Low WiFi speed

[stanzlavos]

Hi All

 

I have an AC1200 Netgear R6220 router. My internet connection speed just got upgraded to 250 Mbps (from 150). All numbers below are when using the 5 GHz band.

 

When using a wired connection, I get the full speed. I use an android app called "Wi-Fi SweetSpot" to check my router capability - it shows close to 500 Mbps when near it (same room) and around 350 Mbps in the next room (1 brick wall). But my internet speed peaks at around 200 Mbps (more like 180 Mbps on average) when on WiFi.

 

Any specific reason for this ? Or is it that the app is just showing wrong numbers ? Or is it my phone (Oneplus 6) that is the bottleneck ? (My desktop also uses the onboard WiFi on the Asus Rampage V Extreme and shows similar numbers).

 

I was planning on upgrading my router. Decided to wait for a year for 802.11ax routers/devices to go mainstream. Or should I ?

[WereCatf]

2 minutes ago, stanzlavos said:

brick wall

That's your bottleneck. Brick-walls limit WiFi-signals quite effectively and especially 5GHz-signals. Test with 2.4GHz as well. In all likelyhood, though, you may have to buy a 2nd router.

[stanzlavos]

5 hours ago, WereCatf said:

That's your bottleneck. Brick-walls limit WiFi-signals quite effectively and especially 5GHz-signals. Test with 2.4GHz as well. In all likelyhood, though, you may have to buy a 2nd router.

As I had mentioned, the test app shows speeds around 500 Mbps when in the same room (Not internet speed, but my router capacity, at 5Ghz) . Now, I don't know how reliable that app is or how it makes this measurement. I also tried another app from the play store, which showed similar numbers. You could also suggest some way to test this reliably. I, ofcourse, don't have access to tools like IXIA/Spirent traffic generators. Can something be done using iperf?

 

[stanzlavos]

25 minutes ago, Grand Admiral Thrawn said:

Personally, I use WiFiman from Ubiquiti. It shows a real-time speed and is usually accurate.

Tried it. This tests my internet connection speed. I want to know my router capacity.

 

And btw, tried iperf between two laptops. Showed less than 100 Mbps, which I know is not correct.

[WereCatf]

43 minutes ago, stanzlavos said:

the test app shows speeds around 500 Mbps when in the same room (Not internet speed, but my router capacity, at 5Ghz)

From a quick glance, it only seems to display the connection-speed, not how fast actual data can be transmitted. They are two different things, like e.g. if there are multiple devices transferring data at the same time, they could all theoretically have a 500Mbps connection-speed, but they all would only get a fraction of that because there's only a limited amount of air-time available and they all have to share it.

 

As for how to test how fast you can actually transfer data...connect some PC to the router via Ethernet, setup a simple HTTP-server and copy a file from it using WiFi.

[stanzlavos]

15 hours ago, WereCatf said:

As for how to test how fast you can actually transfer data...connect some PC to the router via Ethernet, setup a simple HTTP-server and copy a file from it using WiFi.

Will just sharing the file from windows and then copying over the network achieve the same thing? 

[WereCatf]

5 minutes ago, stanzlavos said:

Will just sharing the file from windows and then copying over the network achieve the same thing? 

It should more-or-less achieve the same thing. I'd also recommend using some reasonably large file, like e.g. 2GB or more, just so the transfer-speed has time to settle.

[stanzlavos]

1 hour ago, WereCatf said:

It should more-or-less achieve the same thing. I'd also recommend using some reasonably large file, like e.g. 2GB or more, just so the transfer-speed has time to settle.

Hosted an FTP server on a laptop connected to the router via ethernet. Tried downloading a 1GB file to my desktop and phone. And the rate peaked at around 200-210. So i guess, I do have to change my router.