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R9000 2.4GHz band too wide
I purchased the Netgear Nighthawk R9000 router to replace my older R7000 and began to hard wire certain devices in my house. (TVs, PS4, Office computers...) I have noticed on the new R9000 router th...
In your last reply, you meant to say Mbps, not MHz.
Anyway, it may seem like the R9000 is slower, but that's not really the case.
The maximum 2.4 GHz speeds supported by the R9000 (800 Mbps) and R7000 (600 Mbps) use non-standard modulation, 256-QAM. You would need a device that supports 256-QAM. Well, there really isn't any computer or smartphone that supports it. The fastest, standard speeds are really 600 Mbps and 450 Mbps, respectively.
But these are speeds using 40 MHz channels. With 20 MHz channels, these speeds drop to 289 Mbps and 217 Mbps, respectively.
But there is a second requirement to hit those respective speeds. The R9000 requires a device to support 4 streams. The R7000 requires 3 streams. High-end laptops, like Macbook Pros and premium PC laptops, support 3 streams. All smartphones use either 1 or 2 streams. There are only a handful of Wi-Fi adapters that support 4 streams and, AFAIK, they all require a PCI-E slot in a desktop computer. Unless you have one of these rare adapters, your devices are going to use between 1 and 3 streams. The R9000 can obviously handle devices with fewer than 4 streams; it will basically perform that same as the R7000. Yes, that means that the R9000's 4th stream isn't really going to do you much good.
I think you will do well to return the R9000 and hardwire as much as possible. Ethernet is more reliable, has lower latency and is, for the moment, faster than Wi-Fi.
TL;DR Change the 2.4 GHz mode setting to Up to 347 Mbps. This will force the use of 20 MHz channels.
Technically, Wi-Fi standards allow routers to use 40 MHz channels in the 2.4 GHz band when no other nearby Wi-Fi networks are detected. They must drop down to 20 MHz channels, provided that the 20/40 MHz Coexistance setting is enabled. Your R9000 must be failing to detect other nearby networks, or perhaps it has a bug.
Netgear is quirky in that there isn't an obvious way to force the use of 20 MHz channels. It's not the 20/40 MHz Coexistance setting! The way to force 20 MHz channels is to reduce the Wireless mode setting to Up to 347 Mbps. If you live in a neighbor with other active Wi-Fi networks, then I recommend you change this setting. As you probably know, using 40 MHz channels is very un-neighborly.
Thank you for the quick response. I dropped the max speed from 800 Mhz to 347 Mhz as suggested on my R9000 2.4Ghz.
Ran a network scan again with my Android Wifi Analyzer and sure enough, the band is now narrower on chans. 9-13.
My R7000 set the same way can reach 2.4 Ghz speeds of 600 Mhz, so the R9000 is actually slower? I bought the R9000 to facilitate faster streaming on wireless devices (R9000 up to 800 Mhz, R7000 up to 600 Mhz.) and now I have to slow it to almost half what I had on the R7000
to keep from overlapping neighboring networks? Am I reading that right? If so, I will return the R9000 and stick with my R7000 and hard wire in as many devices as I can with a 16-port gigabit switch.
In your last reply, you meant to say Mbps, not MHz.
Anyway, it may seem like the R9000 is slower, but that's not really the case.
The maximum 2.4 GHz speeds supported by the R9000 (800 Mbps) and R7000 (600 Mbps) use non-standard modulation, 256-QAM. You would need a device that supports 256-QAM. Well, there really isn't any computer or smartphone that supports it. The fastest, standard speeds are really 600 Mbps and 450 Mbps, respectively.
But these are speeds using 40 MHz channels. With 20 MHz channels, these speeds drop to 289 Mbps and 217 Mbps, respectively.
But there is a second requirement to hit those respective speeds. The R9000 requires a device to support 4 streams. The R7000 requires 3 streams. High-end laptops, like Macbook Pros and premium PC laptops, support 3 streams. All smartphones use either 1 or 2 streams. There are only a handful of Wi-Fi adapters that support 4 streams and, AFAIK, they all require a PCI-E slot in a desktop computer. Unless you have one of these rare adapters, your devices are going to use between 1 and 3 streams. The R9000 can obviously handle devices with fewer than 4 streams; it will basically perform that same as the R7000. Yes, that means that the R9000's 4th stream isn't really going to do you much good.
I think you will do well to return the R9000 and hardwire as much as possible. Ethernet is more reliable, has lower latency and is, for the moment, faster than Wi-Fi.
Well I gave the R9000 a chance. I had to return it, it is not living up to the hype and not meeting my needs. Sorry Netgear.
I am really disapointed with the firmware configuration options and in order to stay friendly with neighboring networks I have to reduce
the bandwidth to almost half what my R7000 can provide now on both 2.4G and 5G bands.