Wireless access point efficiency
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I keep reading that Ubiquiti Wireless Access points are the best. What is so good about them and how do I tell how good my current WAP is?
Is there any way of measuring signal strength at a given distance? (say with some Android app on a phone or tablet…)
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The best bang for the buck maybe, but probably not the best ….
Signal strength at a certain distance isnt the only factor. (WiFi analyser apps can be found in the various appstores)
For me it's more important how much throughput you get at a certain distance & how many clients can keep working on a single AP without packetloss
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The review on SmallNetBuilder for their AC Pro and AC Lite isn't exactly glowing:
The last paragraph of the conclusion is:
…Ubiquiti's UAP-AC-Lite and PRO are damn cheap AC access points with poor-to-middlin' 2.4 GHz performance and 5 GHz performance that runs with most of the AC DWS pack. Easy-to-setup and use DWS they ain't. But a relatively inexpensive way to get a decently performing multi-AP Wi-Fi network with pro-grade features, they certainly are.
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Please download wifi analyser for Android.
UAP pluses are decent price and an enterprise feature.
Despite not a glowing review, they are very popular for those two reasons. I have installed two UAP AC Pros in our 3000 sq feet property. They are great for me. I don't like 2.4 GHz band as laptops and phones won't connect at 5 Ghz. I disabled 2.4. I get a very good coverage, which can be different in your case. Local environments and your house construction would make a big difference. I get a full wire speed at 50% of house and 60-70% elsewhere at 5 Ghz.
Btw, the UAP's need to be ceiling mounted and wired for best performance and NOT kept on the floor.
If price is not a factor, you can go down the meraki, ruckus, xirius route.
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I keep reading that Ubiquiti Wireless Access points are the best.
Where did you read that?
They are cheap with reasonable feature set and performance but that's about it.Signal strength is NOT a quality criteria there days.
The ability to deliver throughput in demanding surroundings is.Metageek's inSSIDer once was free for home use. Maybe you can still find a copy somewhere.
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Openmesh is another product that you should look at ubiquiti requires you to host your own controller either on a server or a desktop and if desktop you need to use static ip. With openmesh it is free.
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ubiquiti requires you to host your own controller either on a server or a desktop and if desktop you need to use static ip.
Only if you want to run a guest portal. Otherwise, you can set up once and forget about it.
Static IP is better, which can be done from the router's NAT.
It does not evaluate the RF and auto adjust the channel for you. We need an expensive APs like Ruckus to achieve that. This is an awesome AP, if OP can afford.
@Balanga: what's your isp speed please? What AP do you have? Some additional details of your property in terms of coverage will be appreciated.
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As others have stated.. I don't think your going to get anyone saying that unifi is the "BEST" this is always the same nonsense that comes to IT when users throw out that term.. Best at what exactly?? Without some actual parameters to compare you can not call anything "BEST"
Now is the unifi line a good choice for budget minded users that want access many enterprise sort of feature sets on their AP.. Then yeah they are great choice here!
If you line it up against other enterprise grade AP.. Then sure its prob going to come in at the best price ;)
It is very simple to setup to be sure - they do have a APP you could use on your phone even to set them up. The controller software while it provides great insight into your wifi network if left running and can provide features like captive portal if running. As mentioned it is not a requirement to leave the controller running. But if you do and don't have a place to run it - they do sell a cloud key (little computer on a stick) for $80 that is even poe and if you have poe switch can just plug it in and there you go.
Would I recommend them - yes!! I run 3 of them, Pro, Lite and LR in my home.. Most new users could prob get away with the lite model to be honest.. At < $90 an AP for the feature set they are very home/smb budget minded… They do DFS, they have band steering, ATF, you can wireless uplink with them.. Vlan support.. Many of the features of a enterprise AP at cost that makes it home user friendly
To be honest I would love to run something like areohive at the house.. But they are pricey - and also require a subscription.. Even the new low end AP122 of theirs is 200$ without the subscription.. Its only 2x2 like the lite model from unifi. If no budget I would be running something other than unifi sure - but then again I didn't win the lottery and wife found out I dropped $1K on an AP she would freaking kill me ;) So you get what best suites your needs and budget.. Unifi does that great.. Vlan support, plus many other enterprise sort of features at price that is doable on pretty much any home/lab budget..
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hey john, out of curiosity what wireless speeds are you getting on your unifi's?
like inter-LAN file transfers, etc?
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I keep reading that Ubiquiti Wireless Access points are the best.
They are the best at the price point IMO, I use an AC-PRO & CloudKey.
Stuff that should work doesn't an example is LLDP, I'd hate to try and diagnose a fault at a site with lots of APs without LLDP.
QA also seems to be an issue with hardware & software, I've had to roll back an update as a few devices stopped working.
https://www.servethehome.com/ubiquiti-edgeswitch-es-16-xg-review-quality-control-absent/
But having said all the above I'm a happy user of my AC-PRO.
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So just fired up wifes laptop.. iperf showing 200mps so about half the PHY connected at 433.. its a shitty little 5ghz dongle on her older laptop.
When I get home tonight I will test iperf and file copy test with my work laptop has built in ac wifi that does 800 PHY I believe…
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Thanks! The reason I ask is because about the best I can get on my AC Pro is 200Mbps. I've spent a lot of time troubleshooting with their tech support but that's just as good as it gets.
I was wondering if others are seeing better or if that is normal.
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Well what is your PHY rate? Your not going to see more than 200mbps if your at a 433 PHY..
You might see 60% of PHY if everything is perfect.. But normally 50% is a good ballpark to assume.. Like I said that was a crappy 15$ usb dongle in my wifes old laptop, let me fire up my work laptop pretty sure its 2x2.. And I do have a pci card I could fire up on my desktop that is 3x3..
Keep in mind if your doing wireless to wireless you automatically /2 what you could see.. Your best test is from a wired device at gig, and then from a good wifi client.. Most clients are at best going to be 2x2.. So with a 2x2 client and getting a 867 Mbit/s PHY you could see 400mbps..
Hmmm - I might be able to fire up 3x3 pci card on my desktop remotely, and do some testing while at work ;) remotely…
edit: Ok I am seeing 3x3 PHY speeds from my pci card.. But going to have a hard time testing speed to something wired on that network segment.. Its my isolated wifi network for my iot stuff. When I get home I can fire up something and put it on the same vlan on my switch.. And I don't wont to switch off my wired interface on that remote box cuz I could loose access to it remotely..
Guess have to wait til I get home..
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That's iperf between a wired desktop that gets full gigabit between other wired clients on iperf, and a couple different wireless clients (iPhone 7, S7 edge) the wireless clients usually show speeds >700Mbps in the ubiquity controller.
This is on a clean 5GHz channel. Actual file transfer speeds are abysmal (2-5Mbps). I've spent over two hours with ubiquity support on TeamViewer troubleshooting (HUGE recommendation for their customer support, never seen anything like it). I was starting to think that this might just be reality on the hardware?
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I did file copy from my wifes laptop this morning. But it was to my plex server on a different vlan that is hairpinned and routing through my pfsense that is running vm that the same storage vm is running on.. Its not the best test of unifi speeds and was seeing 13MBps in the file copy.. Which is well over 100mbps..
I will do a real test when when I get home tonight just testing AP, taking any routing/firewall out of the picture.. Traffic will be
wifi client –- wifi ---- AP ---- switch ---- wired fileserver
Are you running any sort of captive portal in the controller?
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No captive portal, a couple of VLANs but otherwise nothing special
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Ok so here did a test..
43MBps file copy from wife laptop I plugged into wire from box with wired off and only connected via wifi card .. Iperf shows 348Mbps, show a PHY of 877 on windows – seems a bit odd, uc controller shows the rx at 867.. So while the 350mbps iperf is a bit low - it matches right up to the file transfer speed 43MBps * 8 gives you 344mbps..
This is well over 200, and the abysmal file transfer speeds your seeing.. So something clearly not right.. What firmware you running on the the AP? I always run latest and greatest on 3.8.1 currently - and this morning I noticed 3.8.2 is out..
So test was wired like this
wifi client -- wifi -- AP --- switch (sg300) --- switch (tl-sg108) -- wife laptop.
Just for completeness 2nd is the wired test.. Same devices same wired path but turned off the wifi and put my wife laptop into my wired vlan vs the wifi psk vlan
client -- switch (sg300) -- switch (tl-sg108) -- wifi laptop
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Thanks so much for doing the tests John.
I've always tested on latest and greatest firmware.
My topology is similar.
WiFi client, WiFi, ap, switch gs1900-8hp, pfsense.Ubiquity even replaced the AP with a new one to rule out hardware. Really confusing me and their support staff.
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have you tried different wifi clients?
So your testing to pfsense?? That not going to be a good test, or is pfsense routing your traffic to another vlan where you iperf server/file server is?
You really should test from your wifi to wired client on the same layer 2.. Pfsense as end point is not a good iperf test, nor is something you want to throw into the mix of file transfer testing of wifi routing/firewall.
Pfsense could of been off in my tests, other than it provided dhcp to both the wired and wireless clients. I can do another test routing traffic through pfsense - but my pfsense is vm on older hardware and can not do gig on the wire.. I have seen 400mbps between segments. I can do that when I get home again tonight - have to head to work now.
But if your testing the AP - I would take pfsense completely out of the test.. wifi client, switch and wired iperf/file server is all that should be in the path.
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Sorry for the confusion, I just posted the entire setup.
The tests are all layer two over the switch. I have even tried unplugging the switch from pfsense after leases were served just to make sure something weird wasn't happening.
I have tried several different clients
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when you do a sniff of your file copy tests are you seeing just huge amounts of retrains or something? Your iperf test if 200mbps should equate to over 10MBps in file transfer for sure if not close to 20..
What are you are you using for file transfer, windows (what flavors) - linux box running samba? What kind of latency are you seeing.. Should be in 1-2ms tops over wifi.. If your seeing large latency this can for sure cause very slow file copy in windows/samba
A sniff of your file transfer could be bring some light to what could be causing the problem.. So when you surf the net with your wifi clients and do say a speedtest at speedtest.net do you get your normal internet speeds? I see 80+ mbps down 12 up over both wired and wifi and only pay for 75/10. So I am right where it should be ;)
Do you see the same problem over 2.4 and 5? Are you running 40 or 80 on your 5.. you AC or N on the client? What does the unifi controller show you for the PHY tx/rx and are you seeing any sort of errors or utilization being heavy on the AP? Retrans, etc..
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That is not true. You need to for proper updating of the AP's. You need it if you want to change the SSID. You need it if you want to change the password. Not sure where this guy gets his info but he is wrong!
ubiquiti requires you to host your own controller either on a server or a desktop and if desktop you need to use static ip.
Only if you want to run a guest portal. Otherwise, you can set up once and forget about it.
Static IP is better, which can be done from the router's NAT.
It does not evaluate the RF and auto adjust the channel for you. We need an expensive APs like Ruckus to achieve that. This is an awesome AP, if OP can afford.
@Balanga: what's your isp speed please? What AP do you have? Some additional details of your property in terms of coverage will be appreciated.
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That is not true. You need to for proper updating of the AP's. You need it if you want to change the SSID. You need it if you want to change the password. Not sure where this guy gets his info but he is wrong!
What is not true - you sure and the F do not need to run the controller to change an SSID or PSK, or update the AP. You can do that from the APP.. Also even if you use the controller to change that stuff you do not need to leave it running.
Where are you getting your info? It sure and the F is not the unifi website. Have you ever even tried to use unifi?
https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/226395988-UniFi-Managing-Access-Points-via-UniFi-Mobile-App#stand%20aloneIn the app - click the button to update firmware of the AP.. Click the Wlan and or Radio to control the AP, etc..
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when you do a sniff of your file copy tests are you seeing just huge amounts of retrains or something? Your iperf test if 200mbps should equate to over 10MBps in file transfer for sure if not close to 20..
What are you are you using for file transfer, windows (what flavors) - linux box running samba? What kind of latency are you seeing.. Should be in 1-2ms tops over wifi.. If your seeing large latency this can for sure cause very slow file copy in windows/samba
A sniff of your file transfer could be bring some light to what could be causing the problem.. So when you surf the net with your wifi clients and do say a speedtest at speedtest.net do you get your normal internet speeds? I see 80+ mbps down 12 up over both wired and wifi and only pay for 75/10. So I am right where it should be ;)
Do you see the same problem over 2.4 and 5? Are you running 40 or 80 on your 5.. you AC or N on the client? What does the unifi controller show you for the PHY tx/rx and are you seeing any sort of errors or utilization being heavy on the AP? Retrans, etc..
Sorry for the delayed response, have been out of town. I should get a chance to packet capture tonight or tomorrow.
On the file transfer I ran I was trying to transfer files to my Androids phone, I think the app was ES File Explorer Pro? I'll try again later with a wireless laptop running windows.
Latency from ping over wifi to wired client ranges from 1.6ms to 4.1ms with an average of ~2ms. Don't know of a way to test latency with TCP/UDP?Speedtest is generally maxed out but that doesn't mean much to me as the speed is only 150/10. The LAN performance is what is bothering me.
Same on 2.4 and 5 (5 is faster but neither are nearly as fast as they should be [per what ubiquiti controller is advertising speeds as]). I've tried all the different channel widths and multiple channels. Tried N and AC clients, tried with only AC client connected to the network and with only N client connected to the network. TX/RX rates change based on device and location relative to AP but are generally >400Mbps and always much higher than what is actually being achieved.
I'll have to check on the errors. While on teamviewer with Ubiquiti staff there were some errors but according to them not so many that should cause the performance i'm seeing.
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"per what ubiquiti controller is advertising speeds as]"
You do understand that is PHY - that is not what you will really see.. 50% of that would be typical..
Test file copy with a real phone.. But I can tell you I sync stuff down from my plex to phone and tablet - and quick!! Never actually timed it.
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I do not understand PHY, but regardless I'm not getting half.
I usually see ~750-800 Mbps on my phone (s) but only get ~200Mbps iperf.
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You do not understand what PHY is?? You need to look that what what PHY is compared to what you will see in real life..
You actually think that wifi router or AP that says 450mps - is capable of 450mbps??
Have you been living in a gave.. Did you really get 11mpbs on B, did you get 54bmps with G? I showed you 360Mbps with iperf.. Why don't you post up your actual iperf tests using real devices vs some phone or tablet..
Do you make out your inter connection of 150Mbps? If so what is your complaint? What speed are you getting moving files over wifi.. You saw my 43MBps – which is clearly way more than the 2-4MBps you say your seeing.. So something is wrong, either your test method compared to your connection method or something is out of wack..
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What is a real device? These are the devices in use on my network, I'd say they are real.
That performance is actual use, not a test.
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Do you not have a laptop? A phone isn' going to be optimized for moving files via windows file sharing SMB..
These devices and iperf prob not going to be very high end either. Do you not have a pc or laptop to test with.. If you say your making out your internet connection via your phone at 150Mbps.. And you see 200mbps via your iperf.. Maybe the device just sucks at using SMB?
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Possibly.
My laptop WiFi card is old and much slower than the phones. I'll try the file transfer though.
It can usually Max out the WAN but not always. Right now for example it's only hitting 100-120Mbps down
I don't know what the deal is, something is certainly wrong. So far my Archer c7v2 as an AP easily outperformed this AP AC Pro.
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"So far my Archer c7v2 as an AP easily outperformed this AP AC Pro."
In what sense? Your Archer doing vlans? Lets see a file transfer with the same setup..
Do a test your Archer as your AP. And then same exact test with your AC Pro as AP
client – wifi -- Archer -- wire server
client -- wifi -- Unifi AP -- wire serverLets see the iperf test
Lets see the file copy test.
Lets see speed test..For when your using archer and when your using AP. When the client is in the same spot in comparison to your AP... Question for you is your AP properly mounted in the ceiling? What sort of signal strength are you clients seeing, what are they reporting? for both tx and rx speeds?
What are you showing for the AP for utilization/interface, etc. etc..
How many clients do you have connected to your AP - are other clients connected at slow speeds and really shitty signal strength? So you say your running 5ghz are you 20,40 or 80 Mhz? Are you using of the advanced features? Are time fairness? Are you using DFS channels? etc.. etc..
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"So far my Archer c7v2 as an AP easily outperformed this AP AC Pro."
In what sense? Your Archer doing vlans? Lets see a file transfer with the same setup..
Just in speed, obviously it doesn't do VLANs (the reason I got a Ubiquiti). Not saying it's better, but it was faster.
Do a test your Archer as your AP. And then same exact test with your AC Pro as AP
client – wifi -- Archer -- wire server
client -- wifi -- Unifi AP -- wire serverLets see the iperf test
Lets see the file copy test.
Lets see speed test..I did, the archer was faster in my specific setup for whatever reason. It got in the 3-400Mbps range on iPerf. I'm certainly not interested in wasting my time hooking up an old router again and running tests that I've already run, taking screenshots, etc. just to prove a point on a forum. I'm sure that in the massive majority of use cases the Ubiquiti is faster, in mine it wasn't.
For when your using archer and when your using AP. When the client is in the same spot in comparison to your AP… Question for you is your AP properly mounted in the ceiling? What sort of signal strength are you clients seeing, what are they reporting? for both tx and rx speeds?
Same spot yes, both AP's sitting unobstructed a few feet from me. The ubiquiti wasn't mounted to the ceiling, it was about three feet away in plain sight sitting on the floor. I simply won't believe that turning the thing upside down would make a difference (although I do understand that in general ceiling mounting usually means less physical obstruction), FWIW ubiquiti support didn't seem to think that it would make a bit of difference either.
What are you showing for the AP for utilization/interface, etc. etc..
How many clients do you have connected to your AP - are other clients connected at slow speeds and really shitty signal strength? So you say your running 5ghz are you 20,40 or 80 Mhz? Are you using of the advanced features? Are time fairness? Are you using DFS channels? etc.. etc..
Normally 5-10 clients, although I've tested with only 1. No clients have abnormally low signal strength or speeds (as advertised by ubiquiti controller). I've tried 20, 40, 80 on 5GHz, tried it with 2.4 on and off. Tried it without airtime fairness and without. Tried it without DFS channels and with.
To be clear, I'm not bashing ubiquiti. I'm clearly still using the thing even though I personally experienced a drop in speed the features I gained are worth more to me. Also, their customer support is the best I've ever experienced or heard about in the consumer tech market. I've spent over two hours on teamviewer with their tech support and they are still willing to spend more time on it.
I really just brought up the question here to see if this level of performance was common or not, and if not if anyone happened to think of anything ubiquiti staff has not.
Ubiquiti AP is not the best line of AP, but it is certainly an outstanding product at it's price point. I wouldn't know but I'm betting their customer support is at least on par with options at a significantly higher price point.
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Clearly you should be able to get more 2-4MBps file transfer.. Especially if your seeing 200Mbps iperf - your testing this with tcp and not udp right?
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Yeah TCP.
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Well so if doing iperf test with tcp and your seeing 200mbps - that should be reflected in your smb file copy. And you should see say roughly 25MBps minus a bit of extra overhead for smb - its a freakishly chatty protocol.. So lets call it 15-20MBps, if your seeing 4MBps then something is clearly not right.
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yeah, just can't seem to figure it out.
The app I'm using I'm sure has something to do with it. But I tried the same file transfer over my laptop (it's old and wireless-n dual band) and it got about 7MBps.
Ubiquiti was advertising ~140Mbps at that time for the laptop, so that's pretty close.
Still the 200Mbps iperf just seems low.
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what app are you using for iperf on your clients? The HE (hurricane electric) app - I ran this on my phone and it only shows like 140mbps.. But it doesn't seem to do very long test I only see like 1 data point at .1 second.
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its an android app called iperf, you can run it with whatever options you like.
