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RAX80 wifi speed reduced
I have 400 Mbps download speed from Spectrum and from the beginning I've been getting about 80 download speed on all my wifi devices. Upload has been a steady 20 Mbps. I followed the suggestions in t...
It is very hard with 2 stream WiFi radios. Depending on the model, you will top out at a 400Mbps PHY rate, though due to how noisy the 2.4GHz band is, since it is used by a massive range of other wireless devices, including various high powered comercial transmitters, it is just a noisy band in general.
Smart connect will try to push dual band 802.11ac and 802.11ax devices to the 5GHz band when the SNR is good enough. For example, if your client devices are not capable of using 160MHz channel width, then you will see some beenefit from setting the router to use 80MHz channel width on the 5GHz band, because then you will not be forced into the DFS restrictions, which can make it more likely for smart connect to push your device to the 5GHz band at range.
Which WiFi band are you connected to?
Some or the speeds you described, seems like you are connected to the 2.4GHz band with 20/40MHz coexistence enabled.
PS, with spectrum, always test with with a wired device if relying on a WAN speed test, especially since spectrum, (at least in my area of NY), has horrible consistency in their throughput with the oversold nodes advertising "up to" 400Mbps, but you on;y get that speed at 2-3AM because they refuse to upgrade the infrastructure.
If wired speeds are near your advertised speeds, and WiFi is slow, then provide us with the following info.
- The WiFi band your client device is connected to.
- The PHY rate of the connection (On WIndows 10, you can find it by going to your Network & Internet settings > Status> Properties).
- Network channel
- Channel width
Thank you for the response. I tested it to be sure, WAN is 460 Mbps. However, using WiFi I am getting ~135Mbps.
As I was typing this, to answer your questions about the Wifi, I saw that the computer was connected to the 2.4Ghz when I got the 135Mbps speed. I happened to close the settings and opened it to double check the channel (I believe it was 9) and saw it was connected to the 5Ghz (Ch. 40) at this point. So I reran the test and saw an increase to 270Mbps. If I obtained it correctly, I saw the PHY rate fluctuate from as low as 260 to 520 Mbps.
Hopefully this narrows down the problem.
Hmm, the PHY rates seem as if you have a 2 stream 802.11ac WiFi radio that uses a max channel width of 80MHz (assuming you are not very far from the router.
Do you have any 802.11ax devices? If not, try changing the WiFi radio settings for the 5GHz band from the "Up to 4800 Mbps" setting, to "Up to 2400Mbps" setting.
This will reduce the channel width that the WiFi router will use, to 80MHz from the default 160MHz channel width.
While this will negatively impact the speeds of any 802.11ax device on the 5GHz band, if your devices are 802.11ac, they will see a performance improvement in some cases, as the transmit power will increase from 250mW (FCC imposed transmit power limit when using DFS channels), to around 900mW. It will also avoid latency issues if you happen to use DFS (if you are within 10 miles of an airport).
Beyond that, if channel 40 does not work well or has any other nearby AP on that channel, then try channel 149 (only visible if you reduce the channel width to 80MHz).
A 2 stream 80MHz 802.11ac WiFi radio can often hit around 650Mbps real world throughput with an 866.7Mbps PHY rate under good conditions.
For the 2.4GHz band, it is very difficult to get even 200Mbps reliably due to the congestion and tradeoffs. For example, by default Netgear uses 20/40MHz coexistence which will automatically reduce the channel width from 40MHz, to 20MHz if other APs are detected in range of you. You can disable it to double the 2.4GHz speeds, but it comes at a cost. If you use products such as Hue lights, it will cause reliability issues (e.g., their power powered devices such as the wireless dimmer switches, will not respond reliably. The channel hopping behavior of Bluetooth earbuds will run into issues and you will nave noticeable audio issues if you are downloading a large file over 2.4GHz while in the same room as the router with Bluetooth earbuds.Thus if you can, I recommend weighing options before trying to improve the 2.4GHz throughput. The AP will allow it, but the tradeoffs are often not worth it.
5GHz has room for improvement without any major issues. If you don’t have any 160MHz channel width clients, then stick with 80MHz on the WiFi router’s end.
With and without 20/40MHz Coexistence, I am getting around the 150 Mbps range. It does fluctuate between 135-170. My signal strength at the point of testing was -52dBm for 2.4GHz (-58dBm for 5.0 GHz) and I got as close to the router and I achieved 186 at that time but never came close to 200 Mbps while having Coexistence disabled. I live in a rural area with only 2 other wifi bands casting in my area and they're pretty weak by the time they get to me.
I have not messed around too much with the 5G because at this point I would need to disable Smart Connect, as I do not know another way to connect to 5G directly.
Is it not possible to increase 2.4GHz speed more than that? Is barely pushing 200 Mbps all I can expect?
It is very hard with 2 stream WiFi radios. Depending on the model, you will top out at a 400Mbps PHY rate, though due to how noisy the 2.4GHz band is, since it is used by a massive range of other wireless devices, including various high powered comercial transmitters, it is just a noisy band in general.
Smart connect will try to push dual band 802.11ac and 802.11ax devices to the 5GHz band when the SNR is good enough. For example, if your client devices are not capable of using 160MHz channel width, then you will see some beenefit from setting the router to use 80MHz channel width on the 5GHz band, because then you will not be forced into the DFS restrictions, which can make it more likely for smart connect to push your device to the 5GHz band at range.