Local Wifi much slower than expected

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David_247

Commendable
Feb 27, 2016
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Hi,

I'm trying to rearrange our Wi-Fi since we are going to upgrade our internet connection from 16mbps to 120mbps.
Our router is a Netgear WNDR3700 v1 which is supposed to be capable of 300mbps. I don't know if it is supposed to be 2x 150mbps since it is a dual-band router, but either way, the actual speed that I get (directly next to the router, in the same room) is only 30mbps on 2.4ghz for local data transfers (I'm not even using the internet).
Is the router just bad? Is there too much interference from other sources? There are a lot of other Wi-Fi networks nearby, and all channels are used.
5ghz Wi-Fi yields about 75mbps, but is basically not usable in our house since we have a lot of thick walls and still below the expected values.
What can I do to improve the Wi-Fi situation?

Thanks
 
Solution
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The slower speed on 2.4g likely is as you suspect related to interference especially since you can get 75m just by changing bands.

The 75m number is about what is expected on a 300m 802.11n connection being fairly close to the router. If you did not have interference you would see rates on the 2.4g band about that speed also. Things like 450m or 600m can push it to 100m or so but those require your end device and router have 3 and 4 antenna. It is rare to see end devices with more than 2 antenna.

In most cases to go faster than 100m you must use 802.11ac. Problem is 802.11ac only runs on the 5g band which means you get less coverage but in the coverage area you do get is faster.

There really is not a lot you can do to solve this...
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RealBeast

RealBeast

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Sep 13, 2010
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2.4GHz wireless has a couple of issues that will limit your wireless speed and then of course interference is a potential issue. I would check some things out.

First, run the 2.4GHz in N only mode, supporting legacy devices limits the top speed to 54Mbps instead of some faster connection. You also must use WPA1/AES security or you once again get limited to a theoretical maximum of 54Mbps.

There are only three non-overlapping 2.4GHz channels: 1, 6, and 11. I would download and run the free version of inSSIDer to see if you have any other strong signals on channel that you selected for your router.

And unlike a wired connection, a wireless or powerline connection never really gets close to the maximum theoretical (aka marketing) speeds.

In addition to the above, consider getting a pair of AV1200 powerline adapters and an inexpensive router to set up at the other end of the house as an access point if you have a dead zone at the far end of the house.
 
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bill001g

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Aug 9, 2012
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The slower speed on 2.4g likely is as you suspect related to interference especially since you can get 75m just by changing bands.

The 75m number is about what is expected on a 300m 802.11n connection being fairly close to the router. If you did not have interference you would see rates on the 2.4g band about that speed also. Things like 450m or 600m can push it to 100m or so but those require your end device and router have 3 and 4 antenna. It is rare to see end devices with more than 2 antenna.

In most cases to go faster than 100m you must use 802.11ac. Problem is 802.11ac only runs on the 5g band which means you get less coverage but in the coverage area you do get is faster.

There really is not a lot you can do to solve this. Some of the newer routers have better radio chips that tolerate interference better but you can not really solve the problem of too many people competing for the same radio bandwidth.

What you might try is to change your router to only run 20mhz channels and then try channels 1,6,11 testing on each. This will cut the top theoretical speed to 150m but it might be better than 40mhz channels running 300m because you may get less interference. Using 40mhz channels you are using channels 1&6 or 6&11 which increases you chance of interference. Obviously channel 6 will likely be the worst choice.
 
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Solution
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David_247

Commendable
Feb 27, 2016
5
0
1,510
Sadly the router is fairly limited in terms of configuration options. No 802.11n setting, no 20/40mhz settings.
I'm thinking of getting a new router anyway since the new ISP doesn't support ISDN for telephones and I want to keep them. Luckily the FRITZ!Box 6490 Cable supports them.

The idea with the AV1200 powerline adapters seems pretty good, since I'm currently not willing to open the walls everywhere to install cables. I already own a WLAN repeater, but it only supports 2.4ghz and again only up to 300mbps, so I think in the future I might simply add another router to the network with the powerline adapters and expand the 5ghz coverage.

Thanks

Edit: I tried OpenWRT to expand the options on the router to maybe improve the situation a little bit... but now I have a lot of different problems.
 
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