WIFI Speeds Slow Vs Wired Connections

stevenbrown8

Hello,

I am stumped right now and cant figure out why my download speeds are about a fraction of what I get on a wired connection.

Wired
Wired Connection>> Switch >> pFsense >> Modem

Wired connection depending on location and etc usually over 100 Mbs.
Download = 180 Mbs
Upload = 12 Mbs

And now for the WIFI

Going to the same server but using my phone over wifi
Download = 15-25 Mbs
Upload = 12 Mbs
iPhone>> Airport Extreme (Bridge mode acting as AP)>> Switch (same switch) >> pFsense >> Modem

I have a laptop at work which I plan to bring home Monday to test to see if its just the phone (iPhone 6 Plus) but I wanted to see if anyone else had the same problem before and what did they do to resolve this?

If anyone needs any further information please just let me know.

doktornotor

Because the WiFi marketing is an steaming pile of BS. Wire >> WiFi.

johnpoz

So you want wifi to be able to do 180Mbps.. Do you have AC AP/router as AP and client? I would say your connected at G speeds there even with iphone and airport extreme.

There are a lot of variables that make up wifi performance. Other clients on wifi? Interference? What are you using G,N,AC are you on 2.4 or 5. What are you setting 20,40, 80 mhz channels. How many streams 1, 2, 3??

And then yes there is the marketing nonsense.. So sure the raw PHY of a 3 stream AC connection using 80mhz channels with 400ns guard and 256-QAM with 5/6 coding might be 1300.. But that is not what you would see in the real world.. That number is pretty much /2 and then take into account what protocol your running. What is the latancy, other clients, etc. etc. etc. etc…

Now on my iphone when in line of site of my AP running 5ghz with 40mhz channels I can ROCK my internet connection.. This is just as fast as I can get with a wire.. I am on comcast and pay for 75/10 but it sees 80+ with 12 up most of the time

This is off a iphone 5s with unifi AP

Now I run my wired through some queues to help with buffer bloat when downloading LARGE files, etc.. So it doesn't peg the connection out.. But this is with wire.

Wireless can do fairly well - but no its never going to be the marking hyped up numbers of PHY that uses think.. Just like back when B came out and then G with its 54mbps – do you really think you ever saw that? G is about 21 to 23mbps MAX!!! With all the stars aligned, etc.. no where close to 54 ;) With your 19 I would guess your running at G speeds.. Many clients will not move past G to N speeds if your not running WPA2 or OPEN for security..

And wireless drops way off if on 5 and out on the patio for example.. Out there I move to the 2.4 band..

firewalluser

@stevenbrown8:

I have a laptop at work which I plan to bring home Monday to test to see if its just the phone (iPhone 6 Plus) but I wanted to see if anyone else had the same problem before and what did they do to resolve this?

Lots of variables at play, CPU speed is a factor, slower cpu's running different OS's will see a difference in download speed irrespective of it being a cabled, wifi or mesh network. For example an old windows pc can outperform on network speed newer versions of computers running linux as some network drivers for opensource are poorly written, cpu schedulers play a factor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduling_%28computing%29 as do some network cards link an Intel nic which can communicate direct with the cpu compared to say a usb nic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_scheduler