Pls help analyse these numbers and setup

[crischnak]

Hi

Its difficult finding articles were you get a grip what a good wifi setup should look likei e what speeds, signal strengths etc.. Whats a good setup given a certain situation? In order to figure this out, ie if my setup is good I have attached the analysis below. Would appreciate any help and or opinions to my setup... Help me Obi Wan youre my only hope..

Are my numbers ok?

Signal ok?

Speed?

Setup look ok?

Any pointers and ideas you can give me?

 

[stevech]

Measuring signal strength around the house tells about 1/2 the story. The rest of the story is the signal strength at the router for your client devices. And choosing a channel to use that is not burdened with neighbors' WiFi if they are heavy users - streaming, FTPing, etc. Chan., 1, 6, and 11 are the best choices, usually. It's not the number of neighbor-SSIDs; it's if any near your channel are using a lot of air time. This isn't displayed by consumer/freeware tools. It's like looking at the freeway in rush hour vs. 3AM. What's the traffic load (engineering: channel utilization in percent, vs. time of day).

You said your ISP provides 100MB. Let's assume this is 100Mb (bits/sec, not Bytes/sec). That's a lot faster than normal residential cable modem (typ. 20Mbps down, 1 up) and DS (typ. 3Mbps down, 0.7 up).

 

[CaptainSTX]

Network Only Good Weakest Link

To evaluate and if necessary improve network performance you need to identify weakest/ slowest link.

This means testing each component/link seperately.

First determine what the actual download upload throughput you are getting from you ISP. Connect a good PC with fast processor and adequate memory directly to you modem using an Ethernet cable and cconduct multiple speed tests at various times of day and night over several days. Average the results or even better export the multiple test results into Excel and compute standard deviations and determine at the 95% confidence level your upload and download speeds.

Second connect two PCs directly to your router and run a lan speed test (there is a utility for this ) and determine based on using your best router and best PCs what the upper limits of your networks performance is.

Then disconnect one of the PCs from your router and Turn WiFi back on and begin doing LAN speed tests using both 2.4Mhz and 5 Mhz radios at various locations and see what the best speeds you can get at each location. This will give you a good indication of how much bandwidth you are sacrificing as a result of using WiFi at any particular location.

For instance If you got a 85Mbs read when the two computers were linked together using Ethernet now and using Wifi at a location when you test the LAN Speed test you get a read speed of 32Mbps Wifi has reduced your LAN speed to 37% of its highest potential.

Then combining this with the results of your Speedtest ( Assume for discussion the average download speed you got from the internet was 55Mbps) the Internet speed you might reasonably expect at this particular location would be 37% x 55Mbps or 20 Mbps plus or minus whatever your standard deviation is.

If your spped is significantly less then you have identified a link in your network that needs to be improved if you want or need more speed.

 

[crischnak]

Yes My ISP delivers 94 mb download via ethernet to iMac. Its a fibre lightning fast delivery. Wifi speed is indicated usling same scale for different areas ie next to extreme router, opposite corner om groundfloor and next to extended express and opposite corner first floor. I still dont figure if my numbers are good, great or even bad. Seem to loose 2/3 of speed on average compared to ethernet hook.

Good or bad or depends as seems to be standard response. Relatively is it fast... Thx for helping..

Here is a link to resuklt from SPeedtest verifying my DL speed..

http://www.speedtest.net/result/2380546369.png

In airport i get a reading of 65 -71 mbit and - 41 - 70 db signal which is better then i get from speedtest for my extended airportexpress same ssid as extreme....

 

[stevech]

WiFi wont' keep up with your 93Mbps ISP service - except with just the right gear and rare ideal conditions.

Want Speed: don't use WiFi!

Fortunately, the other paradigm applies: Use wireless when you're mobile. Use wired if not. When you're mobile, you usually don't need 10's of Mbps service.

 

[crischnak]

Thx guys but is 20-40 mbit descent speed for wifi?

I understand i trade some speed using wifi for ipads netflix and so forth. But is the trade i do comparing lan vs wifi ok, ie 93-94 download compared to 30-40 using wifi!

Second question is 30-40 mbit/ sec fast for wifi? Is it fast enuff?

Cheers pls answer these two questions, ie is trade fair and is speed ok

 

[CaptainSTX]

Speed Rating

If you look at the charts on this site, under test lab conditions SNB using a 40 Mhz channel on the 5Ghz band the testor was able to obtain a down load speed of 66.5 using an Asus N66 router.

Therefore your speed compared to their speed is OK at best so give yourself a C.

In the real world your speeds are good.

If you are willing to test and identify where your problems are you might be able to do better.

 

[crischnak]

Thx

Thx Captain. I reread your answers about iding weakest link and given that post i figure my network does alright right? if i find a slowish area I could improve that by extending with a 2nd airport express correct?

Another Question how do I go about identifying the weakest link ie the slowest client? I think all of my clients support n standard? I read somewhere that wifi is hampered by the slowest client but this is only correct if I use g and n client simultaneously isit?? Also read that thats one reason for dual band ie newer clients can use 5 ghz wereas slower only use 2.4 ghz?

From my list below would they all support n and 5 ghz? Is it important or is it only important if i use them simultaneously. Hope you understand my queries and thirst for knowlege?

I have 2 ipads gen 1 and 3, two iphones 4 s one lenovo pc and one apple tv 2. On top,of this i have two sonos s5 and a bridge... The only thing i got wired is my Imac 2010 gen..

I might run the ps3 on wifi but its currently not in use unplugged..

 

[CaptainSTX]

Improvements

5 Mhz channels probably aren't going to help much.

First most devices are 2.4 Mhz only. I have 14 WiFi enabled devices and only my wife's Ipad V3 has a 5 Mhz radio. I bought a dual band adapter for one of my laptops and the improvement in throughput isn't enough to make it worthwhile having the dongle hanging off it plus fighting with Windows to shut the laptops built in adapter down and keep it off. Look at the charts on SNB and in most cases you won't see a big improvement in using a 5 Mhz channel(s) particularly if you are not in the same room as the 5 Mhz AP.

The simplest thing you can do is run Ethernet cables from your router to the rooms/areas where you will be using WiFi and can benefit and then install APs single or dual band N. You will be better off having more good APs than just a few expensive APs with more powerful radios and amplifiers. If you can't or don't want to run Ethernet cables then try Powerline Ethernet adapters and plug your APs into them.

I use Linksys 54Gs running DD-WRT in several locations in my home where I have weak Wifi from my Asus N66U. The 54Gs are connected to my router using powerline adapters and I can get 25- 35 Mbps throughput on my LAN reading files to network storage. I usually don't pay more than $35 for 54Gs on e-Bay. The point being if you don't need more speed and/or features why pay more. I let my primary wired router handle all the fancy stuff.

Wireless repeaters will get you WiFi connectivity throughout your home, but they will never be able to deliver the speed that your ISP delivers at your modem.

After you get your LAN's backbone setup you can look at tweaking channels and see what else you can do to reduce interference.

 

[stevech]

5 Mhz channels probably aren't going to help much.

First most devices are 2.4 Mhz only.

Nit, nit: Above, "Mhz" should say "GHz"

(the H in MHz and GHz is capitalize in respect to Mr. Hertz, unrelated to the rental car co.).

WRT54G's .. I retired mine when I measured that it's packet forwarding speed on the WAN side was the speed constraint for 20Mbps cable modem service. The '54G has an old/slow CPU by today's standards.

 

[CaptainSTX]

54g

Thank you for your corrections.

As to 54Gs when flashed with DD-WRT they are real work horses, but yes they are not race horses. I only have a 5Mbps internet connection and I back up my computers to a USB drive attached to an AP so I don't lose much if any throughput by using them in certain applications.

Where I live construction is solid masonary both to resist termites and hurricanes.

I have several 54Gs. Two of them are used to fill in dead spots where my Asus' signal is weak. I have another set up to run a PPTP VPN connection so my wife can connect to serevers in Sweden. Finally I use another as a wireless repeater so I can connect to the internet at a location 600 feet from my outside AP.

Again the price for 54Gs is right and they can get the job done if you can live with the limitations of old technology.

 

[stevech]

I understand i trade some speed using wifi for ipads netflix and so forth. But is the trade i do comparing lan vs wifi ok, ie 93-94 download compared to 30-40 using wifi!

Second question is 30-40 mbit/ sec fast for wifi? Is it fast enuff?

30-40 Mbits/sec (Mbps) is good. WiFi speed is mainly constrained by the signal strength - which in turn is affected by the signal attenuation from client to server AND back again. (that's why a mega-powerful WiFi router/AP is no panacea).

Handheld devices typically don't benefit the user much at over 5Mbps.
Netflix streaming is mostly 4Mbps and less, often 2Mbps.