Why Your Wi-Fi is Slow (And How You Can Fix It)

Kha said:

M1GU31 said:

Kha said:

Omg! 300 mbps! do you know that i'm have only 7.2 mbps
And all my money in it, but silly Telecom Company!

You should be happy i get 5.6mbps download and 0.55mbps upload with at&t and pay around $40 usd for dsl and the phone in a bundle a month but it's what we can afford because the only other internet provider in our area is comcast but they charge like around $80usd and make you sign a contract for 6 months were you only pay around 35$ but it goes up later to like 80-90$usd a month.

Not really 7.2 mbps, that's just a fake number from them!

They say i will get 7.2 mbps speed, and it take many times to open just a webpage with images.

Anyway i'm download a file, and the speed not 7.2!
I don't know how many, but i think not higher than 1 mbps!

Any idea how to speed up my connection?
i was try CPROXY it's good but not enough speed in my region.
Any applications like it?

Thanks in advance :)

you could try manully changing DNS sever by testing your connection with namebench which is what I do when my connection is slowing up and it will show me the two best dns severs for my connection, fastest set for preferred dns sever and 2nd fastest is set for alternative dns sever. Anyways you could google search how to change your dns sever and use namebench to test the connection with the dns severs.

Kha said:

chev65 said:

Nice read Shawn.

People need to understand that WIFI isn't magic. Going through two or three walls and expecting a perfect signal isn't reality. My tests indicate that anything more than two walls will give you average signal strength but it will be far from optimum, three walls will be marginal at best but there are other factors involved like the density of the walls and many other factors.

Installing access points in the ideal locations is what makes WIFI work best. Expecting to have a good signal at the other end of the house after going through a bunch of walls is pure fantasy but people still seem to think it's possible.

Another important point I'd like to make that the article didn't mention. Using the 802.11n Only setting with AES encryption is the only way to achieve full wireless N speed of 300Mbps. Using the mixed settings or using the older and slower TKIP encryption you can't achieve full wireless N speeds because the router needs to slow down it's signal in order to talk to slower wireless standards. Of course you can only do this if all the clients are using wireless N.

Even with this strong signal strength and high speed of this connection if you don't look around for a clean channel you may notice dropped packets and skipping video streaming so channel selection is very important.

Omg! 300 mbps! do you know that i'm have only 7.2 mbps
And all my money in it, but silly Telecom Company!

That speed is really only my LAN speed and in reality the measured speed is typically half that. Using one of the internet speed tests I get 20Mbps on my wireless connection where my wired connection is around 30Mbps. So my ISP isn't the bottle neck.

I can stream HD content from the web perfectly though that wireless connection. The LAN streaming is even better, streaming HD movies is perfect without any skipping. Signal strength and channel selection plus using the settings I mentioned are key here.

Chev65 said it earlier that WiFi isn't magic, I agree. There are several solutions out there if you do some internet hunting and with some planning and smart equipment shopping, you can create a very good WiFi environment for your home, SOHO, etc.

The first thing is to evaluate your environment, you can't plan effectively if you don't perform a proper "recon" of where you intend on installing WiFi services. Think about where you need services first and prioritize zones that are of high, medium to low priority for connectivity. Then consider restraints such as limitations as to where you can put certain things. Obviously you can't put a router/access point where there's no power outlet, etc.

As for the equipment, I tend to choose AP's (access points/routers) with external antenna connectors. Nearly all consumer AP's come with dipole antennas, which provide omnidirectional coverage. While great in an open location when the AP is centralized, it can pose issues when you're in a building with lots of rebar (which absorbs and grounds WiFi signals), lots of walls, water (such as a water heater), etc. Just by switching out a dipole antenna for a more directional one can provide you a 6dbi, 10dbi, or more signal gain in a cone-shaped pattern to areas which need it. For example I use Yagi antennas, such as those that look like a curved ping-pong paddle, sometimes the type that looks like an old school sci-fi laser cannon, sometimes I use a much larger dipole antenna with a much longer coax cable so I can keep the router in one location and run the antenna to a better location.

The last part is about signal strength and quality. Looking at how many "bars" you have doesn't provide meaningful information because there's no rule regulating what a bar of signal actually means. 1 bar of signal doesn't equate to a corresponding dbi value. Each product manufacturer has the freedom of determining what 1 or 5 bars actually mean. However if you want to make accurate measurements, you should always look for ways to observe RSSI/dbi information and not signal bars.

Building on dbi measurements, always keep in mind that the higher the bandwidth (300Mbps vs. 54Mbps), the more it'll be affected by each value of dbi. For example in terms of power, a 3dbi difference is about twice or half the power (depending on whether it's a gain or loss), 6dbi is four times, 10dbi is about 10 times, etc.

M1GU31 said:

Kha said:

chev65 said:

Nice read Shawn.

People need to understand that WIFI isn't magic. Going through two or three walls and expecting a perfect signal isn't reality. My tests indicate that anything more than two walls will give you average signal strength but it will be far from optimum, three walls will be marginal at best but there are other factors involved like the density of the walls and many other factors.

Installing access points in the ideal locations is what makes WIFI work best. Expecting to have a good signal at the other end of the house after going through a bunch of walls is pure fantasy but people still seem to think it's possible.

Another important point I'd like to make that the article didn't mention. Using the 802.11n Only setting with AES encryption is the only way to achieve full wireless N speed of 300Mbps. Using the mixed settings or using the older and slower TKIP encryption you can't achieve full wireless N speeds because the router needs to slow down it's signal in order to talk to slower wireless standards. Of course you can only do this if all the clients are using wireless N.

Even with this strong signal strength and high speed of this connection if you don't look around for a clean channel you may notice dropped packets and skipping video streaming so channel selection is very important.

Omg! 300 mbps! do you know that i'm have only 7.2 mbps
And all my money in it, but silly Telecom Company!

You should be happy i get 5.6mbps download and 0.55mbps upload with at&t and pay around $40 usd for dsl and the phone in a bundle a month but it's what we can afford because the only other internet provider in our area is comcast but they charge like around $80usd and make you sign a contract for 6 months were you only pay around 35$ but it goes up later to like 80-90$usd a month.

Mine is worst, i have 3.0 mbps....