Nighthawk R7000 2.4ghz stuck at 80mbps on gigabit internet
Since I got Google Fiber Gigabit internet, in April, I have been unable to get my 2.4ghz band anywhere close to the 600mbps cap. I have only been able to get it to about 85mbps. Is there a known issue or any way to fix this?
Model: R7000|Nighthawk AC1900 Dual Band WiFi Router
Re: Nighthawk R7000 2.4ghz stuck at 80mbps on gigabit internet
TL;DR It's probably normal.
You'll never get 600 Mbps for several reasons:
The R7000's advertised, maximum link speed of 600 Mbps uses a non-standard encoding scheme developed by Broadcom, called TurboQAM. Most devices do not support TurboQAM. The highest, standard speed is actually 450 Mbps.
To achieve a link speed of 450 Mbps requires a device to support 3 spatial streams. Only Macbook Pros, high-end PC laptops and desktops with high-end Wi-Fi adapters support 3 spatial streams. Most smartphones support 1 or 2 spatial streams.
To achieve a link speed of 450 Mbps also requires the use of 40 MHz channels. Wi-Fi standards mandate the use of 20 MHz channels when multiple Wi-Fi networks are active. This cuts the maximum link speed by a little more than half to 216.7 Mbps. A 2 spatial stream device will have a maximum link speed of 144.4 Mbps. 1 spatial stream can do 72.2 Mbps.
Due to the high overhead of Wi-Fi, actual speeds are commonly between 30% and 50% of the link speed.
Put all this together and you can probably expect to see ballpark speeds in the following ranges:
