Looking for Wireless Stress Test Cases

[thiggins]

I may have missed it, but i'd like to see is how your wifi handles or recovers from neighbors streaming or torrenting over wifi with overlapping and nonoverlapping channels, how that affects your low latency apps and so on. I live in an apartment, so obviously one that handles these situations better than others would appeal to somebody like myself

I think ideally, you could duplicate a stress test setup and run one then both simultaneously, etc.

Easier said than done. The setup I'm working on will not have this capability. But it will beat the hell out of a router via multiple STAs connected to it.

 

[sfx2000]

Do tell. What sort of traffic were those STAs presenting?

Stuff people basically do in a social/party environment - mix of youtube streaming, facebook updates, whatapp and imessage, along with netflix in the background...

 

[sfx2000]

Easier said than done. The setup I'm working on will not have this capability. But it will beat the hell out of a router via multiple STAs connected to it.

Freespace test case could allow for this - having a known router/streamer running on same channel/overlapping channel is actually a pretty good test case...

The other one is having a low MCS client (weak/edge of coverage) pulling down a stream while strong clients are attempting other types/same types of traffic, as this goes towards flow management and airtime fairness...

MU - 1 weak and two strong MU stations - tests the the scheduler and decision trees there - if the AP chipset makes the right choice or not (don't punish the two strong by including the weak in the MU station set).

 

[thiggins]

Stuff people basically do in a social/party environment - mix of youtube streaming, facebook updates, whatapp and imessage, along with netflix in the background...

How many YouTube / Netflix simultaneous streams were running?

 

[sfx2000]

How many YouTube / Netflix simultaneous streams were running?

Pretty much ad-hoc for most of the traffic, but there were two netflix streams running constantly - one in the main living room, and one down in the basement (younger kids watching their content)... because of the layout of the house, this was across different radios (main was 5GHz on Amazon fire, basement was AppleTV on 2.4GHz).

Living room table had two laptops that was AC capable (Macbook Air 2014, and Dell Inpsion 7000 13 running Win8.1) doing various things - but outside of the two streamers and the two laptops, rest was pretty much a mix of iPhones/Androids/iPads across both bands)

Common SSID's across both radios, no media prioritization - 5Ghz was auto (mixed mode, wide channels), 2.4GHz was clear channel in B/G/N-only mode with 20MHz channels only. No VPN/Guest networks in use, no DLNA/Airplay in use)

 

[dlbzone]

Hi Thiggins,

Any 4 of the below could be simultaneous, with up to 3 of 4 streaming HD Video Simultaneously and the 4th gaming during peak 8pm-10pm. I don't know the radio x stream counts for all my clients.

, AC, iPhone6sPlus, Facebook, Email, Gaming, Web
, AC, iPhone6, Email, Web
*, N, iPad3Ret, Facebook, Email, Gaming, Web
*, AC, iPhone6s, TiVo Stream, Gaming
, N, iPad2, TiVo Stream, Gaming
, AC, iPhone6s, TiVo Stream, Gaming
*, N, iPad2, TiVo Stream, Gaming
, AC, iPhone6, Email, Web
*, N, iPad3Ret, TiVo Stream, Netflix

The below may be connected, but aren't doing much during peak traffic hours.
, N, Laptop, Gaming, Web
, AC, Laptop, VPN, Web
, AC, Laptop, VPN, Web
, N, Laptop, Web

The below usually are powered down.
, N, tablet, Android Apps

All Smart TVs, TiVo DVRs and TiVo minis, Apple TV, Roku, PS3, Xbox360, WiiU, etc are wired on gigabit switches.

My brother's family is coming to visit over Christmas, so I expect at least two more devices and possibly a third could be trying to stream HD video during peak hours.

I have 32mbps down and 3.5mbps up cable broadband service.

I have an Asus RT-ac68p running AsusWRT-Merlin (for filtering features) as my router on main floor in office.
2.4 CH1, 5 CH 157+161

I have a Netgear R7000 in AP mode on 2nd floor.
2.4 CH 6+10, 5 CH 149+153

I intend to run additional AP(s) while my brother visits over Christmas, probably 5GHz only.

I don't have an issue with range, the R7000 is incredible for that. I do sometimes have an issue supporting more than two HD streaming clients. The TiVos push a ton of bandwidth. It would be great if you wrote an article on how to design a wireless network to support this kind of traffic or maybe you have and I missed it. Let me know.

Thanks!

 

[thiggins]

Thanks for the test case.

Best way to handle heavy constant loads is to expand bandwidth. You do that by adding access points and distributing clients among them.

 

[sm00thpapa]

I have over 50 devices connected to my home network. I will try and come up with something in the next few days.

 

[MysteriousGuy]

I don't think mine counts as a stressful scenario, but here it goes

3 android phones (2 on 2.4 & 1 on 5)
2 tablets (2.4 & 5)
1 computer (wired)
1 laptop (2.4)

All these devices belong to 3 people.

I have a Netgear WNDR3400v3 running tomato.

On a typical day/heavy day
Both tablets will be streaming 1080p video from the nas (one on 2.4 & one on 5).

Mom watching youtube in kitchen (2 walls at an angle on 2.4)

The laptop & the computer browsing the Web.

Everything works fine on Saturday & Sunday.
From Monday to Friday, there are 2 public wifi networks which destroys the 2.4 ghz devices.
Mom's youtube & 2.4 ghz tablet stream will start to buffer every few minutes.

I have a separate 5ghz AP for my bedroom since it is 3+ walls away from the main router, but only used at night.

I have a gimmicky setup which isn't particularly stressful. I'm planning to go 5Ghz for all devices in 2016.
Hope this helps.

PS : Long time reader of the website. Started visiting the forums a month back. Learned a lot of new things.
Thank you everyone

 

[thiggins]

Mysterious: Thanks for the test case. Yes, you better move to 5 GHz. Time to upgrade the router, too. AC1900 class should do you just fine.

 

[sfx2000]

Did some wireless recon in the past couple of days...

In the past 12 months or so, there's a lot more of the media type devices out there - operator provided wireless set top boxes, the various Media Players (Roku, AppleTV, etc) and SmartTV's - some of this is 'cable cutting' and some of this is the big Cable/Telco/Satellite players for secondary rooms...

Put that in conjunction with the major console players (PS4/XBone) and SmartTV's, and the usual SmartPhone/Tablet load... seeing more point to point traffic as compared to 12 months back - e.g. ChromeCast, WiFi Direct Link, MiraCast... these are easy to spot as they're part of a BSS, but Source/Dest are not aligned with the base AP in that BSS.

Carrier Provided - Netgear and Arris (ex Motorola) are the big players these days - N300/N450 is predominate, but still see quite a few G54 2-Wire boxes - ActionTec is also a big player (these are all easy to spot for the most part based on OUI and SSID's, and client traffic). Starting to see more 11n/11ac out there in 5GHz, I would say about 80/20 split, and most AP's are 3-stream if they have 5GHz (N450/AC1300).

2.4GHz is easily 80-85 percent of the traffic observed (looking at data packets).

Client specs - most are single/two stream, and again, most of the traffic in is the 2.4GHz band, not 5GHz, but 5GHz is getting more and more common these days...

SO the AP and Client mix has definitely changed - and 2.4GHz, even in suburban areas is getting to the point where some of the channels are 80 percent utilized by looking at some AP's that report QBSS loads, otherwise, look at the CTS/RTS traffic along with QoS reporting and Data packets.

 

[sfx2000]

And FWIW - the general laptop/desktop traffic is pretty much the same as it was last time I did some recon.. it's really the media player traffic that is driving up usage...

 

[sfx2000]

And some good news - I would say 90 percent out there are now using WPA2 - can tell in the RSN stanza inside the beacon frames - lot of the carrier provided equipment is configured for WPA/WPA2 Mixed (can see by having TKIP for the group key, AES-CCMP for the pairwise keying) - unfortunately perhaps, there is still a lot of WPS, esp. with the carrier gear - I suppose a lot of this is driven by ease of use, but considering past vulnerablities with WPS, it's a bit spooky...

WEP is still out there, believe it or not, and I still see some wide channel usage in 2.4, but not as much as before - channel mix, mostly 1, 6, 11, but about 30 percent in other channels - 5GHz is really being driven into the UNII-1 and UNII-3 bands, not much in the UNII-2 DFS channels, but if one were to look for some quiet space, putting the AP into Auto, and let them scan in as needed...

 

[ColinTaylor]

Enjoy!

,1x1 N , Blu-Ray, Firmware updates
,2x2 N , TV, YouTube
,1x1 N , Phone, Web, Email
,1x1 G , Radio, Firmware updates
,1x1 N , Blu-Ray, Firmware updates
,2x2 AC, Phone, Web, Email, Facebook
,1x1 G , Printer, Printing
,2x2 AC, notebook, Web
,1x1 G , Console, Online gaming
,1x1 N , Console, Online gaming
* ,1x1 N , Phone, Facebook
* ,3x3 AC, notebook, Web, YouTube, Twitch, Facebook
* ,2x2 N , TV, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, DLNA
* ,1x1 AC, notebook, Web, Email, Facebook

 

[sfx2000]

I'd like to see some interoperability tests - maybe not as routine, but now that we have multiple vendors offering 4*4:4 capability in 2.4GHz, and various implementations of Turbo/NitroQAM (QAM1024/QAM256)* - would be curious to see how QCA vs. Broadcom vs. Marvell play together in both "enhanced" mode vs. native N in both 20 and 40MHz channels... and then throw this across different client implementations (Intel vs. Broadcom vs. QCA vs. Realtek as most common 1*1:1, 2*2:2, 3*3:3) - including both AC capable chipsets where applicable and native N chipsets.

Media bridge performance in 2.4GHz would be bonus points..

* Turbo/NitroQAM - Broadcom and QCA (along with Marvell) have implemented this in different means - BRCM advertises Turbo/Nitro as a Vendor Specific Attribute in the Beacon, whereas QCA and Marvell introduce VHT attributes (non-standard) in different ways.

 

[thiggins]

Thanks, sfx. But I think that's a bit more than I can sign up for...

 

[sfx2000]

Thanks, sfx. But I think that's a bit more than I can sign up for...

Might be a one-up vs. a recurring test-case - similar to the 11ac vs. 11n and devices being better or not...

Unfortunate that we're on opposite coasts, as it would be interesting to get on the SNB test bench for a week or so...