WIFI speed not fast enough

[jabo75]

I have a 450mbps router (Asus RT-N66R).
I have just been bumped to the 100Mbps tier on Comcast.
I have done multiple tests at different times (benchmarking against my laptop each time).

I can only pull 50Mbps on the 2.4Ghz band (my link speed is 72Mbps). I know it's not external interference, because my laptop is pulling 95Mbps.
Interestingly, on the 5Ghz band, my link speed is 150Mbps, but I can only pull about 35Mbps. It's consistently lower than the 2.4 band.

I have tried different distances from the AP, but under the best circumstances, the numbers above are the best I can do. I am running KitKat on an AT&T phone.

Any suggestions?

 

[Eclipse2K]

I believe that's the fastest the Note 3 can receive. Also, stick to 2.4Ghz unless there's interference.

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (Verizon)

 

[FBA]

On an AC router, they can hit speeds of well over 150...I have seen 350.

On my D-Link WAP2553, I regularly connect my Note 3 on wireless N at 5GHZ @ 150

 

[mavrrick]

Your router is a N routerr with 3 spatial streams. That is 150x3 =450mbps. Each bands should be able to achieve that theoretically.

Most portable devices only do 1 spatial stream. That means limited to 150x1 and 150mbps.

Regardless of what you think, you are dealing with interference. I would be surprised to see the connection go much faster. Check for channel interference worth something like wifi analyzer

Your laptop out likely has the right antenna arrangement to do 2 or 3 spatial streams. That can help allot to push the speed faster when interference gets involved.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[Eclipse2K]

On an AC router, they can hit speeds of well over 150...I have seen 350.

On my D-Link WAP2553, I regularly connect my Note 3 on wireless N at 5GHZ @ 150

I have an AC router (Asus) and didn't know this. Although, I never researched how AC works as I don't have any AC devices currently. Time to start getting on top of my studies.

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (Verizon)

 

[jabo75]

Your router is a N routerr with 3 spatial streams. That is 150x3 =450mbps. Each bands should be able to achieve that theoretically.

Most portable devices only do 1 spatial stream. That means limited to 150x1 and 150mbps.

Regardless of what you think, you are dealing with interference. I would be surprised to see the connection go much faster. Check for channel interference worth something like wifi analyzer

Your laptop out likely has the right antenna arrangement to do 2 or 3 spatial streams. That can help allot to push the speed faster when interference gets involved.

Posted via Android Central App

Maverick, you are right on with your information and that is a sound assumption.
For some background, I have set up probably over 50 wireless networks. I have run numerous tools to analyze my network environment (Including WIFI Analyzer). I can tell you that I have NO interference on the 5ghz band. I am in a suburban area with good distance between houses. If I walk the perimeter of the property, I can pick up some faint 5ghz action. My phone links easily at 150Mbps (my laptop, 300Mbps-obviously 2 antennas), with a (naturally) much shorter broadcast area than the 2.4ghz channels.
I have used the stock firmware as well as custom firmware. I have tried different gain antennas, altering the Tx wattage, and numerous other tweaks, but it drives me insane that no matter what I do, I cannot get above 35Mbps on the 5ghz band.
BTW, this is my second phone. The first one had horrible GPS issues. The first one behaved the same.

Eclipse, the big advantage of an AC router (beyond faster link speed) is the "beamforming" signal. It travels much further than a typical 5ghz router and instead of just blasting out a signal to do so, it focuses its signal directly on the connected clients. And you have at least one AC device, your Note 3.

 

[Eclipse2K]

Maverick, you are right on with your information and that is a sound assumption.
For some background, I have set up probably over 50 wireless networks. I have run numerous tools to analyze my network environment (Including WIFI Analyzer). I can tell you that I have NO interference on the 5ghz band. I am in a suburban area with good distance between houses. If I walk the perimeter of the property, I can pick up some faint 5ghz action. My phone links easily at 150Mbps (my laptop, 300Mbps-obviously 2 antennas), with a (naturally) much shorter broadcast area than the 2.4ghz channels.
I have used the stock firmware as well as custom firmware. I have tried different gain antennas, altering the Tx wattage, and numerous other tweaks, but it drives me insane that no matter what I do, I cannot get above 35Mbps on the 5ghz band.
BTW, this is my second phone. The first one had horrible GPS issues. The first one behaved the same.

Eclipse, the big advantage of an AC router (beyond faster link speed) is the "beamforming" signal. It travels much further than a typical 5ghz router and instead of just blasting out a signal to do so, it focuses its signal directly on the connected clients. And you have at least one AC device, your Note 3.

The Note 3 is an AC device? I seriously had NO idea. I'm usually on top of that information.

This may help explain why my Note 3 has better transfer rates than any other device.

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (Verizon)

 

[mavrrick]

Maverick, you are right on with your information and that is a sound assumption.
For some background, I have set up probably over 50 wireless networks. I have run numerous tools to analyze my network environment (Including WIFI Analyzer). I can tell you that I have NO interference on the 5ghz band. I am in a suburban area with good distance between houses. If I walk the perimeter of the property, I can pick up some faint 5ghz action. My phone links easily at 150Mbps (my laptop, 300Mbps-obviously 2 antennas), with a (naturally) much shorter broadcast area than the 2.4ghz channels.
I have used the stock firmware as well as custom firmware. I have tried different gain antennas, altering the Tx wattage, and numerous other tweaks, but it drives me insane that no matter what I do, I cannot get above 35Mbps on the 5ghz band.
BTW, this is my second phone. The first one had horrible GPS issues. The first one behaved the same.

Eclipse, the big advantage of an AC router (beyond faster link speed) is the "beamforming" signal. It travels much further than a typical 5ghz router and instead of just blasting out a signal to do so, it focuses its signal directly on the connected clients. And you have at least one AC device, your Note 3.

Well it sound like you are on top of it then. Not sure what to say. For some reason I also thought you were referring to 2.4ghz band instead of 5.

I agree it probably should be faster then 35mbps on 5ghz. I have started switching anything I have that will work on 5ghz over to help with some crazy congestion in my area. Between the slew of Wifi networks around me and just devices in the home it was getting ridiculous. It has helped a little bit. Just for giggles I did a Speed test on my dual band router. It is a Netgear WNDR3700v1 and managed to get 69mbps down on my 5ghz band. The 2.4 was in the 20's. That is as fast as my connection should go. So the phone can get up there. By chance do you have another client that could be taking up some of the bandwidth?

Eclipse2k, 802.11AC is really just the next big step from N. big increase on the single Spatial stream up to 433bmps(may go higher as they increase channel bonding to 160mhz). Eventually it will be able to go up to 8 streams to. Beamforming is great and standardized unlike N. The big jump will be the second wave of AC devices with MU-MIMO. Look that up. that is pretty awesome and will be great when it gets here. That is what I am holding out for before I upgrade.

 

[jabo75]

Maverick, you got that right, MU-MIMO will be the bomb.

YEA, i am starting to think my issue is really with the router, but I really have trouble accepting it after all of the methodical testing that I have done.
I am more than happy with the 50Mbps on the 2.4 band. Hell, I tell everyone that if you get half the rated bandwidth on a network, you are lucky, period. So with 50 down on a 72 link (2.4) I am thrilled.
It's the 5ghz issue that's driving me nuts. If I wasn't able to pull good speed from 2 different laptops, I would chalk it up to the router and call it a day. If I figure it out, I promise I will report back.

 

[mavrrick]

Just gonna toss these ideas out there.

What kind of security do you have on the 5ghz band. Is the key very complex. Do you have any qos stuff running. Our multimedia prioritizing. Do you use any of the extra networks your device supports. Maybe configure another one and see what happens.

What are you using to detect the speed of the Note 3. Is it Ookla speed test or the FCC tool.

Something I have noticed on my wifi network is weird spikes in latency. Which in turn kills speed.

Could run Iperf on your laptop and a wired pc and look for drops in network speed. That is what I did to see the above problem on my network. Devices with multiple spatial streams may be able to compensate better for weird signal drops.

Have you tried reseting the router to factory defaults?

Does that speed hold true to connections in your local network.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[jweimn]

You do know that just because your cable provider, in this case comcast set you into their 100 MB tier it doesn't actually mean you will get 100 MBs. You will probably never hit that speed as that is the theoretical top speed on an uncontested connection which with a cable provider the connection will never be uncontested as it is just the nature of cable. Plus the cable providers Comcast and Time Warner especially I am almost 100% certain lie about their speeds and inflate the numbers.

So I'd say at your speed you get now of 70 something MB I believe you said, Is something that I'd be happy with as those are actually good speeds for a cable provider

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

 

[Eclipse2K]

You do know that just because your cable provider, in this case comcast set you into their 100 MB tier it doesn't actually mean you will get 100 MBs. You will probably never hit that speed as that is the theoretical top speed on an uncontested connection which with a cable provider the connection will never be uncontested as it is just the nature of cable. Plus the cable providers Comcast and Time Warner especially I am almost 100% certain lie about their speeds and inflate the numbers.

So I'd say at your speed you get now of 70 something MB I believe you said, Is something that I'd be happy with as those are actually good speeds for a cable provider

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

Actually, Comcast Xfinity Blast and above get well beyond their advertised speeds. I'm supposed to get 50 Mbps download but pull nearly 60 Mbps at all times. Comcast does this everywhere and not just my line. Heck, Comcast even took a shot at AT&T Uverse saying they offer higher than advertised speeds (PCMag I believe did the study) while AT&T doesn't even come near their advertised speeds.



Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (Verizon)

 

[jabo75]

Mavrrick, Good thoughts. Here's my deal:
My 5ghz network is WPA2-Personal, non-complex key, no QOS, No Multimedia prioritizing, I have not used any of the additional networks. I will throw another network up just to see...

Speed test: Ookla

As for latency, several months ago I ran Namebench and found the fastest DNS servers, plugging them in made no difference in bandwidth.

I have not bothered to run Iperf, because i almost always run the speed test on my laptops before and after I test my Note3 and haven't noticed any issue with their connection speed.

The only non-vanilla thing about my configuration is that I have several ports open to accommodate some of the services on my NAS. But again, I'm not using QOS for any of them.

I may do the factory reset just for giggles.

I will report back any discovery. Thanks.

I

 

[jabo75]

Well, I do have something to report back.
I changed the control channel setting from "automatic" to 165, the speed was even slower. Then I changed it to 48. I got 110Mbps on my first test! Obviously there is something with the Note 3 WIFI radio that does not like the upper channels on the 5ghz network.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Almeuit]

I'll have to play with this on my new toy.

Just got this bad boy last night .

http://www.amazon.com/RT-AC68U-Wire...ag=hawk-future-20&ascsubtag=UUacUvbUpU3585010

Sent from my T-Mobile Note 3 using AC Forums.

 

[mavrrick]

I am glad that did it for you. Just for giggles I tried to duplicate it, and I couldn't. By chance do you remember what channel it was that had the problem.

I tried several channels and my connection never slowed down.

Posted via Android Central App

 

[jweimn]

Actually, Comcast Xfinity Blast and above get well beyond their advertised speeds. I'm supposed to get 50 Mbps download but pull nearly 60 Mbps at all times. Comcast does this everywhere and not just my line. Heck, Comcast even took a shot at AT&T Uverse saying they offer higher than advertised speeds (PCMag I believe did the study) while AT&T doesn't even come near their advertised speeds.



Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (Verizon)

Hmm surprising. Time Warner just sucks where I am and comcast isn't really rated any better so I am surprised.

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

 

[jabo75]

I am glad that did it for you. Just for giggles I tried to duplicate it, and I couldn't. By chance do you remember what channel it was that had the problem.

I tried several channels and my connection never slowed down.

Posted via Android Central App

I didn't make a note of the channel it was on when it was set to "automatic", but I know it was in the hundreds. When I manually set the channel to 165 my speed seemed to decrease further. My recall from when I last ran Wifi Analyzer when the router was on "automatic" seems to be that the channel was 150ish.
Now my router and the wireless AP that I use are on 48 and 36 respectively.
An interesting note is that the iDevices in our house have realized the speed increase too, which leads me to believe that there may be an issue with the router, since there is absolutely no interference on the 5ghz band that I can detect.

jweimn: Cable speeds can fluctuate widely depending on the amount of usage on each node. I do however get right around 100Mbps most times during the day. Sometimes in the evening, my speed does slow considerably, to about half.