Wireless 802.11n

Question

Wireless 802.11n

Ok, Here goes.....

I have just bought a belkin F5D8231-4uk wireless N1 router but am unable to get a 300mbps connection through my macbook pro. The most I can get is 130. Even if I sit the macbook next to the router, set the router to 802.11n and the frequency to 20/40mhz it still only connects at 130.

I have a few questions that any help with would be very much appreciated....

1. Is 300mbps possible in the UK? I know in the US they use different frequency (5mhz is required for 300mbps)
2. Is the built in airport extreme card in the macbook pro capable of 300mbps?
3. Has anyone in the UK managed to get their Macbook Pro connected at anything more than 130mbps and if so, what wireless router are you using?
4. If I bought an Apple airport base station will that allow 5mhz connections in the UK or 300mbps with the macbook pro?

Sorry for the many questions, but I think with more and more people switching over to this new spec (802.11n), this is gonna be a big problem and the router companies don't want to know, or don't know. (Believe me, I've tried).

Message was edited by: KeithLewington

Message was edited by: KeithLewington

Macbook Pro, Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.3)

Posted on Jun 16, 2008 3:28 AM

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Answer 1

Jun 16, 2008 4:15 AM in response to KeithLewington

Welcome to the forums!

The MBP's airport card is capable of 300 mbps. If the 5 GHz band is not available with your router, then perhaps you can't achieve that. Not sure what you mean by 20/40 MHz - the g wireless band is 2.4 GHz, n wireless can run on 2.4 GHz and/or 5 GHz. Read this Wiki that discusses the wireless standards.

I'll ask a question in return - why do you need 300 mbps? I hope it's for local file transfer, and not just for your internet connection. Admittedly, I'm from the US and it may be different in the UK, but the fastest home internet connection available here (with premium payment to a fiber optic provider) is 30 mbps, which is slower than even 802.11g wireless. Most users in the US who want 802.11n routers because they have to have the "fastest" don't realize that even an 802.11b network is faster than their home internet connection (those are typically less than 5 mbps here).

Hope this helps...

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Answer 2

Jun 16, 2008 5:16 AM in response to neuroanatomist

Thanks for answering, I get the 20/40mhz band from the router software, they are the choices available when you select 802.11n. Perhaps the frequencies are different in the UK! I don't know, I'm only guessing.

As for wanting the speed, yes I do copy alot of media to my laptop, movies, recorded gigs of my band etc, so the speed is of benefit. I also connect my macbook to my tv and watch my movies streamed via wireless and itunes.

I suppose the other thing that is niggling me is that the speeds that they so blatantly plaster over all their boxes, websites and promotional material clearly state 300mbps and whilst I appreciate that in the real world those speeds are very few and far between it would be nice to actually see those kind of speeds, even with the macbook pro next to the router I can't get above 130.

My internet connection is 20 mbps and I appreciate that 130 mbps is far above what a internet connection can currently achieve. At the end of the day I got a 802.11n router for the same price as a 802.11g as i needed a new one anyway and as I have a macbook that is capable of getting 300mbps, I would have liked to have that speed. I also was under the impression that running at that speed and frequencies that the range is also much improved. Which it isn't at present.

I'm just surprised that it seems to be hit or miss as to whether the router can provide the speeds/range in the real world. Perhaps I'm asking too much!

Thanks for your friendly response neuroanatomist.

Message was edited by: KeithLewington

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Answer 3

Jun 16, 2008 7:11 AM in response to KeithLewington

I think I have found the answer to my problem. Uk law prevents any radio device operating in the 40mhz range of which 5ghz falls under. Routers need to use 40mhz/5ghz to get the 300 mbps speeds. UK devices are only allowed to use the 20mhz/2.4ghz frequency.

Even Apple's own Airport extreme base station is limited in the UK to 20mhz/2.4ghz thus only allowing 130mbps.

Full article here... http://www.macworld.co.uk/mac/news/index.cfm?newsid=17059

Not one of the UK router companies acknowledge this or even promote this fact. They all plaster 300mbps over their boxes and promo material knowing full well that these speeds aren't acheivable in the UK.

I feel a phone call to watchdog coming on!!

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Answer 4

Faethor

Level 1

100 points

Aug 28, 2008 2:27 AM in response to KeithLewington

Actually that's not strictly true. In the UK we cannot use the channel bonding 40Mhz option but we can use 5GHz. If you couldn't it wouldn't let you set it in the Airport utility. So currently I am running my two AEBS as 802.11n 5GHz with single 20Mhz channel mode, which only allows 130Mbps.

Now, if I really wanted to enable the 40Mhz mode all I have to do is change the country from UK to Ireland for instance. Lo and behold the option appears.

I don't know where you got your info from regarding the UK not being able to use 5Ghz networks.

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Answer 5

Oct 31, 2008 7:28 AM in response to Faethor

Hi all,
I have a Netgear DG834N and I cannot achieve 270. It is only possible to go up to 130. Tried everything in the router. Changing Channels. Looking at the last post the router does not allow changing the GHz. Any one having this router who could help. Thank you again.
David

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Answer 6

Apr 16, 2009 5:00 AM in response to davidmorin

I have the same DG834N router and same problem - however, my dell laptop is receiving a good 260mbps when close to the router. I have heard it's restriced on macs to 130mbps when at 2.4Ghz due to interference with bluetooth devices.

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Answer 7

Jul 22, 2009 2:15 AM in response to KeithLewington

Hello, guys, let me add my five cent to your discussion. Here in Russia we are allowed to use 5GHz devices, but that doesn't make sense. Macbook's network utility reports 130Mbps link speed.
But.
If you try find out your link speed when boot to Windows, you'll be surprised to see such numbers as 235, 270 Mbps in Wi-Fi connection properties. Magic.
The speed is different from time to time, it changes every 2-3 seconds, but it's much faster. Usually I get promised 235-270 Mbps even in next room.
As for real throughput in Windows I have the same 6-7 Megabytes per second as in MacOS. So I guess "130 Mbps" in a kind of software... not even a limitation, but misinformation.
You'll be able to achieve about 9 Megabytes per second speed (72 Mbps) connecting two MBPs with Airport directly. I guess that's maximum for it.

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Answer 8

Jul 28, 2009 7:04 PM in response to KeithLewington

Very interesting discussion. Thanks to all. Yes, I have an n router and, of course, get nothing like 300. But, it still is better than g. My router and computers also have gigabit ethernet with hardwires to all. You know it, but, regardless--go gigabit if you can get the wires run comfortably. I am always so happy when I am not going wireless and want to do network transfers of large files, etc.

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Answer 9

sig

Level 8

35,862 points

Jul 29, 2009 10:18 AM in response to donv_the_ghost

You are limited by the transfer rates your ISP provides and/or you are paying for (period).

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Answer 10

mrhugo

Level 1

0 points

Sep 19, 2009 10:57 AM in response to KeithLewington

I have the same problem as the OP.

Any updates on this?

Anyone able to connect this router to their mac/macbook at 40mhz/2.4ghz to get 300mb/s?

I can't figure out if it's possible to get the airport card inside my macbook to connect at 40mhz to match the Belkin n+ router.

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Answer 11

burnduck

Level 1

0 points

Oct 16, 2009 10:19 PM in response to KeithLewington

It is capable of doing 300Mbps on wireless N, but with some restrictions.

you need to enable 40MHz channel bandwidth, it allows the router to double it's physical bandwidth, compared to the normal 20MHz.

And, you will need a windows OS (sorry). Because the driver on Mac doesn't seem to support 40MHz channel bandwidth, the router would just fall back to use a 20MHz channel, limiting the wireless connection speed to 130Mbps.
I have tried installing Bootcamp and whola, 300Mbps!

But frankly I would like to see 300Mbps on Mac. Can't wait!

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Answer 12

Feb 9, 2010 5:47 PM in response to burnduck

just pulling up this discussion as I was talking to a friend in the uk about it who was complaining same way. interestingly he said if he connects his macbook pro to his mac pro via ad hoc networking they still link on 2.4ghz and on a MCS of 15 with less than 150mbps BUT he achieves rates of up to 15MB/s instead of achieving max of ~2.8MB/s when being connected via a router with the same 2.4ghz, MCS of 15 and ~less than 150mbps ...

so this is what seems to be a little bit different for some reason, could it be that only when using infrastrucure mode apple denies access to channel bondling on 40mhz but allows this when using ad hoc networks? I couldnt believe what he said so I asked him to send me some screenshots of his configuration and findings and yes I have to admit he is correct ... so there is an option to achive ~300mbps on 2.4ghz in the UK somehow but the question is why isnt it available when using infrastructure mode ...

just some thoughts to keep this issue active

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Answer 13

lotus49

Level 1

0 points

Mar 3, 2010 2:02 PM in response to KeithLewington

I have just had a 50Mb broadband upgrade and with the package I got a D-Link N Router.

My MBP gets 130Mbps but my Dell E6400 (running Ubuntu 9.10) gets 270Mbps. This is with the default settings on the router.

Since I get 270Mbps with the Dell sitting right next to my MBP while it doesn't get half of that, this is not simply an issue of how the router is configured. Either the driver (or even the hardware) on the MBP lacks some important functionality or there is a degree of tuning required to get the MBP and D-Link router to work together at full speed.

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Answer 14

sig

Level 8

35,862 points

Mar 4, 2010 3:12 PM in response to lotus49

How are you measuring the speeds?

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Answer 15

lotus49

Level 1

0 points

Mar 5, 2010 2:55 PM in response to sig

I didn't measure the speeds as such, I just looked at the connection speed reported by the wireless router. The Dell was definitely much faster but whether either reported speed was accurate, I cannot say.

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