Wireless performance

[Insomniator]

Hello all,

I have Fios 75/35 with their 'old' router connected to a NETGEAR N750 450 Mbps router for wireless. If I do a speed test from my laptop wirelessly I do see 75/35 performance.

That said, I'm finding wireless a little slow overall. Mainly with streaming video from my PC to tv or chromecast. The audio/video often end up out of sync,or the video skips often, even though they play fine on the PC. Netflix often goes in and out of HD... I can't tell if the built in DLNA on my TV is slow, or chromecast is slow or if its something with my wireless setup. Are $200 routers any faster, is there anything new out i do not have on the old Netgear?

Its a 800 sq ft apartment so the signal shouldn't be an issue...

 

[Insomniator]

Actually my wired speed test just rang up at 115/40 and wireless 50/30. Is that an issue with my router or maybe my setup with the verizon router going through the netgear?

 

[JackMDS]

Its a 800 sq ft apartment so the signal shouldn't be an issue...

Should be an issue if it was one open room 40x20 with minimal Furniture.

Otherwise the 800 number is meaningless since it depends on the whole setting (walls furniture, placement of hardware, electrical and wireless noise, etc.)

Do not know about Netgear.

Currently the best price point Wireless Router is this - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833320091

Would it work really better in your environment?

It depends on multiple variables that only you can figure out.

 

[Harlan211]

I can only think of interference. Especially nowadays that everything is wireless.

 

[PliotronX]

Wireless is always going to be slower than wired save for 10Base-T... 50Mbps sounds about right for a good 802.11n connection but the skipping might be helped by actually disabling QoS or WMM. I've noticed huge reductions in wireless throughput when WMM and QoS are enabled. $200 routers will not significantly perform better. They may have better ranges or features like USB ports and guest Wi-Fi and with their higher speed CPU's they can handle VPN's a little better but they are generally not worth the pricetag. The sync issues as resolution changes in video sound like dropped packets, I would try a site survey with the laptop and inSSIDer (older version is freeware) and look for a free channel, typically 3 or 7. Never use automatic channel selection, it is the worst feature for Wi-Fi ever.

 

[azazel1024]

Uhhh...most decent wireless is faster than 100Base-T. Mine I'll hit 170Mbps without a tail wind for 2:2 11n 40MHz. That's faster than half-duplex 100Base-T and nearly as fast as full duplex 100Base-T. Most 11ac, especially "866Mbps" and faster 11ac is quite a bit faster than 100Base-T, taking in to account the full duplex nature of the wired medium.

I would try playing around with QoS. WMM shouldn't be what is holding you back. WMM is generally required for 11n and 11ac to work. Disabling it generally pushes you to 11g. A handful of routers will still talk 11n and ac if you disable WMM, but most will not (its part of the 11n standard, not an optional bit).

QoS might be doing it though. I'd check a site survey with InSSIDer.

Also channel 3 and 7 are the worst channels to pick. You want 1, 6 or 11. 3 and 7 are likely to step on multiple other networks.

For Netflix, that is probably wholely on Verizon's shoes. I have slow downs with them and my 75/35 FIOS package too. On the streaming, how are you streaming from your PC to the other devices? If it is using windows built in DLNA player, try something else. I don't know the state of Windows 8/8.1 DLNA player, but I had serious issues with the Win7 DLNA player and went straight streaming over SMB or iTunes and I've never had a problem, even when I lived in a place with massive wifi congestion.

Wifi congestion might be the issue, but I'd also possibly suspect poor sources for streaming. It deffinitely is a Verizon issue when it comes to Netflix.

So long as your wifi speeds are fast enough to handle the bit rate of the video, congestion is unlikely to be the problem. If a packet is dropped, it'll get retransmitted and pretty much every video player ever will buffer some amount of data, so even if you have a massive spike in congestion here in there for a second or two, it'll be compensated for.

If your wireless speeds were, say, 5-10Mbps, I'd possibly suspect that as the issue, but your wireless speeds sound way above the level for HD streaming from almost any possibly source. So I'd suspect something else is going on.

 

[PliotronX]

I was not aware of the throttling FiOS does to Netflix, which is something I fear about Net Neutrality failing but anywho you must live in a relatively noisefree area and/or a small abode. My suggestions have worked in noisy environments where everyone leaves their AP's on auto-channel mode so you end up with 3 on channel 1, 5 on channel 6 and a few more on 11. Any channels in between have performed more reliably in my real-world use. 40MHz channel bonding in 11n is a lot more sensitive to noise than older Atheros ghetto bonding. Did not know WMM was required for 11n either, quite a shame and would explain why in said noisy scenarios it has performed better with it being disabled, even forcing to 11g improved consistency in bandwidth and latency. Thank you for the info, I have just had different experiences.

 

[azazel1024]

I was not aware of the throttling FiOS does to Netflix, which is something I fear about Net Neutrality failing but anywho you must live in a relatively noisefree area and/or a small abode. My suggestions have worked in noisy environments where everyone leaves their AP's on auto-channel mode so you end up with 3 on channel 1, 5 on channel 6 and a few more on 11. Any channels in between have performed more reliably in my real-world use. 40MHz channel bonding in 11n is a lot more sensitive to noise than older Atheros ghetto bonding. Did not know WMM was required for 11n either, quite a shame and would explain why in said noisy scenarios it has performed better with it being disabled, even forcing to 11g improved consistency in bandwidth and latency. Thank you for the info, I have just had different experiences.

Well, they don't technically throttle it, they've just failed to upgrade their peered connection to netflix service providers in the various relevant data centers. So, picking a wild made up number, if Verizon and Netflix has 100Gbps of peered throughput a year ago, Verizon hasn't done anything to touch that in the last year...even though there might be more Verizon subscribers using Netflix and/or existing subscribers using Netflix more heavily or using things like Super HD for Netflix.

So Verizon is virtually throttling Netflix by not upgrading the size of the pipe and letting traffic congestion build up.

For the channels, if you are on, say, channel 3, that means everyone on channel 1 and 6 will be conflicting with yours.

The one and sole advantage to 3 and 7 is that the center of your channel, where transmitted radio power is the highest (based on OFDM/CD, which is what 11g-ac use) also happens to basically be where transmitted radio power from channel 1 and 6 happen to be the weakest (or 6 and 11 if using channel 7).

So that is at least possibly why you have the best performance in an otherwise very congested area. Of course you are still picking up interference from everyone else and causing interference to everyone else...but it might well be giving you the best chance of punching through it all.

As for my congestion, my nearest neighbor is 100ft away and my next nearest is about 200ft away.