Wi-Fi with extender is slower than without

[Andreas Lilja]

So basically I bought this device and I'm getting roughly 120 mbps. It's marketed as 1200 mbps.

 

Without I'm getting 400-500 mbps easy. I thought I were going to have better speeds. Should I return it?

[ddennis002]

4 minutes ago, Andreas Lilja said:

So basically I bought this device and I'm getting roughly 120 mbps. It's marketed as 1200 mbps.

 

Without I'm getting 400-500 mbps easy. I thought I were going to have better speeds. Should I return it?

What model of router and extender do you have?

[Andreas Lilja]

1 minute ago, ddennis002 said:

What model of router and extender do you have?

Extender is NETGEAR EX6120, router is Netgear Nighthawk R7000.
 

[ddennis002]

3 minutes ago, Andreas Lilja said:

Extender is NETGEAR EX6120, router is Netgear Nighthawk R7000.
 

what devices are you using to test? Also are your 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz network separated or do they share the same SSID?

[Andreas Lilja]

Just now, ddennis002 said:

what devices are you using to test? Also are your 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz network separated or do they share the same SSID?

My laptop, a ASUS Zephyrus GX701. 2Ghz and 5Ghz are separate. Right now I have two 2Ghzs and two 5Ghzs, if we include the extender.

[ddennis002]

8 minutes ago, Andreas Lilja said:

My laptop, a ASUS Zephyrus GX701. 2Ghz and 5Ghz are separate. Right now I have two 2Ghzs and two 5Ghzs, if we include the extender.

Is the extender broadcasting the same SSID's as the R7000?

[Andreas Lilja]

38 minutes ago, ddennis002 said:

Is the extender broadcasting the same SSID's as the R7000?

Extender created its own SSIDs after install. Like instead of Potato1 I have Potato1_EXT

[Donut417]

3 hours ago, Andreas Lilja said:

So basically I bought this device and I'm getting roughly 120 mbps. It's marketed as 1200 mbps.

 

Without I'm getting 400-500 mbps easy. I thought I were going to have better speeds. Should I return it?

WiFi extenders are known to cut your bandwidth in half. This is due to how most extenders work. 

[Andreas Lilja]

2 hours ago, Donut417 said:

WiFi extenders are known to cut your bandwidth in half. This is due to how most extenders work. 

0 mention of this on the store page. Thanks for sharing such a crucial thing.

[Donut417]

5 minutes ago, Andreas Lilja said:

0 mention of this on the store page. Thanks for sharing such a crucial thing

Its not there job. Plus many people even sales people probably dont know. Most people who want extenders are using them do kill dead spots and they dont care about the performance issues. The reason Extenders suck, is because the router transmits to them and then they transmit to the device, then the device transmits to the extenders and so on and so forth. So you added an extra step. 

 

Some extenders or Mesh type of networking products have a dedicate radio for back haul instead of using the same radio to communicate with the devices in question. These tend to work a bit better. Some examples include Google WiFI and the Netgear orbi. However the best method to extend WiFi is to run a Ethernet Cable from the router to an access point place where you need WiFi. 

[Andreas Lilja]

12 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Its not there job. Plus many people even sales people probably dont know. Most people who want extenders are using them do kill dead spots and they dont care about the performance issues. The reason Extenders suck, is because the router transmits to them and then they transmit to the device, then the device transmits to the extenders and so on and so forth. So you added an extra step. 

 

Some extenders or Mesh type of networking products have a dedicate radio for back haul instead of using the same radio to communicate with the devices in question. These tend to work a bit better. Some examples include Google WiFI and the Netgear orbi. However the best method to extend WiFi is to run a Ethernet Cable from the router to an access point place where you need WiFi. 

Good thing Amazon offers refunds even you ran it over with your car. 

 

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

You get what you pay for especially with extenders.

 

I see no mention of MIMO on this either, suggesting its probably a 1x1 device which halves the typical speed of WiFi 5/AC on 5Ghz to begin with.

 

So that explains why you are getting around 1/4 of the speed, the link back to the main WiFi is half of what your client is probably capable of, then the fact its transmitting and receiving on the same channel at the same time, so its effectively putting twice as much traffic on the channel at half the bandwidth available on the main WiFi AP.