We have Billion BiPAC 7800N (802.11n) router set up in our house.
The wireless performance is awful.
The maximum speed (even at 30cm range) is 15Mb/s (with 802.11g or 802.11n dongles).
Any suggestions as to what might be causing this issue and how to fix it?
Using the 802.11n Only setting with WPA2 security and AES encryption should at least give the N capable clients much better speeds but the problem is that the wireless G clients won't be able to connect any more. You can also use channel bonding "20-40Mhz" setting to increase bandwidth.
The mixed wireless settings are holding the router back although using mixed N+G you should see at least 54Mbps assuming 5 bars signal strength.
We tried adjusting the (obvious) settings in the web GUI, including changing to N only (the 20-40Mhz option was already set).
We get about 4 bars at about 5m between the router and the Noontec media box (the Noontec has an unlabelled percentage bar graph).
The speed doesn't improve if we connect a wireless N dongle to my friend's laptop (even at point blank range and we tried 2 different N dongles).
I believe that the power output is set to maximum.
Maybe we should turn it down (perhaps we are getting signal distortion effects).
I would have expected to see ~27Mb/s effective speed.
Could it be an antenna problem (we are using the default antennae)?
I think you are referring to the ISP speed which is always greatly reduced when using wireless compared to the wired speed.We tried adjusting the (obvious) settings in the web GUI, including changing to N only (the 20-40Mhz option was already set).
We get about 4 bars at about 5m between the router and the Noontec media box (the Noontec has an unlabelled percentage bar graph).
The speed doesn't improve if we connect a wireless N dongle to my friend's laptop (even at point blank range and we tried 2 different N dongles).
I believe that the power output is set to maximum.
Maybe we should turn it down (perhaps we are getting signal distortion effects).
I would have expected to see ~27Mb/s effective speed.
Could it be an antenna problem (we are using the default antennae)?
That isn't a good number to go by because it's showing the total throughput for the ISP connection after it's slowed down with wireless. About all you can do is work on the WLAN speed and therefore get the most possible throughput to your ISP.
The one to check is the status speed of the wireless connection. If you are seeing 54Mbps or a bit less with 4 bars then that is the best you can do using the mixed settings. I'll post a picture of mine to show. With the n only setting you can do 300-450Mbps depending on the router and NIC.
This is using the new tech standard 802.11ac at 1.1 Gbps which is actually faster than a 1Gb wired connection, this keeps my wireless speed on the LAN the same as my wired one which means my connection speed to the ISP isn't hindered by the wireless connection at all.
I guess I did a poor job of explaining the setup.
Perhaps this picture will help.PC 1 and PC 2 can communicate with:
- Each other at 1 Gb/s
- The Internet at ~6 Mb/s (cable limited by ISP)
- Laptop at 15 Mb/s (wireless)
- Nootec at 15 Mb/s (wireless)
Laptop can communicate with:
- The Internet at ~6 Mb/s (wireless - cable limited by ISP)
- PC 1 and PC 2 at 15 Mb/s (wireless)
- Nootec at 15 Mb/s (wireless)
Last edited by lehnerus2000; 03 Jun 2013 at 22:49. Reason: Clarification
The difference you are seeing in ISP speed between the wired and the wireless machines is fairly typical.I guess I did a poor job of explaining the setup.
Perhaps this picture will help.
PC 1 and PC 2 can communicate with:
Laptop can communicate with:
- Each other at 1 Gb/s
- The Internet at ~6 Mb/s (cable limited by ISP)
- Laptop at 15 Mb/s (wireless)
- Nootec at 15 Mb/s (wireless)
- The Internet at ~6 Mb/s (wireless limited by ISP)
- PC 1 and PC 2 at 15 Mb/s (wireless)
- Nootec at 15 Mb/s (wireless)
About the only way to improve on the wireless performance is to upgrade the one wireless G machine to a wireless N USB NIC then set the router to use the 802.11n Only setting. Wireless N USB NIC's are going for maybe 12-15 bucks these days as the newer standard wireless "ac" brought down the prices on the older technology.
This one setting alone can increase your wireless speed by up to 6 times which would remove a big part of the bottle neck created by this G client.
It's not that the ISP is limiting this it's the one G client forcing the router to work at a much slower rate.
I realise that I will never see more than 6Mb/s when I connect to the Internet (with any device). :)
The ISP speed is limited by our crappy copper pair connection to, and our distance from, the exchange.
The wireless network has no effect.
What I'm referring to is the speed between the Billion 7800N and the other wireless devices.
Neither mode achieves its effective maximum speed, regardless of the range between the router and the device.
802.11g is supposed to have a maximum speed of 54Mb/s.
Even given that 50% of the transmission bits are wasted in overhead, that should still be 27Mb/s (Wikipedia suggests that the speed will be 22Mb/s).
That means that sending a file from either PC should be basically 1.5x - 2x what I currently see when using 802.11g dongles.
802.11n is supposed to have a maximum speed range of 54Mb/s - 600Mb/s.
I should see a Tx/Rx improvement when I use 802.11n dongles only (Noontec disconnected and powered off).
In fact, the 802.11n ONLY network setup still only runs at 15Mb/s (PC to Laptop).
This leads to two options:
- There is an obscure setting somewhere, which has to be changed
- The router is broken and only the 802.11g mode actually works
I just tried a completely different brand of 802.11n router (Tenda W311R).
Its performance is identical to the Billion BiPAC 7800N.
The performance is identical using W7, Arch Linux and Linux Mint 14.
That router also maxes out at 150Mbps, same as the first one. There are quite a few wireless n routers that will do 450Mbps using a pci-e NIC, and 300Mbps using a USB dongle.
Yes I'm aware that the actual transfer rate is about half that. Not to mention that the WiFi speeds on most built in NIC's are only good for 150Mbps max so you should see maybe 70Mbps. The USB dongles are good for 300Mbps but that won't help with these routers.
So you could do better with a different router but no idea why the N Only settings on your wireless are limited to 15Mbps but it usually has to do with the incorrect settings and changing to N only should have helped big time. Of course signal strength is the other factor, less signal strength means slower speeds.
You might try using InSSIDer to determine the best channel to use. Posting the results here might also help me figure out what is wrong.
http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/
A decent N dongle plus one of the faster routers using the 802.11n Only settings plus channel bonding which shows as the 40Mhz setting should be pretty fast.
Last edited by chev65; 05 Aug 2013 at 10:27.
Did the degradation in performance happen recently or has it always been this way? Any new electronics come into or near your home recently? Any new businesses or factories?
You have tried other known working wireless routers, correct? Have you tried other WiFi dongles on your other PCs?
I understand that this issue has nothing to do with your ISP, correct? You are getting your advertised speeds even with the current wireless performance degradation?
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