You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Our old internet service gave us about 50-60 mbps whern hard wired but wifi (in my designated slobbing chair) was only 20ish.
We upgraded to the fancy dancy 500mbps this week (during which time I grew to despise VodaFone). We are getting the 500 hard wired but the wifi is the same 20ish.
Is this normal that wifi would be limited as I imagined that the loss in speed would be proportional to the incoming speed?
Just using the VF router at the moment but will hook up the mesh system again over the weekend.
It depends on your drivers and wifi hardware in your laptop, also depends on wifi router.
I have a modern BT router and can get 130-140 near the router by wifi, the same as hardwired.
Upgrade your drivers for starters, try it close to the router.
if you have 2.4ghz and 5ghz, note the 2.4 penetrates walls better and does distance better. But if you have decent line of sight at less than 5m then 5ghz is the way to go.
Listen to simon, already knows way more than me. I assume I must have 802.11N as I get 140 on 2,4 or 5ghz sat near to the router.
It’ll either be:
Router - although if you got a new one after the change that may not be it
Your hardware - phone/laptop/tablet can’t cope with anything faster
Your house - walls etc screwing with the signal
Your network - as mentioned in the post above.
We had problems with the Virgin router being a bit flaky. Sticking it into modem mode and getting a proper router did the trick.
I've just done another Ookla test and my upload speed is slightly higher than the download! That's weird right?
I'm not sure what the table above tells me in terms of wifi speed versus hard wirded speed? Seems to address which frequency is likely to be better?
It'll be the wireless network adapter in your laptop. You can probably replace the mini-PCIe card if you're comfortable in opening it up, or an easy fix would be a USB Wi-Fi adapter.
Have a look in Device Manager to confirm the model number. Do that and report back. If I were a gambling man I'd guess you'll find an Intel 3945 or similar.
As others have said - does it change if you're closer to the router?
@ Cougar
Wireless
Wi-Fi
802.11ax Wi-Fi 6 wireless networking
IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac compatible
Its a latest gen macbook pro, which is probably more than my knowledge deserves...
I'll check the distance thing
Ok, 30 in my slobbing chair, 263 next to the router!!
I'll re-install my mesh Deco things and see what happens
I imagined that the loss in speed would be proportional to the incoming speed?
That's not how it works. Everything will go as fast as it can - if you've got over 20Mb/s available at the router, but only get 20Mb/s over wifi, increasing the speed to the router won't get you faster wifi.
Aidy - thanks, that was my thought process. I was hoping that wifi speeds would be proportional. It seems that I am losing 230mbps speed over wifi by being perhaps 4-5m away from the router and behind two walls (modern house so thin and insubstantial). A simialr distance the other way and the kicthen adds another 20-30mbps so not purely a distance thing. I'll plug the mesh in and see what happens
Yep sounds like your hardware. I’m on 1Gbps internet and with a dedicated Wi-Fi AP and ‘prosumer’ router (ubiquiti u6-lr AP and UDM-Pro for those that are interested) and on a modern iPad with wifi6 I get 680Mbps download and my max 100Mbps upload a room or 2 from the AP down to about 300/100 at the far end of the house (300yo stone building).
ISP provided Wi-Fi routers are universally e-waste in my experience, certainly if you don’t fit in the ‘3 bedroom, modern timber and plasterboard internal walls’ house model. Mesh router systems will be better but ideal scenario is 1 or more hardwired ‘quality’ access points. Another consideration that could be affecting performance is how many Wi-Fi devices you have in your home, it may be more than you think if you have smart devices of any kind. ISP router and even aftermarket consumer routers can start to choke with more than about a dozen connected devices, a dedicated quality AP will cope with about 100 clients without problems.
WiFi speed can also be affected if you have neighbours using the same WiFi channel. I have WiFi Analyzer on my phone, that shows which channels are busy, you can change the channels in your router settings.
Not familiar with the intricacies of the Deco mesh system but if it can be run in AP mode you might be able to add it to the Vodafone Wi-Fi to extend it which would add however many deco stations you have to the Vodafone Wi-Fi rather than replacing it and shutting the voda Wi-Fi off, effectively giving you an extra mesh point.
Apologies, I assumed PC.
It seems that I am losing 230mbps speed over wifi by being perhaps 4-5m away from the router and behind two walls (modern house so thin and insubstantial).
Point of note is that 5GHz is considerably more susceptible to range / line-of-sight issues than 2.4GHz. Despite being 'slower' you might improve your lot by switching it to over 2.4.
If you've got a Mesh system then that's a different barrel of molluscs altogether, we're going to need a broader explanation of your setup.
Cougar - I have the standard vodafone router (I have a better (I assume) branded model somewhere but unsure if I can just unplug the VF model and plug in the branded one?) and a set of these (that are not yet plugged in since I got the new fibre service).
TP-Link Deco P9 Whole Home Powerline Mesh Wi-Fi System, Up to 6000 Sq ft Coverage, Dual-Band AC1200+HomePlug AV1000, Gigabit Ports, Compatible with Amazon Echo/Alexa, limited walls impact, Pack of 3
I'm hoping that plugging these back in close to the 'quiet spots' will up the wifi speed in those areas. The guy at VF did say that once the mesh is up and running that I should press the 'wifi' button on top of the router to disable the VF part of the network and just use the Deco network?
Its a latest gen macbook pro, which is probably more than my knowledge deserves…
Hold down the Alt key whilst clicking the Wifi icon in the upper menu bar. That will display the Channel and the wi-fi frequency.
From the Apple icon Alt/System Information, Network, Wi-Fi will display further info.
Two problems with Wifi:
One of the problems with Wifi is that it only runs as fast as the slowest node on your network, so if you have lots of cheap IoT things (smoke alarms, thermostats etc) they will force the AP to keep switching back to whatever slow legacy mode it supports which significantly reduces throughput.
The table SB put up assume that your Wifi AP can use 100% of the available bandwidth in your house. If your neighbours are using Wifi, their AP will be trying to do exactly the same. Both systems can't use the same bandwidth at the same time interference free, so there are loads of mechanisms in Wifi to share the spectrum, but doing that reduces the actual throughput you get.
A couple of things to check:
1. Speed on laptop when connected to the router via Cat5e Ethernet cable or better. Turn the Wi-Fi off on the laptop then run a speed test. Assuming that’s ok proceed to next step
2. If the main deco mesh has two Ethernet ports, connect the deco to the router with the cat 5E cable, then use another cat5e Ethernet cable to connect to the laptop. Then any other deco units off.
Test again with the Wi-Fi turned off - if the speed is slow it’s because the deco Ethernet ports run at 100mbps . If the speed is good the only other variable is the speed of the deco units - you’ll need wifi5 support or similar. If the speed is good connected to the first deco unit, go to step 3.
3. Turn the rest of the deco units. Plug the laptop into each one with Ethernet (keep Wi-Fi turned off) and that will give you a good idea of the speed across the nodes. If the nodes are too far apart you won’t get good speeds. Likewise if the nodes are connected to each other using dual band wifi.