..

Improve your 802.11n speeds using WPA2 vs. WPA/WEP
»www.mac-forums.com/forum ··· wep.html
»Performance hit? WEP VS. WPA VS. WPA2

"It really depends on the router. Underpowered old routers don't like the encryption overhead and will slow down somewhat. My guess is about 10-15% for either WEP or WPA on older units. In many cases, it's also affected by the speed of the client computah, especially if the WPA encryption is done in driver. Fortunately, this hasn't been the case for many years. These daze, there's hardly any slowdown of either technology."

The best password choices for your 802.11n router are the WPA/WPA2 Personal option or the WPA2 Personal option.
WPA/WPA2 Personal will have the fastest transfer rates when only one device (unicast) is being served. When other devices are using the network, they will run in multicast at 54 Mbps.
WPA2 Personal will provide the best 802.11n transfer rates and is recommend for the majority of users.

Agreed.

Wireless is slow, period, but not slow enough you should notice it in web browsing. If it is noticeable, I'd blame the device or its software, not the encryption.

My iPad has not complained with WPA on a 2Wire gateway.