5 easy tricks to boost your home Wi-Fi


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What's your connection speed to your router / access point right now? Also if all 3 of your wireless clients are connected, the wireless up-link bandwidth will be shared between them I think (some one correct me if I'm wrong). Your Internet speed will be as fast as your slowest link.

So for example if all 3 of your client devices are connected @ 65 Mbps to your access point and are trying to download at the same time, in theory the access point will load balance each to around 21 Mbps.

Hm. Nope. You just have a theoretical 300Mbps each way, totalling. Transmitting and receiving are independent. Most 'clients' can receive fast but transmit quite a bit slower.

My phone for example doesn't go above 75Mbps (theoretical), ever. That doesn't mean that when my phone is using all those Mbpses that my laptop can't use the remaining 225Mbps fully. That's just not how it works. In general devices will always just use all the available speed. If my phone uses 75Mbps there is still 225Mbps available for my laptop. If I had two laptops trying to pull a full 300Mbps, then both of them would run at 150ish-Mbps. If you have a phone at 50Mbps, and two laptops at 300Mbps, then the phone would use 50Mbps and both laptops 125Mbps. But that would be the actual speed, the link speed (the one that Windows reports) won't change as all wireless clients receive all wireless frames, they just discard those that aren't meant for them. So even if they're not doing anything with 300Mbps, they're still receiving it.

Sometimes older devices may limit the speed of your entire network because they require more/other control frames and stuff like that. But in general nowadays you'll almost always get your full network speed unless there is a lot of congestion going on, especially if all your devices are Wireless-N capable.

(You can test it easily - connect your phone to WiFi and put it far away from your router, barely in range, and start a big download. Then do a speedtest on your PC (near the router), and you'll notice you still get quite a high speed.)

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Hm. Nope. You just have a theoretical 300Mbps each way, totalling. Transmitting and receiving are independent. Most 'clients' can receive fast but transmit quite a bit slower.

My phone for example doesn't go above 75Mbps (theoretical), ever. That doesn't mean that when my phone is using all those Mbpses that my laptop can't use the remaining 225Mbps fully. That's just not how it works. In general devices will always just use all the available speed. If my phone uses 75Mbps there is still 225Mbps available for my laptop. If I had two laptops trying to pull a full 300Mbps, then both of them would run at 150ish-Mbps. If you have a phone at 50Mbps, and two laptops at 300Mbps, then the phone would use 50Mbps and both laptops 125Mbps. But that would be the actual speed, the link speed (the one that Windows reports) won't change as all wireless clients receive all wireless frames, they just discard those that aren't meant for them. So even if they're not doing anything with 300Mbps, they're still receiving it.

Sometimes older devices may limit the speed of your entire network because they require more/other control frames and stuff like that. But in general nowadays you'll almost always get your full network speed unless there is a lot of congestion going on, especially if all your devices are Wireless-N capable.

(You can test it easily - connect your phone to WiFi and put it far away from your router, barely in range, and start a big download. Then do a speedtest on your PC (near the router), and you'll notice you still get quite a high speed.)

I just used a single antenna long GI link - 65 Mbps - as an example for all 3 devices. I thought that each link counts as aggregate bandwidth on the physical medium; in this case air. Assuming the best connection this access point can do is 65 Mbps all around, so that 65 Mbps would eventually level out to 21 Mbps over a long sustained transfer on those clients. (However the physical link speed will not change)

Your example is good too because it points out how links of different speeds would behave.

I could have 10 devices connected at a physical link speed of 300 Mbps (using a 2 antenna setup, short Gi, 64 qam), the actual throughput on the access point would still never be able to exceed 300 Mbps; so eventually all 10 clients doing transfers should level out to about 30 Mbps; is this correct?

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*Edit - to get higher then 54/22 you need multiple radio's which all N's have, that is how the N's broadcast faster then 54/22 on the 2.4 spectrum, unfortunately that is STILL not going to get you 300, or even close to it

Dude sorry but your statements about 54/22 on 2.4 N are just plain WRONG, also this part about needing multiple radios - and all N have them? Are you mistaking MIMO for multiple radios? Sorry but MIMO has to do with antennas, not the number of radios.

Are you talking about dual band routers/nics? Then sure there are dual band, ie they can at the same time operate at 2.4 and 5, etc. To be honest there are not as many of these devices as you might think. Yes many routers can do either 2.4 or 5, but not as many are dual radio (simultaneous) band. But Its fairly simple to see more than 54/22 on 2.4 N.. I think your confusing G and N here to be honest?

Now your point about 300 on 2.4 is somewhat correct -- yes the specification limits the use of 40mhz to 5, but not all manufactures lock it out. Under draft I do believe this was an optional thing where you could do 40 on 2.4. so sure you could 300.

But as you read here this is changing and newer devices might be locking out the 40mhz on 2.4

http://www.smallnetb...n-24-ghz-part-1

But when people tell you that they are showing connections at 300 at 2.4 - this is quite possible as many makers have not locked this out.. Read the above link please. Just drop on to your fav computer parts site, say newegg, and search for wireless routers that are 2.4 only and report 300 as their speed

post-14624-0-08740300-1346874941_thumb.j

As we move into ac vs n -- this all changes again ;) yeah!! And ac is 5 ghz only - yeah!! Your talking 80mhz and 160mhz channels and 8 MIMO vs 4, etc. etc. Much Much higher wireless bandwidth, might actually make wireless useable for more than just simple browsing and email ;) Wireless is great for mobile devices like your laptop/tablet/phone/etc But if your talking about moving data you have to go with a wire.

As to the Original topic of this thread -- come on, another stupid waste of time.. Buy a new N router vs your G, really?? Who would of thunk it :rolleyes: What I shouldn't place my router under my desk? duhhhh, as to beer can on my antenna?? Come on -- buy better antenna(s) would be better advice -- unless some hillbilly and trying to get your signal to reach the still.. And really you mean I shouldn't run my wireless on channel 6 when 50 other wireless routers in the area are all running on channel 6.. But that is the default channel -- it must be best ;)

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The best way to get a higher wireless speed is to just move to an area like mine :p (Snowstorm is mine, and the Telenethomespot on channel 140 too but I don't use that. I just need to have it active to get access to other hotspots - and I figured it wouldn't bother anyone on channel 140 :p)

dlp0Z.png

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I hate it when people use channel 6 when there isn't anything else around. It completely blocks out the possibility of using a proper 40Mhz network in 2.4Ghz. Unless you can try to use 13+9 like I did, but I don't know if you can use channels 12 and 13 in the US. Looks like you can't... Shame. We basically have 4 'clean' channels, 1 - 5 - 9 and 13. Unfortunately nobody follows that rule.

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I hate it when people use channel 6 when there isn't anything else around. It completely blocks out the possibility of using a proper 40Mhz network in 2.4Ghz. Unless you can try to use 13+9 like I did, but I don't know if you can use channels 12 and 13 in the US. Looks like you can't... Shame. We basically have 4 'clean' channels, 1 - 5 - 9 and 13. Unfortunately nobody follows that rule.

11+7 does mean I'm using 40mhz bonding though, right? Is that just less ideal than 9+13 for some reason?

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11+7 does mean I'm using 40mhz bonding though, right? Is that just less ideal than 9+13?

You are using 40Mhz (which is probably the fastest you can get). But it's not really less ideal since in the US you can only use channels 1 to 11. That means that you have three 'clean' channels (where there is no overlap): 1, 6 and 11. If you want to use a completely clean 40Mhz network then in theory you need the full range of either 1 and 6 or 6 and 11 available. Since that's not possible in your situation (there is already someone on channel 6) it doesn't really matter.

In the US you can't use channels 12 and 13 (it's illegal), but in Europe we can. Since using 1, 6 and 11 leaves some free space between channels in use if we put them right next to each other you actually have 4 non-overlapping channels: 1, 5, 9 and 13. For me since there is already someone on 6 (sometimes) it's better to use 9+13. I only have a very, very small overlap area so that basically minimizes the amount of interference for me. Using 1+5 would lead to me having more interference. Plus, nobody ever uses channels 12 and 13 anyway (since some clients don't support it). But all mine do so hey.

As an example I've enabled my second radio in my Linksys (it's usually used for 5Ghz, but it supports 2.4Ghz too - I just keep it off normally). Then you get this if you have two networks using 2.4Ghz on a 40Mhz-wide thing:

ygmII.png

If I couldn't use channels 12 and 13 it'd look like this:

fniVo.png

And that overlap is something we can avoid in Europe, even when using 2 non-overlapping 40Mhz networks.

(PS: I love my screenshotting software)

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You are using 40Mhz (which is probably the fastest you can get). But it's not really less ideal since in the US you can only use channels 1 to 11. That means that you have three 'clean' channels (where there is no overlap): 1, 6 and 11. If you want to use a completely clean 40Mhz network then in theory you need the full range of either 1 and 6 or 6 and 11 available. Since that's not possible in your situation (there is already someone on channel 6) it doesn't really matter.

In the US you can't use channels 12 and 13 (it's illegal), but in Europe we can. Since using 1, 6 and 11 leaves some free space between channels in use if we put them right next to each other you actually have 4 non-overlapping channels: 1, 5, 9 and 13. For me since there is already someone on 6 (sometimes) it's better to use 9+13. I only have a very, very small overlap area so that basically minimizes the amount of interference for me. Using 1+5 would lead to me having more interference. Plus, nobody ever uses channels 12 and 13 anyway (since some clients don't support it). But all mine do so hey.

As an example I've enabled my second radio in my Linksys (it's usually used for 5Ghz, but it supports 2.4Ghz too - I just keep it off normally). Then you get this if you have two networks using 2.4Ghz on a 40Mhz-wide thing:

If I couldn't use channels 12 and 13 it'd look like this:

And that overlap is something we can avoid in Europe, even when using 2 non-overlapping 40Mhz networks.

(PS: I love my screenshotting software)

Thanks for the explanation :)

Now my question: why on earth do linksys routers use channel 6 by default! :p

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Thanks for the explanation :)

Now my question: why on earth do linksys routers use channel 6 by default! :p

Because all others use channel 1 by default :p Which makes channel 6 pretty much okay in most situations.

In Belgium nowadays we pretty much only have two ISP's available. Telenet (or Voo in Wallonia) and Belgium. They both pretty much always install modems with WiFi. The TELENETHOMESPOT and telenet-XXXX networks you see in my list are part of those. By default those are pretty much always on channel 1 from both ISP's. Only if you call their support line they usually ask you to change it to 6 because 'it is the best channel'. (yes they say that to people) Funny thing is then if you get in the city you can see about 30 or 40 networks available, but almost all of them are on channel 1.

I'm going to the city with my laptop tomorrow, I'll see if I can pick up some of those gigantic heaps of networks on 1 :p

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Installing dd-wrt will instantly improve signal? :p

Not necessarily, but most people's WiFi woes are due to the pathetic firmwares that are preloaded on these devices. Dropped connections and constant reboots were an issue with my Linksys router until I installed DD-WRT. Now the thing is just rock solid. I don't even think about it anymore.

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Not necessarily, but most people's WiFi woes are due to the pathetic firmwares that are preloaded on these devices. Dropped connections and constant reboots were an issue with my Linksys router until I installed DD-WRT. Now the thing is just rock solid. I don't even think about it anymore.

Same, but I'm on Tomato (which is more minimalistic in interface). Toastman's Tomato builds are great!

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