Why is my wifi so much worse than a wired connection?

[ArtSlam]

Hi, so background - I live in the countryside and the internet is delivered via 4G (traditionaly broadband only delivers speed of 2Mbps). I have tested speeds on both Speedtest.net and testmy.net.

 

I have a Huawei b593s-22 as the router, the mobile network is virgin. The download speed is stable, 0 jitter, 45 ping and 53 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up.

Over wifi however, there is massive inconsistency between devices (even in the same room as the router). For example, on my Galaxy Note 9 mobile phone it recives a download speed of 15.4 Mbps and an Upload speed of 11.0 Mbps, with a ping of 58ms, jitter of 36ms and loss 0 %. On my Windows laptop (Acer v7-581 i5) it receives a download speed of 3Mbps and 15 Mbps upload. This happens with multiple devices basically ~ Through ethernet, the connection is solid and consistent across devices (such as firestick using testmy.net on browser) but through wifi it's slow and unresponsive.

 

Does anyone have any idea why it's doing this? Surely there shouldnt be such a discrepency! It's at the point where sometimes the wireless devices hang and dont load pages for a minute or 2.

[Jae Tee]

strictly i'd say you're seeing a difference due to different antenna optimization. surely you realize wired can handle more bandwidth the wireless(was that your qustion?)

[ArtSlam]

Whilst i understand this, i dont understand why antenna differences would be so extreme? When i was at university, this wasnt an issue. All my devices worked fine on university provided wifi in my accommodation. Phone got about 70 Mbps, as did the laptop. My laptop struggling to hit 3Mbps on this network and my phone being anything from 10-20 Mbps doesnt seem like normal behaviour?

[GDRRiley]

4 minutes ago, ArtSlam said:

Whilst i understand this, i dont understand why antenna differences would be so extreme? When i was at university, this wasnt an issue. All my devices worked fine on university provided wifi in my accommodation. Phone got about 70 Mbps, as did the laptop. My laptop struggling to hit 3Mbps on this network and my phone being anything from 10-20 Mbps doesnt seem like normal behaviour?

maybe the antenna wire fell off on the laptop. open it up and look.

quote people so they know you responded.

[Jae Tee]

15 minutes ago, ArtSlam said:

Whilst i understand this, i dont understand why antenna differences would be so extreme? When i was at university, this wasnt an issue. All my devices worked fine on university provided wifi in my accommodation. Phone got about 70 Mbps, as did the laptop. My laptop struggling to hit 3Mbps on this network and my phone being anything from 10-20 Mbps doesnt seem like normal behaviour?

It's funny. Literally today's Techqukie may have an answer.

[Alex Atkin UK]

18 hours ago, ArtSlam said:

Whilst i understand this, i dont understand why antenna differences would be so extreme? When i was at university, this wasnt an issue. All my devices worked fine on university provided wifi in my accommodation. Phone got about 70 Mbps, as did the laptop. My laptop struggling to hit 3Mbps on this network and my phone being anything from 10-20 Mbps doesnt seem like normal behaviour?

I think its simply that the Huawei b593s-22 has crap WiFi, its certainly going to be vastly inferior to what a University would use.

[mikestrong88]

It will be down to poor WiFi antennae in the Huawei. 

 

Think about it, that unit is like £100/$100 for a 4G modem, WAP, 4 port switch etc etc. Where as your university would have likely been using a WAP for double the cost and has a single job. 

 

If you want something better, I'd suggest a full fledged router with much better WiFi technology with the ability to add a 4G sim in it and use that. Maybe something like the DrayTek Vigor 2862AC

[Donut417]

On 2/11/2020 at 1:33 PM, ArtSlam said:

Surely there shouldnt be such a discrepency!

WiFi is effected by many things. 

 

First of all distnace from the router matters. The further away the slower it can get. Secondly is interfrence. Unlike Ethernet WiFi is suseptable to interfrence. Such as other devices using the band(s), walls (building matterials matter), weather (moisture in the air) and the limitations placed on WiFi by the government. 

 

To go deeper, the range you will get will vary. Based on WiFi standard, and band that is being used. 2.4 Ghz generally has great range, as the lowest of the bands that WiFi uses. Lower the band the better the range and penitration power, but the slower it is. The Higher the band such as 5Ghz the faster it is but it wont pentrate as well or have as good of range. WiFi standards also matter, as Wireless G topped out at 54 Mbps occording to the standard, N topped out at 150 to 450 Mbps depends on the equipment used, most people bought the shitty 150 Mbps stuff and AC, AX, and AD can go a hell of a lot faster.

 

Next is interfrence. Bluetooth, Baby monitors, cordless phones, wireless keyboards/Mice/Headsets, Microwaves, ect all use 2.4 Ghz. Microwaves for instace can knock out a WiFi network pretty easily, and they are suppose to be sheilded. So keep your router away from your Microwave. 2.4 Ghz and 5Ghz dont require a license to use, but are heavily regualted by the government for how much transmit power they can use. Part of the 5Ghz spectrum is used by radar, those would be the DFS channels. While I think its mainly a 2.4 Ghz thing, moisture in the air can effect WiFi signal. Ive seen storms roll thru and my WiFi signal would become weaker while the storm was happening. Building materials of your home will make a diffrence. Some places in the world they build houses out of concrete, guess what? WiFi doesnt like concreate bunker construction much, 2.4 Ghz might make it thru, but 5Ghz is highly doubtful. Wood and Drywall is the best bet, Plaster while thicker is also not too bad. 

[Durake]

Donut417 did an excellent job explaining it..

 

You can compare wireless to driving on a highway, you have other vehicles on the road with you, weather conditions, and other vehicle crashes. Which sometimes can be fixed or mitigated by changing wireless channel/frequency or bandwidth.

 

Or, if you have ethernet, it's like using the tollway or HOV lane which gets you a direct road to your destination without loads of other vehicles, crashes, etc.