Directly connected to our modem - we get approximately 240Mbs down and 50Mbs up with pings like 25
But when I am in the same room as my wireless router (Netgear Nighthawk AC1900) I am getting speeds of like 30Mbs down and 30Mbs up with pings like 40
Is that normal - the degrading of speeds through wireless or should I be getting better speeds when in close proximity of the router.
Would a "better" router do better? (I'm not sure if it matters at all in reality) but you know the feeling (I got this, but only using that, but I want to use it all!)
Probably your router, but might be the WiFi in the device your testing from. Try another device, is it the same? If it is, then it's probably your router or some serious interference if you had better before. Most of the time, even a Wireless N router from a few years ago should be able to get at lease half that speed.
If you're on a Macintosh, or have one, hold down the Option key and click on the WiFi icon in the menu bar at the top. It will show you your TX Rate. It's probably 130 Mbps or less right now.
"On a Windows computer, it's a bit more involved but still easy. First right-click on the Wi-Fi icon at the lower right corner area of the screen, then click on Open Network and Sharing Center .
Next, click on the Wi-Fi connection, which will open up the status window that shows you the current connection speed among other things. And then you can click on Details to find out about the IP address and other info."
Honestly I don't know what I had before - I just started looking into these things when we moved here recently and getting more in to the "network" for HE. It just seems like a huge drop from connected to wireless.
I will play around with it ... maybe moving it higher up will help.
A lot of other questions need to be answered as well. What band 2.4GHz or 5 GHz, 802.11 A or B, G, AC etc.? Router, Access Points? Contention on the channel?
On an 802.11n network, I can hit my max cable service speeds of 170Mbps
So something to try is move about 5 feet from the router when you test.
Also, if you're still in the midst of moving in, you may have neglected to put the router up on anything perhaps? Worst place for a router is on the floor. Second worst is in a corner. Worst of all is on the floor, in a corner, in the basement. I lost count of how many times I found it in the worst place it could possible be.
Also look for sources of interference around. Transformers, electrical panels (very close ones), microwaves, baby monitors, etc. Things that omit EMF
This is the best thing you can do for your wifi, move high bandwidth devices to wired. All of my smart TVs, steaming devices and game consoles are wired. Also programs like InSSIDer let you see what channels are flooded so you can adjust to best one.
Have you checked the router settings to see if it is setup to throttle devices. In my Linksys router it is under Media Prioritization where you can set the maximum bandwidth per devices. I think Netgear calls it QoS (Quality of Service). I haven't played with Netgear in quite some time but you might find something in there.
What kind of extender? If you have a MoCA enable router (FiOS, and some cable providers) your better off with a MoCA extender that uses Coax wiring, not a wireless extender or mesh those loose half the bandwidth reaching back for the signal.
If you spend the money to pull wire, use Cat6, more bandwidth for future expansion.
@pgiesenhagen I had that same Nighthawk unit for just short of 3 years. It started having problems around 2 years in and I made some changes that seemed to somewhat address the issue. Then at 2 years and 9 months it started going downhill fast when it came to connection speeds.
One day it just died. When I started researching the Nighthawk line I found there were many folks who experienced the same behavior I'd dealt with. I switched from a 1 piece router with wifi to a two piece method including a Ubiquiti router and Unifi wifi access point.
With gigabit fiber access I can get the full bandwidth any of my devices like phones , tablets, and notebook computer are capable of doing and do this with only one access point.
I have the Unifi access point almost in the center of my 35' x 60' single story ranch built in the early 60s. Our house has metal lathe with plaster for walls so it is challenging for wifi, zigbee, and zwave.
We have 2 ASUS Ac-5300 routers one router and one as an AP connected via cat 6 and bonded as a mesh system. On gigabit service. Tons of wireless HA stuff. I always test and get over 500Mb and often 700 Mb dL with an iPad Pro almost everywhere in the house. Wired connections test at 900+ always.
Not exactly. Any device repeating a signal wireless must grab the signal somehow which requires require use of a radio in processor speed. If you get a high quality mesh system it can have enough radios and CPU power to keep up with your ISP bandwidth. However it is technically still using up WiFi bandwidth.
Do you have phone lines/jacks in your house that you are not using? Sometimes they are connected via Cat 5 and you can use those as an inexpensive way to hardwire. The other thing I've used depending upon the wiring (kinda hit or miss) are powerline adapters. I'm in the US so not sure about other countries.
We have a wonderful crawl space under our house tall and dry dry dry ... so I will be running couple cat6 from room where router is to the other side of house and putting an access point there along with direct connection to the nvidia shield in that room.
In the future I will run them to the rest of the rooms .. I don't know about the phone lines - I will have to look into that.
