Slower wifi speed on new phone

[WHADDAYAMEAN]

I've recently switched to a new phone (Samsung Galaxy A51) and noticed slower wifi speed. I'm using a TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND router with 100Mbps connection from ISP. The "Network speed" shown on my new phone is only 65Mbps and I get around 25Mbps in real world. On my old phone (Samsung Galaxy Note 4) the "Link speed" shown is 130Mbps and reaches about 55-60Mbps in real world. The speed is tested on speedtest.net with my phones about 1 meter away from the router.

 

So my questions are:

1. Why is there such a difference? Makes no sense to me that I'm getting slower wifi connection on a phone 5 years newer.

2. Is there anything I can do to improve my connection speed?

 

Main problem right now is that on my new phone, I can barely watch 1080p60 YouTube videos in my room smoothly as it sometimes buffers, even with no other devices connected to the wifi network. This never happened on my old phone. From about 10 meters away from the router (outside my room), I could easily play 480p YouTube videos no problem on my old phone or 720p on a good day, but now on the new phone it barely plays 360p without buffering.

[Kilrah]

1 hour ago, WHADDAYAMEAN said:

1. Why is there such a difference? Makes no sense to me that I'm getting slower wifi connection on a phone 5 years newer.

5 year old flagship and new bottom of the line?

[WHADDAYAMEAN]

1 hour ago, Kilrah said:

5 year old flagship and new bottom of the line?

Still what difference does it make? I don't see why a new phone from late 2019 wouldn't be able to stream 1080p60 videos.

[Kilrah]

Faulty router, faulty phone, interference on the wifi channel your network is on...

You said you had to go down to 720p at 10m already with the other phone which is not normal at all, so there must be something wrong with the network. 

[WHADDAYAMEAN]

Interference definitely plays a role, since I live in a crowded apartment building with quite a lot of 2.4Ghz signals, but what can I do to verify whether this old router is functioning properly? Also, would a new low end router with 5Ghz improve the situation?

[Kilrah]

Use a wi-fi scanner app on your phone to see channel usage, and manually switch to the least used channel for a start, and post a screencap to see how bad it is.

 

5GHz might help if it's not also crowded, you can see that with the scanner as well. 

[Falcon1986]

3 hours ago, WHADDAYAMEAN said:

I'm using a TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND router

Which only has a 2.4GHz antenna...

 

22 minutes ago, WHADDAYAMEAN said:

I live in a crowded apartment building with quite a lot of 2.4Ghz signals

Well, there you go! There's likely a ton of interference.

 

43 minutes ago, WHADDAYAMEAN said:

Still what difference does it make? I don't see why a new phone from late 2019 wouldn't be able to stream 1080p60 videos.

You might have gotten a newer phone, but this could have coincided with more people using WiFi in your apartment. The unfortunate thing is that many home users don't set their WiFi up with consideration for other users on the area, so everyone end up suffering.

 

26 minutes ago, WHADDAYAMEAN said:

what can I do to verify whether this old router is functioning properly?

As @Kilrah mentioned, use WiFi Analyzer (from the Microsoft Store or Google Play Store). Post screenshots of the Analyze and Networks pages. Do this for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz for comparison.

 

28 minutes ago, WHADDAYAMEAN said:

Also, would a new low end router with 5Ghz improve the situation?

Don't cheap out. Adding 5GHz will definitely help, but set a budget and we can help you find something that will perform decently for the money. 

[WHADDAYAMEAN]

Which channel is the best? I really don't know

Seems like 5Ghz won't get any interference tho

[Falcon1986]

2 hours ago, WHADDAYAMEAN said:

Which channel is the best? I really don't know

Based on that analysis: none! Yours would overlap with some other 2.4GHz signal no matter which channel you chose.

 

2 hours ago, WHADDAYAMEAN said:

Seems like 5Ghz won't get any interference tho

Provided yours doesn’t overlap with one of the existing broadcasts.

 

So when you’re setting up your wireless router, do not leave the wireless channel to ‘auto’. Inspect which ones are free using WiFi Analyzer and test.

 

Also keep in mind that wider channels (80MHz and 160MHz) offer higher potential bandwidth, but not all clients can take full advantage of the width and it also causes easier overlapping with neighboring broadcasts. If given the option, stick with 40/80MHz.

[WHADDAYAMEAN]

Thanks for the information, but I still don't understand what causes the difference in connection speed between my 2 phones.

[Kilrah]

Just quality/characteristics basically...

[smokeweedeveryday]

On 10/27/2020 at 8:05 AM, WHADDAYAMEAN said:

I've recently switched to a new phone (Samsung Galaxy A51) and noticed slower wifi speed. I'm using a TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND router with 100Mbps connection from ISP. The "Network speed" shown on my new phone is only 65Mbps and I get around 25Mbps in real world. On my old phone (Samsung Galaxy Note 4) the "Link speed" shown is 130Mbps and reaches about 55-60Mbps in real world. The speed is tested on speedtest.net with my phones about 1 meter away from the router.

 

So my questions are:

1. Why is there such a difference? Makes no sense to me that I'm getting slower wifi connection on a phone 5 years newer.

2. Is there anything I can do to improve my connection speed?

 

Main problem right now is that on my new phone, I can barely watch 1080p60 YouTube videos in my room smoothly as it sometimes buffers, even with no other devices connected to the wifi network. This never happened on my old phone. From about 10 meters away from the router (outside my room), I could easily play 480p YouTube videos no problem on my old phone or 720p on a good day, but now on the new phone it barely plays 360p without buffering.

low link speed on android can indicate interference from competing 2.4ghz signals but also happens when using a wifi repeater or even an AP. are you using one of those by any chance?

[WHADDAYAMEAN]

On 10/29/2020 at 8:59 AM, smokeweedeveryday said:

low link speed on android can indicate interference from competing 2.4ghz signals but also happens when using a wifi repeater or even an AP. are you using one of those by any chance?

Nope. Connecting directly to router.

[Falcon1986]

On 10/27/2020 at 10:16 AM, WHADDAYAMEAN said:

but I still don't understand what causes the difference in connection speed between my 2 phones.

Perhaps it’s the difference in WiFi radios or implementation of antenna layout that is implemented on the older phone. Whatever the reason, you can’t change anything about the newer phone to make it get a faster connection.

 

Also, are you doing these WiFi speed tests while disconnected from cellular data?

 

You have a very busy 2.4GHz wireless airspace that, if you’re lucky, some of your devices might get a stable and fast connection. This will vary depending on the time of day and the amount of activity on 2.4GHz. A WiFi 5 or better wireless router/AP would not just add 5GHz support, but support for other features that improve performance in general compared to what you’re currently using from several generations ago.

[WHADDAYAMEAN]

On 10/31/2020 at 12:23 PM, Falcon1986 said:

Perhaps it’s the difference in WiFi radios or implementation of antenna layout that is implemented on the older phone. Whatever the reason, you can’t change anything about the newer phone to make it get a faster connection.

I see. Kinda weird how there is nearly no information about this on the Internet but whatever.

I'm looking into some "budget friendly" routers right now, I wonder if the ASUS RT-AC66U B1 is good enough.