How to get N600 speed on dual band?

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adrianjrazo

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Sep 30, 2014
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I recently purchased the Netgear C3700 N600 modem/router and the Netgear WNDA3100 Wifi adapter. It advertises speeds up to 600 mbps (300+300). Both are dual band. If I make two SSIDs on the router, can i connect to both at the same time with the adapter to get speeds up to 600 mbps? If not, then how do I configure my network to get speeds up to the advertised 600 mbps.
 
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When you see ratings as N600 or N900 etc this is the total throughput of the router with all bands and radios being utilized. The differences between the bandwidth has to do with the number of radios per band that the router employs. In the N Wifi Standard each radio is capable of 150mbs. So if you put 2 radios you would get 300mbs in the band where they are employed. Now you only see these speeds if your client device has the equal number of radios. If you only have a single radio client then you will see a max speed of 150mbs regardless of the radios in the router. If you have 2 radio client device then you may see the 300mbs.

This is important to understand. When you look at routers and then the client connections you need to...
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boosted1g

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Jun 12, 2013
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No, you can not simultaniously connect to the dual band router and get 600mbps of speed.

I dont know of any wifi adapter that allows dual connections. This is likley due to windows being the limiting factor anyway. Windows will only use one connection at a time, you cant say get 4 300mbps usb wifi adapters and merge the speed together to get 1200mbps speed.
 
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boosted1g

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You cant even utilize lan and wifi at the same time.

You could manually set routes to use wifi for internet and lan for internal, or even set certian programs or websites to use a specific network adapter, but you cant simulationusly use them for the same session connection.
 
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WyomingKnott

WyomingKnott

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While the user can't create two SSIDs, one on each frequency, and bond the channels, I suspect that that isn't the question.

Both devices advertise N600 ability, running 300 Mb/s on 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz simultaneously. It's entirely reasonable to assume, from the advertising material, that two N600 devices can set up a 600 Mb/s link to each other, transparently to the client software. However, the more of Netgear's documentation that I read the more I don't see any mention of this.

OP, have you simply made a WiFi connection between the two devices and tested the speed?

EDIT: The more that I look at the Netgear site, the more I think that 600 is the router's max total throughput, but that's 300 to one client and 300 to another. No mention of channel bonding on the WiFi side.

EDIT: These folks seem to agree: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1917692
 
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kanewolf

kanewolf

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You N600 can have 600Mbits TOTAL bandwidth. You could have one device connected on 2.4Ghz with a maximum bandwidth of 300Mbit and a second device connected at 5Ghz with maximum bandwidth of 300Mbit. These are LAN speeds only. Your WAN (internet) speed will be determined by your internet provider and how much bandwidth you pay for. If you have 3Mbit DSL, and an AC1900 router. You still get AT MOST 3Mbit to the rest of the world. You might be able to stream movies from a local hard drive to a TV faster with an AC1900 router but your connection to gaming servers won't change.
 
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boosted1g

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How else would you possibly get 600mbps speed unless you bonded the 2.4 and 5ghz band SSIDs??
What the OP is looking for is just not possible with current hardware.
As far as I know they do not even make wifi adapters that can do 2 connections to 2 SSIDs
 
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bobsilver

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When you see ratings as N600 or N900 etc this is the total throughput of the router with all bands and radios being utilized. The differences between the bandwidth has to do with the number of radios per band that the router employs. In the N Wifi Standard each radio is capable of 150mbs. So if you put 2 radios you would get 300mbs in the band where they are employed. Now you only see these speeds if your client device has the equal number of radios. If you only have a single radio client then you will see a max speed of 150mbs regardless of the radios in the router. If you have 2 radio client device then you may see the 300mbs.

This is important to understand. When you look at routers and then the client connections you need to understand both. Unfortunately client device companies (laptops, smartphones, tablets, rokus etc) DON'T list their wifi specs clearly. The use adjectives like "extreme" etc that tell you nothing.

Also you need to look at router specs to understand where radios are placed. Example is in the Netgear 3700 N600 its 2 radios in the in the 2.4ghz band and 2 in the 5ghz band thus getting 300+300 = 600mbs potential. In a Netgear 4500 which lists it as N900 its 3 radios in the in the 2,4ghz and 3 in the 5ghz. If you see a router like the Netgear WNDR4300 its listed as N750. This has 2 radios in the 2.4ghz band and 3 in the 5ghz band. The maximum spec for N is 3 radios so a N900 router is the best you will see.

The AC spec is similar except that each radio is capable of approximately 450mbs (I think its like 433mbs). And this is only in the 5ghz band. The 2.4ghz band is the same as it is in the N spec. So when you see AC routers claiming AC1750 or so it is usually 3 radios in the 2.4ghz band for 450mbs and 3 radios in the the 5ghz band. But again you must have a matching client to access this. The new iphone 6 for example is a single radio AC device (all other iphones were single radio N devices where as iPads were 2 radios at least in the later models). So on a N network YOU'LL see 150mbs I believe and on AC you will see 450mbs. Again they DON'T list the specs as to what radio count they have. Just max throughput. This makes it very hard to know what you have.

Oh and there is NO bonding spec that I am aware of to use both bands simultaneously.

Hope this helps you understand the technology somewhat.

Bob Silver
NETGEAR Networking Assistant

 
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