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I recently upgraded my modem and router so I could add more devices and get higher speeds. I purchased the Netgear Nighthawk CM2000 cable modem and the Nighthawk RS700S Wifi 7 router. According to the specs, this pair should be more than capable of handling 200+ devices and delivering more up to 2.5 Gbps internet download speeds.
My ISP has confirmed they are delivering internet at around 1.7Gbps to my home. However when I measured the speeds with the stand-alone Speedtest app, I could never get more than 970 Mbps. Upload speed was fine (40-50Mbps) but download speeds are nowhere near what I expected.
I then ran a speed test from within the Nighthawk app and it showed speeds around 1,600 Mbps. I assume this is measuring the speed that the router is receiving and the stand-alone Speedtest app on my iPad, iPhone and Macbook measures what the device is receiving (and is not close to 1,600Mbps).
So it raises several questions that I am reaching out to the community for input on:
1. Why are the download speeds so different when measured via the Nighthawk app vs. the stand-alone Speedtest app?
2. Does the Nighthawk app measure the download speed coming into the router and the Speedtest app the speed at the device (Macbook, iPad, iPhone, etc.)?
3. If the Speedtest app measures the speed at the device, why is it so much less than the speed coming into the router as measured by the Nighthawk app?
4. What can I do to enable the devices to show speeds that are actually above 1,000Mbps (or 0.977 Gbps)?
I attached a short supporting file that helps to illustrate this anomaly. Any help to answer these four questions would be much appreciated.
1. Why are the download speeds so different when measured via the Nighthawk app vs. the stand-alone Speedtest app?
The Nighthawk app tests the speed to the WAN interface on the RS700. It completely ignores LAN-side/your local network
2. Does the Nighthawk app measure the download speed coming into the router and the Speedtest app the speed at the device (Macbook, iPad, iPhone, etc.)?
Correct. The Nighthawk app is measuring Internet > WAN, the speedtest app is testing Internet > WAN > WLAN > device
3. If the Speedtest app measures the speed at the device, why is it so much less than the speed coming into the router as measured by the Nighthawk app?
Is the device connected wirelessly? Depending on the capabilities of the device and it's physical link speed to the RS700, then there's every chance that's where your bottleneck is. In the app, you'll see the Wi-Fi link speed by tapping into the device in question on the device list. As a v.rough rule of thumb, reduce this link speed by ~40% or so to give you an idea of what actual speedtest throughput to expect.
4. What can I do to enable the devices to show speeds that are actually above 1,000Mbps (or 0.977 Gbps)?
Depends on your findings from above really. Potentiall move closer to the RS700, upgrade to a more capable client device, or use a wire (but make sure it's connected to a 2.5GbE+ LAN port).
I then ran a speed test from within the Nighthawk app and it showed speeds around 1,600 Mbps. I assume this is measuring the speed that the router is receiving and the stand-alone Speedtest app on my iPad, iPhone and Macbook measures what the device is receiving (and is not close to 1,600Mbps).
The Nighthawk app does, indeed, measure the speed between the router and the mode, even though you are using a WiFi connection to initiate the test.
The standalone app on a device measures the WiFi speed between router and client. That isn't going to be as high as the wired speed. There aren't many WiFi clients that can handle those speeds.
What speeds does Apple say you will get from these clients?
It depends on which device you were performing the initial speedtest from. For example, if you were doing it over WiFi, speeds will vary. If your desktop/laptop doesn't have any multigig ethernet ports, you won't get speeds over 940 or so. For example, if I am in the same room as the RS700, my Google Pixel 7 Pro can get around 1300 Mbps download and 1600 upload on the 6 GHz connection.
If you want to get faster speeds, you need to get a multigig ethernet port for your devices. Also make sure that they are compatible with 6GHz wifi. Just note that even if you do, you might not get the desired speeds if your CPU can't handle it, so you will likely need to buy a new device.
I recently upgraded my modem and router so I could add more devices and get higher speeds. I purchased the Netgear Nighthawk CM2000 cable modem and the Nighthawk RS700S Wifi 7 router. According to the specs, this pair should be more than capable of handling 200+ devices and delivering more up to 2.5 Gbps internet download speeds.
My ISP has confirmed they are delivering internet at around 1.7Gbps to my home. However when I measured the speeds with the stand-alone Speedtest app, I could never get more than 970 Mbps. Upload speed was fine (40-50Mbps) but download speeds are nowhere near what I expected.
I then ran a speed test from within the Nighthawk app and it showed speeds around 1,600 Mbps. I assume this is measuring the speed that the router is receiving and the stand-alone Speedtest app on my iPad, iPhone and Macbook measures what the device is receiving (and is not close to 1,600Mbps).
So it raises several questions that I am reaching out to the community for input on:
1. Why are the download speeds so different when measured via the Nighthawk app vs. the stand-alone Speedtest app?
2. Does the Nighthawk app measure the download speed coming into the router and the Speedtest app the speed at the device (Macbook, iPad, iPhone, etc.)?
3. If the Speedtest app measures the speed at the device, why is it so much less than the speed coming into the router as measured by the Nighthawk app?
4. What can I do to enable the devices to show speeds that are actually above 1,000Mbps (or 0.977 Gbps)?
I attached a short supporting file that helps to illustrate this anomaly. Any help to answer these four questions would be much appreciated.
Thank you for your reply and input. After more checking, I was able to determine that some of my devices just aren't capable to receive more than 1 Gbps (my iPhone 14, 2022 Macbook Pro M2 and 2017 iMac). However, my iPad Pro M2 can; it supports 6E.
So I did as you suggested and moved it to within a few feet of the RS700 and it clocked 1,011 Mbps, the first time over the 970 mark. It's still a big gap though to the incoming speed of 1,652 Mbps.
With your help, questions 1, 2 and 4 so now I focus on 3; getting the device to receive speeds closer to what is coming into the router. I'll look into your suggestion under that and let you know what happens.
Thank you for your feedback and advice. I was able to determine that of my four devices, only one has the capability to receive at speeds higher than 1 Gbps; my iPad Pro M2 which has 6E capability. So I connected it to the 6 GHz channel, moved it to within a few feet of the RS700 router and was finally able to clock speeds above 1Gbps. It showed Download of 1,011 Mbps. Pretty far away from the 1,652 Mbps that is going in to the router and that will be my focus.
I'll look over the info on Wifi and if you have any troubleshooting insights to help close the speed gap, feel free to reply. I just installed both the CM2000 modem and RS700 router a couple of days ago using mainly the default settings. Perhaps there are some additional adjustments to need to make but which ones?
Thanks! I found that of my four client devices, only my iPad Pro M2 has the capability to receive higher than 1 Gbps. I set it to 6GHz wifi and moved the iPad within a few feet of the router. The speed was 1,011 Mbps so making progress, but still far away from the 1,652 Mbps coing into the router. Any router settings I should check?
I do have a couple of USB-C adapters with 2.5 Gbps ethernet ports and tried connecting that to my Macbook Pro. There must have been some problem with the MBP as it only showed 900 Mbps coming in from the CM2000. Strange.
I'm pretty sure the incoming signal to the router is ok, the Nighthawk app speedtest shows it to be around 1,650 Mbps. I was also able to determine that only my iPad Pro M2 can receive speeds above 1 Gbps (from the 6GHz channel), so I connected it ti 6G, moved it within a few feet of the router and finally got speeds above 940 (was 1,011 Mbps). It's still far away from the incoming speed to the router but progress nonetheless. Any tips to close that gap? Maybe settings on the router?
so I connected it ti 6G, moved it within a few feet of the router and finally got speeds above 940 (was 1,011 Mbps). It's still far away from the incoming speed to the router but progress nonetheless.
What speed does you research say you should get with the iPad Pro M2?
Are you still trying to get WiFi to match the wired speed?
According to the specs, my iPad Pro 12.9" M2 (6th generation, A2436) is capable of 2400 Mbps ax@6 Ghz. It also says 160 MHz maximum channel bandwidth, 11 (HE) maximum MCS index and maximum spatial streams/Type of 2/MIMO all of which I have no understanding of (yet).
I'm not expecting to match the incoming speed which is 1,650 Mbps regardless if via ethernet or wirelessly, My previous experience with my 1 Gbps incoming speed was around 90% via ethernet and 75% wirelessly when near the router. So I thought I should get about the same pass-through speeds or around 1,500 Mbps via ethernet and 1,250 Mbps wirelessly. Since this is my first experience with incoming speeds to the modem/router over 1 Gbps, I'm not really not sure what a realistic expectation should be, hence my reaching out to the community for those who would know.
I checked the link speeds in the Device Manager of the Nighthawk app as you suggested and here's the result for my devices :
- iPad Pro: 2215 Mbps (40% reduction is 1,330 Mbps) at 6GHz. ST= 1,017 Mbps.
- iPad Pro: 1876 Mbps (40% reduction is 1,125 Mbps) at 5GHz. ST= 804 Mbps.
- iPhone 14: 1055 Mbps (40% reduction is 633 Mbps) at 5GHz. ST= 575 Mbps.
- Macbook: 1172 Mbps (40% reduction is 703 Mbps) at 5GHz. ST=785 Mbps.
The actual speed from the Speedtest app (ST) is next to each one.
The figures improve as I get closer to the router. I did try a 2.5 Gbps USB-C adapter with my Macbook and iPad (iMac too). For some reason I can't understand, it capped out at 940 Mbps on all, even the iPad which can get almost 1,100 Mbps wirelessly. Any thoughts on why the ethernet speeds are capped?
The problem was me. I was using the wrong port from the router. Once I connected the ethernet cable and 2.5GB adapter to the 10GB LAN port on the RS700 (instead of one of the four gigabit ports), I was able to receive 1,650 Mbps from all my devices via ethernet.
Now I just have to try and figure out my wireless speeds. My iPad Pro is the only 6E capable device I have (aside from Fire TV cube) and can only receive at a little over 1,000 Mbps when connected to the 6 GHz channel when I'm standing next to the router. The router is getting about 1,700 Mbps incoming, so i't not even 60% throughput. With my old RAX200 router, I got 75%-80% throughput, but incoming was only about 1,000 Mbps.
So, is it the RS700 router (setting, capabilities) or the iPad? That's where I am now.
I'm using 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 6 GHz channels. Guest is disabled. Smart connect is also disabled. MU-MIMO and OFDMA are both enabled.
I tried to disable OFDMA and just keep MU-MIMO but it's not possible. It seems Netgear only gives me the possibility to disable both MU-MIMO and OFDMA -or- disable just MU-MIMO but keep OFDMA. Disabling OFDMA and keeping MU-MIMO is not possible.
I attached a PDF of my basic and advanced wireless settings. Any suggestions on my settings?
Bingo! Changing the channel assignments from Auto to 1, 40 and 69(PSC) for 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz and 6GHz respectively did it. Thank you so much. I just ran a speed test and got 1,315 Mbps standing next to the router (incoming to the router was 1,630). 80% throughput works for me.
Apple suggests a single-name SSID (i.e., Smartconnect) but I'm reluctant to do that as I have a large coverage area and not sure how smart the connection really is. I'm glad I don't have to go to that step as it would involve a lot of device reconfiguring.
As of today (Aug 26th, 2024), Apple devices do not support 5GHz with 160MHz channel bandwidth, so the Max PHY data rate that Apple devices can get for the 5GHz WiFi is 1200mbps.
WiFi is half-duplex and there are efficiency rates from the PHY data rates to the autual speeds (e.g. Ookla speed test numbers), usually we take 50% for the efficiency rates. With a good condition, the efficiency rates can reach 70% or 80%.
That is, with Apple devices today, you cannot get more than 1Gbps in speed test through 2.4GHz or 5GHz WiFi.
To get more than 1Gbps in speed test with an Apple device today, you need a 6GHz WiFi capable Apple device and connect it to the router through the 6GHz band at close range.
Correct. I never had an issue with my 2.5 GHz or 5 GHz channel speed, it was always at or near spec. The problem with 6 GHz came up recently after I upgraded my incoming speed from my ISP to be "1.5 Gig" and bought a new modem and router from Netgear to accommodate it. I just couldn't get the 6 GHz speed to do much better than what I was getting with 5 GHz. Your solution did the trick.
Apple said it could possibly be solved by a single SSID, but that's not necessary and quite impractical for me to do given the number of attached devices. Here's a link to their suggestion:
