Wifi 6 speed limit S23 ultra

[Ceml]

Hello, I have 10g connection 8.5/1, with wifi 6 access points, I can't get higher speed with my phone, do I need wifi 6e or 7 for higher? I know that s23 ultra supports 6e but idk about 7.

[Lurick]

The S23 only supports up to 6E, I'm not sure even the S24 will bring WiFi 7 support at this moment.

Honestly though how much are you downloading on your phone that you need these absurd wireless speeds on your phone?

 

Edit:

Honestly for WiFi 6 (not 6E) those speeds are pretty good.

[Ceml]

2 minutes ago, Lurick said:

The S23 only supports up to 6E, I'm not sure even the S24 will bring WiFi 7 support at this moment.

Honestly though how much are you downloading on your phone that you need these absurd wireless speeds on your phone?

 

Edit:

Honestly for WiFi 6 (not 6E) those speeds are pretty good.

i just love high speed internet, everything little faster makes me Kreygasm, what should i get (speed) if i upgrade to 6E Access points? or should i directly get wifi7 access point(that does also 6e right) its just futureproofing ?

[Lurick]

1 hour ago, Ceml said:

i just love high speed internet, everything little faster makes me Kreygasm, what should i get (speed) if i upgrade to 6E Access points? or should i directly get wifi7 access point(that does also 6e right) its just futureproofing ?

Honestly 6E is more dependent on distance and walls in the way that 6 because of the 6GHz spectrum so unless you want to stand within 10 feet of your AP all the time you won't see much difference.

Wifi is backwards compatible so yes a 7 would work with 6E (6E is WiFi 6 with 6GHz spectrum and some other features)

I've got a S22 Ultra(which has 6E as well) and have pretty solid 6E APs and get about 1800Mbps up/down when standing near the APs but in general I get about 1300 to 1500Mbps.

[Smith6612]

1.6-1.8Gbps is around the expected max for the S23 series devices at VHT160 mode. Realistically you should only be achieving speeds like that with WiFi 6E, since it's bad practice with other networks around to operate a 160Mhz channel on 5Ghz.

[Alex Atkin UK]

13 minutes ago, Smith6612 said:

1.6-1.8Gbps is around the expected max for the S23 series devices at VHT160 mode. Realistically you should only be achieving speeds like that with WiFi 6E, since it's bad practice with other networks around to operate a 160Mhz channel on 5Ghz.

Not just the S23, that's pretty much the maximum you will ever get out of WiFi period right now.

 

They're going to need WiFi 7 to get any faster and even then they wont be pushing 10Gbit over WiFi 7 either and I'd expect phones might be more conservative about using all bands at the same time as its going to murder battery life.

 

Its also moot given most services on the Internet wont even hit Gigabit.  There's no point using speedtest as a guide to how fast your device is going to work, because no real-world situation is ever going to achieve that.

 

2 hours ago, Lurick said:

Honestly for WiFi 6 (not 6E) those speeds are pretty good.

They're more than "pretty good", I'm using a business grade AP and can't go that fast.  They are literally hitting the limit of WiFi 6, they must have zero interference.  Its almost impossible to achieve those speeds outside of lab conditions.

[Smith6612]

3 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Not just the S23, that's pretty much the maximum you will ever get out of WiFi period right now.

 

They're going to need WiFi 7 to get any faster and even then they wont be pushing 10Gbit over WiFi 7 either and I'd expect phones might be more conservative about using all bands at the same time as its going to murder battery life.

 

Its also moot given most services on the Internet wont even hit Gigabit.  There's no point using speedtest as a guide to how fast your device is going to work, because no real-world situation is ever going to achieve that.

You can go above 1.8Gbps with Wi-Fi 6 and 6E. For example if you use two access points in a point to point bridge with a 4x4 radio or better and downlink through Ethernet. Client side, yep. Everyone has moved to the 2x2 spatial stream party due to power concerns and antenna complexity. But also because of MU-MIMO and OFDMA benefitting from client grouping.

 

Granted, I use Enterprise APs at home with 2.5Gbps Ethernet uplinks. So my max on such a point to point link would be 2.5Gbps (and it's a half duplex run between the two because wireless, Ethernet would be full duplex of course). If I went higher in the price bracket I could get higher end radios, 5Gbps Ethernet, etc.

[Alex Atkin UK]

13 minutes ago, Smith6612 said:

You can go above 1.8Gbps with Wi-Fi 6 and 6E. For example if you use two access points in a point to point bridge with a 4x4 radio or better and downlink through Ethernet. Client side, yep. Everyone has moved to the 2x2 spatial stream party due to power concerns and antenna complexity. But also because of MU-MIMO and OFDMA benefitting from client grouping.

All I can say is when I asked Zyxel themselves about my own AP, they said 1.6Gbit was the maximum they could hit in lab conditions.

 

The fact you mentioned it only goes up to 1.8Gbit at 4x4 (when you'd expect much more than that when doubling the spacial streams) shows its right at the limit.  These devices are designed for MU-MIMO, not pushing 4x4 to a single client.  Although I've never seen the actual real-world benefit of MU-MIMO, I suspect its more about keeping lots of lower bandwidth clients working well (business and public WiFi) rather than two high bandwidth ones.

 

You'd need wider channel widths and multiple concurrent frequencies to get higher, which is exactly what WiFi 7 will bring.  These things however are absolutely not worth the battery life cost in a phone, so I doubt they will fully support it.

 

My Macbook Pro M1 wont even support 160Mhz channel width, although it gets awfully close to as good performance sometimes at 80Mhz.  Although all my devices struggle to get over Gigabit, likely due to some sort of interference.

[seanondemand]

There's a good chance whatever server you're speedtesting on is getting maxed out. In 2023, over 1gbps is basically pointless for internet speed, especially for your phone. Phones are never going to hit the fastest wifi speeds a standard supports because they just can't pack the same amount of antenna hardware that you could in, say, a laptop - it's more about letting more devices pull more bandwidth all at the same time.

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 hour ago, seanondemand said:

There's a good chance whatever server you're speedtesting on is getting maxed out. In 2023, over 1gbps is basically pointless for internet speed, especially for your phone. Phones are never going to hit the fastest wifi speeds a standard supports because they just can't pack the same amount of antenna hardware that you could in, say, a laptop - it's more about letting more devices pull more bandwidth all at the same time.

Its pointless on a phone, not overall.  The point is so that say a Steam download can go as fast as possible while still having enough bandwidth left for other devices on the network.  Not an uncommon scenario in a family home.

As for phones not hitting the maximum WiFi speed, I've found the opposite.  My S10 at 80Mhz channel width matches most of the devices I have that support 160Mhz.  Phones have more much advanced antennas than other devices so can work surprisingly well.

 

Laptop antennas while being larger are also further apart and more basic, so better chance for catching a signal but possibly (it gets really complicated with how spacial streams work) less chance of MIMO working as effectively.

[Smith6612]

1.8Gbps max is between a 2x2 radio and a 4x4 base station. 4x4 radio to a 4x4 base station does achieve around 3Gbps.

 

With the M1 chip, Apple seemed to take the same chip they use in iPads and bring it to the Mac. I noticed the lack of VHT160 support on it but, at the same time, noticed it has 802.11r support on WPA2 Personal networks (historically 802.11r only worked with WPA2 Enterprise) just like iOS devices have. But at the same time, I've  had field trouble with the M1's wireless chipset not behaving correctly with VHT20 channels in use on a network, and dropping packets across several AP models/couple brands/different AP chipset vendors.

 

I imagine the main reason Apple didn't include VHT160 support in the M1's Wireless radio just has to do with the lack of support it has in many consumer routers, and how uncommon it is in Enterprise. At least until VERY recently, in the US, usage of 160Mhz channels required the use of DFS channels. Most consumer routers lack certification or support for operation in that range.

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 hour ago, Smith6612 said:

1.8Gbps max is between a 2x2 radio and a 4x4 base station. 4x4 radio to a 4x4 base station does achieve around 3Gbps.

 

With the M1 chip, Apple seemed to take the same chip they use in iPads and bring it to the Mac. I noticed the lack of VHT160 support on it but, at the same time, noticed it has 802.11r support on WPA2 Personal networks (historically 802.11r only worked with WPA2 Enterprise) just like iOS devices have. But at the same time, I've  had field trouble with the M1's wireless chipset not behaving correctly with VHT20 channels in use on a network, and dropping packets across several AP models/couple brands/different AP chipset vendors.

 

I imagine the main reason Apple didn't include VHT160 support in the M1's Wireless radio just has to do with the lack of support it has in many consumer routers, and how uncommon it is in Enterprise. At least until VERY recently, in the US, usage of 160Mhz channels required the use of DFS channels. Most consumer routers lack certification or support for operation in that range.

What bothered me is having two 2x2 MU-MIMO clients connected, they still seemed to get a combined speed of about 1.4Gbit.  Its possible I was wrong and one of the devices wasn't MU-MIMO, but overall I saw a few reports suggesting MU-MIMO has so much overhead it doesn't work very well.  I mean I never expected to be able to do two full-speed clients, but I didn't expect it to behave the same as normal MIMO, where they get half each.

 

You could be right about lack of DFS support, I had a few devices that didn't support DFS and the ones that did weren't great.  Its part of what pushed me to Enterprise APs with the NanoHD and then the NWA210AX, as even when supported I found consumer devices can suffer false DFS hits and not follow the rules properly (dropping to channel 36 but never moving back to the original channel).  Come to think of it as I recall even the NanoHD suffered the latter problem sometimes, the Zyxel has not.  I guess you get what you pay for given the NWA is a lot more expensive.

I'd been using OpenWRT before that which also had trouble with DFS for a long time.

[seanondemand]

15 hours ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Its pointless on a phone, not overall.  The point is so that say a Steam download can go as fast as possible while still having enough bandwidth left for other devices on the network.  Not an uncommon scenario in a family home.

As for phones not hitting the maximum WiFi speed, I've found the opposite.  My S10 at 80Mhz channel width matches most of the devices I have that support 160Mhz.  Phones have more much advanced antennas than other devices so can work surprisingly well.

 

Laptop antennas while being larger are also further apart and more basic, so better chance for catching a signal but possibly (it gets really complicated with how spacial streams work) less chance of MIMO working as effectively.

I mean, I'm all for "fast download go brrrr", but if you really need that kind of bandwidth, you know who you are and you're already running a 10g nic and have the equipment in your closet to match - otherwise, yes, it's not pointless for consumers... but it's not point-ful either, IMO. There's a reason most consumer computers are still coming with networking equipment that can't break 1gb - few are touching that.

[Alex Atkin UK]

3 hours ago, seanondemand said:

I mean, I'm all for "fast download go brrrr", but if you really need that kind of bandwidth, you know who you are and you're already running a 10g nic and have the equipment in your closet to match - otherwise, yes, it's not pointless for consumers... but it's not point-ful either, IMO. There's a reason most consumer computers are still coming with networking equipment that can't break 1gb - few are touching that.

Most consumer computers come with 2.5Gbit now.

[Smith6612]

On 10/1/2023 at 11:36 PM, Alex Atkin UK said:

What bothered me is having two 2x2 MU-MIMO clients connected, they still seemed to get a combined speed of about 1.4Gbit.  Its possible I was wrong and one of the devices wasn't MU-MIMO, but overall I saw a few reports suggesting MU-MIMO has so much overhead it doesn't work very well.  I mean I never expected to be able to do two full-speed clients, but I didn't expect it to behave the same as normal MIMO, where they get half each.

 

You could be right about lack of DFS support, I had a few devices that didn't support DFS and the ones that did weren't great.  Its part of what pushed me to Enterprise APs with the NanoHD and then the NWA210AX, as even when supported I found consumer devices can suffer false DFS hits and not follow the rules properly (dropping to channel 36 but never moving back to the original channel).  Come to think of it as I recall even the NanoHD suffered the latter problem sometimes, the Zyxel has not.  I guess you get what you pay for given the NWA is a lot more expensive.

I'd been using OpenWRT before that which also had trouble with DFS for a long time.

Yep. The False DFS hits are a problem I encounter a fair amount, whether Ubiquiti or another vendor. It is usually from cheap Android phones running Wi-Fi probes and tripping the DFS radar detection. I've also had Wi-Fi hidden nodes (other APs specifically) trigger it when they come up/down. There was also one bug with 160Mhz wide channels in 5Ghz causing DFS radar detection to trip. Now, as far as UniFi APs are concerned, I know there were some firmware versions where the APs would get stuck on Channel 36 and never go back. In my experience they have a 24 hour timer before they jump back to the DFS channel, and that seems to be working reliably these days.

 

As for devices not supporting DFS, that annoys me a ton about devices like Roku, Smart TVs, and so on. They put the cheapest wireless radios in those things (usually 1x1 VHT20 things... with MIMO only being marketing for Antenna Diversity from the 802.11g days) and then don't bother to get them certified for DFS. This is despite the fact that DFS support is pretty common these days on ISP Routers, and on the higher end consumer routers. In Enterprise environments where those IoT devices are being used, it's also an issue, because Enterprise systems are often configured for DFS due to client density. The last thing you want is for IoT devices to connect to something much further away than they should be just because they lack channel support.

 

The problem I find with MU-MIMO is it only applies to downlink traffic on most devices, notably 802.11ac Wave 2 devices. Uplink wasn't accounted for until WiFi 6, and it's pretty rare for devices to only have downlink traffic not accompanied by uplink traffic. Ethernet broadcasts and multicasts are usually the only thing causing such a thing to happen, and that's not something you want on a Wi-Fi link either... not without Unicasting it first in most cases. The client would still have to radio back that it received the frame anyways unless the multicast traffic is in fact, multicast... at a rate no higher than 54Mbps and no slower than 1Mbps >.< . Where I've seen MU-MIMO even with 802.11ac make a difference is in ultra density situations where you have a mix of 1x1 and 2x2 devices, where bandwidth flowing into the devices is more steady, not necessarily faster.

 

Now if only APs/radio drivers would expose the MU Grouping information... that would help prove whether MU-MIMO is more snake oil or actually doing something.

[Ceml]

Can i connect the fiber cable that is coming from outside directly to unifi dream machine instead of the Nokia box and also unplugging the isp router? or other unifi device that works ? also for blocking my isp seeing what i do in home which device is best, dream machine pro, se, or do i need uxg-pro to be completly unvisible to isp with staying higher speed internet still?(also what gives ck-enterprise extra for security and other?) Thank you

[Alex Atkin UK]

3 minutes ago, Ceml said:

Can i connect the fiber cable that is coming from outside directly to unifi dream machine instead of the Nokia box and also unplugging the isp router? or other unifi device that works ? also for blocking my isp seeing what i do in home which device is best, dream machine pro, se, or do i need uxg-pro to be completly unvisible to isp with staying higher speed internet still?(also what gives ck-enterprise extra for security and other?) Thank you

You cannot remove the Nokia box but you may be able to remove their router for your own, depending on how it works and if they will provide the login credentials (if required).