[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Fast WiFi - Does it exist? (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 3/28/2013 2:04:04 PM EDT
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My internet speeds were "doubled" this morning. Yesterday, I paid for a 50x10Mb connection. Typically, I would see 65x15Mb on my wired desktop and 30x15Mb on my wireless devices.
Now, with the upgrade, I'm seeing 95x21Mb on my wired connection and 30x20Mb on my wireless devices. Why does my wireless download suck so badly? Can I fix it? Router is a E3000 and I loaded DD-WRT firmware a while back just for the hell of it. I've noticed absolutely no difference since loading the firmware, for better or worse. Do you have fast WiFi? |
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Did you: Clean prefetch Clear cache Hard code your fastest IP 4 DNS Hard code your fastest IP 6 DNS Disable file and print sharing if not needed Uninstall any other not need network protocols Verify the access speeds in the router interface. 
wut He means, "unplug the thing from the wall...then plug it back in" 
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Only the very latest wifi will work at those speeds. Is your router and wireless device N? Yup. It's only as fast as he slowest part and the quoted speeds are in perfect conditions. Get 5ghz wireless N No, Get 5 GHz AC and wait for AD http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320115 ETA: your weak point becomes disk read/writes. |
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As a Network Engineer (as in, I do this for a living), I'm going to offer up a different, more pragmatic suggestion, rather than go into wireless technologies: The speeds you're getting over wireless are MORE than fast enough. Spend more time using it, and less time being a tweeker about it. It's pointless. The only "need" for the wired speeds you're seeing, are extremely large file downloads (full length HD movies, torrents, etc). For everything else, your wireless speeds are well beyond what's required to experience the Internet in all it's glory. I do this for a living, and all of my AP's are 802.11g (used Cisco Aironets off eBay), because I'm cheap and they're plenty fast enough. I have a workstation with a wired connection, that I use when I need to download anything over a gigabyte. If I'm impatient.
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As a Network Engineer (as in, I do this for a living), I'm going to offer up a different, more pragmatic suggestion, rather than go into wireless technologies: The speeds you're getting over wireless are MORE than fast enough. Spend more time using it, and less time being a tweeker about it. It's pointless. The only "need" for the wired speeds you're seeing, are extremely large file downloads (full length HD movies, torrents, etc). For everything else, your wireless speeds are well beyond what's required to experience the Internet in all it's glory. I do this for a living, and all of my AP's are 802.11g (used Cisco Aironets off eBay), because I'm cheap and they're plenty fast enough. I have a workstation with a wired connection, that I use when I need to download anything over a gigabyte. If I'm impatient. I'm not looking to eek out every bit of performance. When the connection was 50x10, I was okay only getting that on a wired connection. I didn't sweat the 50% loss on wireless. Now I am. My desktop machines are wired; clearly that's the better way to go. My mobile stuff isn't; it's mobile. I have a 802.11a/b/g/n router, which of course has both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz antennas and should be able to easily pass the 100x20Mb speeds. It's nice to be able to use my macbook air to upload and download shitloads of high res pictures without having to transfer stuff to one of my wired machines. I'm asking if my E3000 router can be made to do it. |
| I Also do this for a living some of my clients offices have 50 computers and 4 servers in them with speeds less than yours to the internet but a GHz connection internally. what exactly are you doing to need these speeds? Your wireless speed sounds fine to me... |
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I Also do this for a living some of my clients offices have 50 computers and 4 servers in them with speeds less than yours to the internet but a GHz connection internally. what exactly are you doing to need these speeds? Your wireless speed sounds fine to me... I get the, "it's good enough" point you're making, and I pretty much agree. Do you have an answer to my actual question though?
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| Do you have many other wifi devices in the area? Are you on the least busy channel in the area? How far away from you from your AP? What barriers are between you and your AP? Is your client card a quality device with up to date drives? Is there other interference in that frequency there? With the best settings I think realistically you can expect 85% of rated throughput on your end device. Most people are content to plug in the device and have a very fast connection. Put as much time into looking into all the variables and setting up the ideal environment as is important to you. |
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Do you have many other wifi devices in the area? connected to my network? A dozen, but usually just 2 or 3 active at a time.Are you on the least busy channel in the area? I don't know. Trial and error to find out, or is there a better way?How far away from you from your AP? With the devices I tested just now, 5 feet.What barriers are between you and your AP? With the devices I tested just now, none. Speeds don't really get worse in my house. If it's slower, it's because I'm out of range and there is NO connection.Is your client card a quality device with up to date drives? On the stuff I care about, like the macbook air, it's a <12 month old computer. I assume so.Is there other interference in that frequency there? I don't know. How would I test that?With the best settings I think realistically you can expect 85% of rated throughput on your end device. That's what I'd like to see. Wired: 100Mb Wireless: 30Mb seems pretty shitty, even for wireless. Most people are content to plug in the device and have a very fast connection. Put as much time into looking into all the variables and setting up the ideal environment as is important to you. Questions answered above. I'm not looking to drive my race car at race track speeds on the highway, just don't want to do 25 in a 60. |
| Various wifi routers handle higher speeds with varying competence. Check http://www.smallnetbuilder.com for speed tests. The ASUS routers are top of the line right now. |
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Do you have many other wifi devices in the area? connected to my network? A dozen, but usually just 2 or 3 active at a time.Are you on the least busy channel in the area? I don't know. Trial and error to find out, or is there a better way?How far away from you from your AP? With the devices I tested just now, 5 feet.What barriers are between you and your AP? With the devices I tested just now, none. Speeds don't really get worse in my house. If it's slower, it's because I'm out of range and there is NO connection.Is your client card a quality device with up to date drives? On the stuff I care about, like the macbook air, it's a <12 month old computer. I assume so.Is there other interference in that frequency there? I don't know. How would I test that?With the best settings I think realistically you can expect 85% of rated throughput on your end device. That's what I'd like to see. Wired: 100Mb Wireless: 30Mb seems pretty shitty, even for wireless. Most people are content to plug in the device and have a very fast connection. Put as much time into looking into all the variables and setting up the ideal environment as is important to you. Questions answered above. I'm not looking to drive my race car at race track speeds on the highway, just don't want to do 25 in a 60. No I mean your neighbors for example. If you've got 3 AP's all in range fighting for a channel you're going to lose speed. If you're in a densely populated area or apartment this can be a real problem. As far as finding out, you really can't as a practical matter. If you were crazy you could pay someone to come out with a spectrum analyzer but realistically you or your neighbors could be running cordless phones or other devices that are interfering and you won't know why the network is slowing down. I'd try some other channels if you have time to burn. For my uses I'd call that a solid connection and plug into my gigabit network for any serious data transfers I had to do. I have no idea if the card and antenna design of the mb air are good or not. If you google "mac book air wifi" the 2nd choice that google suggests for the autocomplete is slow so you might want to see if its a known issue. Looks like lots of complaints for it especially with mountain lion. |
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Quoted: As a Network Engineer (as in, I do this for a living), I'm going to offer up a different, more pragmatic suggestion, rather than go into wireless technologies: The speeds you're getting over wireless are MORE than fast enough. Spend more time using it, and less time being a tweeker about it. It's pointless. The only "need" for the wired speeds you're seeing, are extremely large file downloads (full length HD movies, torrents, etc). For everything else, your wireless speeds are well beyond what's required to experience the Internet in all it's glory. I do this for a living, and all of my AP's are 802.11g (used Cisco Aironets off eBay), because I'm cheap and they're plenty fast enough. I have a workstation with a wired connection, that I use when I need to download anything over a gigabyte. If I'm impatient. Seriously. I'm a Linux dweeb and even the new iso images are plenty fast over -.11g using torrents. Speed is money, how fast do you want to go? Multitasking: Start a download, get a beer. |
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Let me try this another way.
On private property, I can load up and shoot all the 30 round mags I want. It's raining and at the local indoor range I'm only allowed to load 10 rounds into each of my magazines. Wondering if someone might know the owner and be willing to talk him into letting me stay out of the rain and shoot fully loaded mags? Hell, 20 or so would be an improvement. |
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I am a network engineer and support a very large wireless network. I field questions weekly on why the wireless isn't faster. As a note you may check/update the drivers for your network card in your devices. Some are much better than others. I am not a fan of the Linksys E3000 series, the antenna setup sucks ass. First understand that wifi is not just like wired but over the air. The way a number of things are handled is actually like the wired networks of about 20 years ago. Over a wired connection you are running at full duplex. You can send and receive at 100mbps in each direction. In wireless it is half duplex. If you are sending you are not receiving. Send a packet, get a packet. To make matters worse, you are competing for the channel. Other devices are sending and receiving while you are trying to squeak your packet through. This sucks, that is why 20 years ago wired networking dumped hubs and went to a switched setup. Think of making a phone call to someone over a land line. Is fast and you can both communicate pretty quick. Now try that same conversation in a crowded room. 2 other people in the room and its not too bad, but then add 20. Suddenly everyone has to yell, then pause and listen to the response. If there are other devices in your house or in your neighborhood on your channel they are yelling in your room. 802.11N sorta tries for the full duplex operation, using multiple radios (MIMO). However, there is a HUGE difference between a commercial grade radio and one for home use. Don't expect it to be fixed before 802.11ac/ad. |
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I am a network engineer and support a very large wireless network. I field questions weekly on why the wireless isn't faster. As a note you may check/update the drivers for your network card in your devices. Some are much better than others. I am not a fan of the Linksys E3000 series, the antenna setup sucks ass. First understand that wifi is not just like wired but over the air. The way a number of things are handled is actually like the wired networks of about 20 years ago. Over a wired connection you are running at full duplex. You can send and receive at 100mbps in each direction. In wireless it is half duplex. If you are sending you are not receiving. Send a packet, get a packet. To make matters worse, you are competing for the channel. Other devices are sending and receiving while you are trying to squeak your packet through. This sucks, that is why 20 years ago wired networking dumped hubs and went to a switched setup. Think of making a phone call to someone over a land line. Is fast and you can both communicate pretty quick. Now try that same conversation in a crowded room. 2 other people in the room and its not too bad, but then add 20. Suddenly everyone has to yell, then pause and listen to the response. If there are other devices in your house or in your neighborhood on your channel they are yelling in your room. 802.11N sorta tries for the full duplex operation, using multiple radios (MIMO). However, there is a HUGE difference between a commercial grade radio and one for home use. Don't expect it to be fixed before 802.11ac/ad. Good info, thanks. So will I be able to achieve 80-90% of my wired speeds with another router? Can you recommend a different router that's not insanely expensive? |
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Quoted: Good info, thanks. So will I be able to achieve 80-90% of my wired speeds with another router? Can you recommend a different router that's not insanely expensive? 85% is a good target. Depends on what you are actually trying to transfer and how far away the far end is. Keep in mind latency has a huge effect on how fast something is transferred. Inside the LAN is fast, across the WAN is not. Most point to point transfers use TCP. TCP basically works like this, the far end sends 5 packets and waits. You then send a reply you got them. It sends 5 more, then waits for confirmation. Its slow, but accounts for lost packets. This is one of the many reasons you will never get 100% of line speed out of it. If something uses UDP there is never any confirmation, it just dumps the packets and hopes for the best. Add 50ms of latency to the mix and it really slows. I am too lazy to look it up right now, but if you had a 100Mbps connection between two sites 50ms apart the transfer would be closer to 12Mbps. Its like if you were moving from Texas to California. If you take a semi (big bandwidth) you can do it in one trip, but it will still take 18 hours to get there. Taking a Geo Metro will still make it in 18 hrs, but requires 50 trips. As far as router, I am running G at home. I have tens of thousands in network gear in a rack and I am running two WRT-54Gs. Not fancy, but dead reliable and cheap. I can say I pulled out DLink DIR-655 Extreme-N router, it is an extreme POS. |
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No I mean your neighbors for example. If you've got 3 AP's all in range fighting for a channel you're going to lose speed. If you're in a densely populated area or apartment this can be a real problem. As far as finding out, you really can't as a practical matter. If you were crazy you could pay someone to come out with a spectrum analyzer but realistically you or your neighbors could be running cordless phones or other devices that are interfering and you won't know why the network is slowing down. I'd try some other channels if you have time to burn. For my uses I'd call that a solid connection and plug into my gigabit network for any serious data transfers I had to do. I have no idea if the card and antenna design of the mb air are good or not. If you google "mac book air wifi" the 2nd choice that google suggests for the autocomplete is slow so you might want to see if its a known issue. Looks like lots of complaints for it especially with mountain lion. Get this. http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/ I've used it with great success. They even have an app for Android (and probably iPhone). |
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No I mean your neighbors for example. If you've got 3 AP's all in range fighting for a channel you're going to lose speed. If you're in a densely populated area or apartment this can be a real problem. As far as finding out, you really can't as a practical matter. If you were crazy you could pay someone to come out with a spectrum analyzer but realistically you or your neighbors could be running cordless phones or other devices that are interfering and you won't know why the network is slowing down. I'd try some other channels if you have time to burn. For my uses I'd call that a solid connection and plug into my gigabit network for any serious data transfers I had to do. I have no idea if the card and antenna design of the mb air are good or not. If you google "mac book air wifi" the 2nd choice that google suggests for the autocomplete is slow so you might want to see if its a known issue. Looks like lots of complaints for it especially with mountain lion. Get this. http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/ I've used it with great success. They even have an app for Android (and probably iPhone). Not everything broadcasting in the wifi spectrum is a wifi device broadcasting a ssid. Utilities like that can help but certainly are no guarantee that X channel is free from interference from wireless devices either inside or outside your home. |
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Quoted: As a Network Engineer (as in, I do this for a living), I'm going to offer up a different, more pragmatic suggestion, rather than go into wireless technologies: The speeds you're getting over wireless are MORE than fast enough. Spend more time using it, and less time being a tweeker about it. It's pointless. The only "need" for the wired speeds you're seeing, are extremely large file downloads (full length HD movies, torrents, etc). For everything else, your wireless speeds are well beyond what's required to experience the Internet in all it's glory. I do this for a living, and all of my AP's are 802.11g (used Cisco Aironets off eBay), because I'm cheap and they're plenty fast enough. I have a workstation with a wired connection, that I use when I need to download anything over a gigabyte. If I'm impatient. You running VoIP wireless phones and mobile workstations connected to Citrix/TS environment? We noticed a pretty fair increase in speed going to N in our enviroment which is approx 50 wireless phones and 30 mobile workstations. At home i'm running a 802.11g AP and there is a noticeable speed difference streaming HD video from my PLEX server to my Roku vs gigabit ethernet. However streaming Netflix through my 10Mbps DSL is virtually the same speed wired or wireless since it's the choke point on my home network. |
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Not everything broadcasting in the wifi spectrum is a wifi device broadcasting a ssid. Utilities like that can help but certainly are no guarantee that X channel is free from interference from wireless devices either inside or outside your home. True but it will give you a good idea. I had a neighbor move in that stood up a wireless router on the channel I was using. I used Inssider to find a fairly open channel. Once I moved to that my speeds went back to normal. I was a bit annoyed that they moved in and squatted on my channel but I realized not everyone knows about this stuff. They probably just keep it at the default settings and never give it another thought. I still am tempted to bring up another router and set it to their channel just to annoy them but that would be mean...
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As a Network Engineer (as in, I do this for a living), I'm going to offer up a different, more pragmatic suggestion, rather than go into wireless technologies: The speeds you're getting over wireless are MORE than fast enough. Spend more time using it, and less time being a tweeker about it. It's pointless. The only "need" for the wired speeds you're seeing, are extremely large file downloads (full length HD movies, torrents, etc). For everything else, your wireless speeds are well beyond what's required to experience the Internet in all it's glory. I do this for a living, and all of my AP's are 802.11g (used Cisco Aironets off eBay), because I'm cheap and they're plenty fast enough. I have a workstation with a wired connection, that I use when I need to download anything over a gigabyte. If I'm impatient. Agreed, only situation I could think of needing a faster transfer rate (in the home) would be streaming HD movies. My N router cant handle a blu ray stream. Laggy. |
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Quoted: At home? I have one 802.11 wireless phone (a Cisco 7925g), and no Citrix or Terminal Server environment. You running VoIP wireless phones and mobile workstations connected to Citrix/TS environment? We noticed a pretty fair increase in speed going to N in our enviroment which is approx 50 wireless phones and 30 mobile workstations. At home, is the important part.
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Quoted: True. Everything I stream is compressed somewhat, though. I've never tried to straight up stream a Blu-ray, without additional compression. Quoted: As a Network Engineer (as in, I do this for a living), I'm going to offer up a different, more pragmatic suggestion, rather than go into wireless technologies: The speeds you're getting over wireless are MORE than fast enough. Spend more time using it, and less time being a tweeker about it. It's pointless. The only "need" for the wired speeds you're seeing, are extremely large file downloads (full length HD movies, torrents, etc). For everything else, your wireless speeds are well beyond what's required to experience the Internet in all it's glory. I do this for a living, and all of my AP's are 802.11g (used Cisco Aironets off eBay), because I'm cheap and they're plenty fast enough. I have a workstation with a wired connection, that I use when I need to download anything over a gigabyte. If I'm impatient. Agreed, only situation I could think of needing a faster transfer rate (in the home) would be streaming HD movies. My N router cant handle a blu ray stream. Laggy. |
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It's normal for wireless to max out ~50% of advertised speed. That'd be an improvement. Why, by the way, does the upload on my wireless more or less equal the upload on my wired, which is 100% of advertised speed? Because you are getting throttled on your upload speeds by your carrier to open up more download speeds which is what most customers want. You have no such limitation at home so you can go as fast as your layer 1 lets you. |
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Because you are getting throttled on your upload speeds by your carrier to open up more download speeds which is what most customers want. You have no such limitation at home so you can go as fast as your layer 1 lets you. ISP sells, and delivers, 100Mb download and 20Mb upload My wired computers get 100Mb download and 20Mb upload My wireless computers get 30Mb download and 20Mb upload My slower download performance over wireless is either a limitation of the technology or it's my wireless router or receivers letting me down. |
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Because you are getting throttled on your upload speeds by your carrier to open up more download speeds which is what most customers want. You have no such limitation at home so you can go as fast as your layer 1 lets you. ISP sells, and delivers, 100Mb download and 20Mb upload My wired computers get 100Mb download and 20Mb upload My wireless computers get 30Mb download and 20Mb upload My slower download performance over wireless is either a limitation of the technology or it's my wireless router or receivers letting me down. Here's the deal. When you are testing on your wired link you are on a dedicated link to the router to the modem. When you are testing on the wireless link you are on a shared medium that has a number of things impacting the speed. The biggest example of this is in the 2.4 gHz ISM band where your microwave is right smack in the middle. |
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As a Network Engineer (as in, I do this for a living), I'm going to offer up a different, more pragmatic suggestion, rather than go into wireless technologies: The speeds you're getting over wireless are MORE than fast enough. Spend more time using it, and less time being a tweeker about it. It's pointless. The only "need" for the wired speeds you're seeing, are extremely large file downloads (full length HD movies, torrents, etc). For everything else, your wireless speeds are well beyond what's required to experience the Internet in all it's glory. I do this for a living, and all of my AP's are 802.11g (used Cisco Aironets off eBay), because I'm cheap and they're plenty fast enough. I have a workstation with a wired connection, that I use when I need to download anything over a gigabyte. If I'm impatient. But I just spent $$$ to upgrade all of my wireless to dual band N. 
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Because you are getting throttled on your upload speeds by your carrier to open up more download speeds which is what most customers want. You have no such limitation at home so you can go as fast as your layer 1 lets you. ISP sells, and delivers, 100Mb download and 20Mb upload My wired computers get 100Mb download and 20Mb upload My wireless computers get 30Mb download and 20Mb upload My slower download performance over wireless is either a limitation of the technology or it's my wireless router or receivers letting me down. Here's the deal. When you are testing on your wired link you are on a dedicated link to the router to the modem. When you are testing on the wireless link you are on a shared medium that has a number of things impacting the speed. The biggest example of this is in the 2.4 gHz ISM band where your microwave is right smack in the middle. The 5Ghz antenna shouldn't be encountering interference except, potentially, from other routers in my neighborhood, right? Upload matches wired performance and download doesn't (by a factor of 1/3). Maybe this is just as good as it's going to get. That's my question. |
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ok, i started reading each post.... add / tl:dr 
some routers can't pass WAN > LAN at WAN speed and some have issues LAN > WAP I suggest checking the interwebs for info on your particular model I will throw my current router in the garbage if you can point me to one that will show me wireless download performance that is 80%+ what I'm getting wired. |
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The 5Ghz antenna shouldn't be encountering interference except, potentially, from other routers in my neighborhood, right? Upload matches wired performance and download doesn't (by a factor of 1/3). Maybe this is just as good as it's going to get. That's my question. It shouldn't unless it is. Think of it as a radio, because that's what it is. Test your download speed while you turn a big AC motor off and on. |
