DSL AC68U Slow Wifi speed

[Bejoy Alex]

Hello Everyone. Let me first give a description of the setup.

I have a Fibre broadband of 200Mbps provided with a ZTE Wifi router which has a limited speed on Wifi. Hence i connected the ZTE router to my Asus DSL Ac68U via WAN Ethernet. I have disabled the Wifi on my ZTE router. Now on LAN i get approx 195Mbps however on WIFI i get slow speeds. If i stand close to router i get approx 120Mbps and few metres away on 5GHZ itself the speed comes down to 60-70Mbps. On 2.4Ghz bandwidth i don't get anymore than 40-50Mbps. Now i am sure this router should support much higher speeds. BTW i have disabled QOS on my router and i am unable to enable 802.1Q as that disconnects my internet.

Asus support seems to be the worst as they do not have any solution or knowledge. They want me to take it to a service centre and they do not have one close by. Hence the router would have to be send across to a service centre in another state in India and turnaround time is 3 weeks. I am sure there might be some solution or way i can boost the speed on WIFI.

Thanks in advance for the help.

PS: I have tried resetting the router, setting specific channel, changing the antenna direction.

 

[Grisu]

Do you really have a DSL-AC68U or a RT-AC68U ???
There is no WAN port on DSL-version, there is a DSL-modem line instead!
But yes it is possible to configure one LAN port as WAN even on this.

This will be only for comparing with others.
2,4G I have huge troubles too, but 5G working good.
I set my 68U to ch. 36-48 with 80MHz bandwith and get up to 210Mb/s WiFi speed over my 230Mb/s DSL line.
2G I get up to 100Mb/s with 40MHz bandwith but next time it goes down to 1Mb/s, if I use only n-mode (no AC) it is only 70Mb/s but much more stable.
Distance 5m straight ahead from PC with Intel 8265 card (2 antennas).

Use a Wifi analyzer to see what you got around you and how strong signals are.
Change position of router, not in a corner or shelf, higher positon mostly better.

 

[Bejoy Alex]

It is a DSL AC68U with one LAN port converted to WAN. It is a two floored house with brick walls. The router is kept at the centre of the house on the top floor. The 5GHZ i get speed of 125Mbps if i am in the same room as the router but it reduces considerably in the next room.
2.4GHZ i have set the channel to 11 and at 20/40Mhz and downstairs i get a maximum speed of 60mbps. Now the entire house is not more than 10mtrs in radius.

 

[Grisu]

It is a DSL AC68U with one LAN port converted to WAN. It is a two floored house with brick walls. The router is kept at the centre of the house on the top floor. The 5GHZ i get speed of 125Mbps if i am in the same room as the router but it reduces considerably in the next room.
2.4GHZ i have set the channel to 11 and at 20/40Mhz and downstairs i get a maximum speed of 60mbps. Now the entire house is not more than 10mtrs in radius.

5G dont pass wall well, same to next floor!
2,4G much better for that but slower.
Try fix 40MHz for 2,4G, should be much faster if you dont interfere with others surrounding.
But your neighbours won't be happy about that!!!

Seems you reached your limts with WiFi.
5G should be faster in same room, but depends on devices you want to connect to it.

If you need it fast use ethernet!

 

[Bejoy Alex]

Oh and i thought this router would give more speeds on both the bandwidth lol. Would buying 9Dbi antennas make a difference? Ofcourse i might have to point them better but 3 antennas should be able to cover the whole house.

 

[Grisu]

dont think so, but maybe worth a try if you can get them for a test case.

More antennas can only give full speed to MORE devices, one device can't benefit of it if itself got only 1 antenna.

More antennas don't cover your house better than one, but it can help because you can direct them differently and router got the chance to use the best antenna for your device depending where it is located at the moment.
And it can use them for two other devices with almost same speed as the first device in parallel.

The truth is, that it is even bader for one device, as the same (regulated) power is split to 3 antennas, so each antenna got only 1/3 max.-power (1/3 power is -5dB, not very much difference in speed and coverage but anyway less).

 

[Bejoy Alex]

Correct me if wrong. This model comes with 3 Antennas by default which i believe is 5DBI. If i change them to 9DBI isn't it supposed to increase the distance of the signal? I have approximately 10 devices connected to the router but not all would be using the internet at the same time. Except one Desktop rest all are mobiles and one smart TV.

PS. Also my upload speed seems to be more than my download. At 2.4GHz i am getting 60 Mbps download and 95Mbps upload.

 

[Grisu]

yes I think they are 5dbi, you can only increase range a little bit with 9dbi antennas, it won't get much faster with 4db better signal if you have better than 70dBm signal strength on your devices.
PS: yes this can happen.

 

[Bejoy Alex]

Other than replacing the antenna is there any other option to boost the signal and speed over Wifi? I do not want another extender as it would only extend the same speed and not increase it.

 

[Grisu]

depends on your regional/country settings, e.g. if it is set to EU you get 12dB weaker signal, dont know it for your setting and what is set at all in your cfe (bootloader).
US will probably get strongest signals.

look here for possible speeds, QAM-256 need very good signal to work you will get only just beside ...: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11ac

 

[Bejoy Alex]

Now how do I find what's in CFE? I am from India.

 

[Grisu]

telnet or SSH to the router:
nvram show | grep -E 'ccode|regrev|regulation|wl[0-9]_country|wl[0-9]_reg_mode|maxp|txpower|clkfreq' | sort

 

[Bejoy Alex]

Once I see it would I be able to change the region? If yes changing it to US will it make a difference?

 

[Grisu]

tell us whats the output (nothing you have to be worried about), just copy paste, yes changeable, depends what is set now.

 

[Bejoy Alex]

Attached is the screenshot. Looks like Singapore.

 

[Grisu]

thats ok, wont get stronger with US setting, you have 106 power setting means 25dBm, maximum possible today.
so leave it as it is.

 

[Bejoy Alex]

So would that mean I have no other option to increase the power of the antennas? The reason is I believe this router supports upto 400mbps on 2.4ghz and maybe 900mbps on 5ghz. I can understand the interference from walls and other structures but shouldn't it be still able to transmit around 100plus Mbps data across the house if am sitting within less than 10mts radius of the router? Correct me if am wrong.

 

[Grisu]

simply wrong

600 on 2,4 and 1300 5G = AC 1900
But that for 3 channels/streams over 3 antennas to 3 different devices if they only have 1 antenna each.
So with standard devices you are down to 200 and 400 mpbs in best case.
And that is brutto WIFI speed, NOT the speed you can transmit YOUR bytes.
Divide it again by 2 and you will get real world speed you can use in best case.

So 100 for 2,4 and 200 for 5G are good realistic values.

And other wireless router AC5300 wont get faster for one device with one antenna.

 

[Bejoy Alex]

So keeping the realistic value I am still getting 40-50mbps on 2.4 and 145mbps on 5g (rarely). Otherwise 120 on 5g

 

[Grisu]

did you set 40MHz and 80 MHz fixed not 20/40/80?

If other needed channels in 2,4G are used by neighbours it always will use only 20.