Wireless Clients - Signal/Noise/Rate

Question

Level 1

0 points

Wireless Clients - Signal/Noise/Rate

Hi,

In AirPort Utility/Manual Setup/Advanced/Logs and Statistics/Wireless Clients, I can read for my
MBPro: Signal -51, Noise -96, Rate 130 while for my iPhone 3G I can read 25, 0, 54 respectively.
My question is: what do these numbers mean?
Thanks.
Fiore46

iMac(2002); MBPro 17", Mac OS X (10.5.6), AirPort Extreme; iPhone 3G 8GB

Posted on Jan 29, 2009 7:13 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Tesserax

Level 10

158,664 points

Jan 29, 2009 9:26 AM in response to Fiore46

Hello Fiore46. Welcome to the Apple Discussions!

The Signal & Noise values are snapshots of the current Wi-Fi signal and noise strength as measured at the utility's host device from the base station. Typically, the less negative the signal and the more negative the noise, the better. Subtracting the signal value from the noise value provides the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR).

The Rate value is a snapshot of the current Wi-Fi throughput (speed) measured in Mbps. The 130 value you are getting for the MBP would be normal for operating your AirPort Extreme in either the "802.11n (b/g compatible)" (default) or "802.11n only (2.4 GHz)" radio mode. The 54 value for the iPhone would be the maximum rate as this phone can only operate at a maximum of 54 Mbps ... since it is a 802.11b/g device.

Reply

Answer 2

Fiore46 Author

Level 1

0 points

Jan 29, 2009 12:17 PM in response to Tesserax

Hello Tesserax,

Thanks vmuch for yr reply. It solved all my doubts.

Rgds
Fiore46

Reply