Understanding AP Network Speed
Just typed up a long and thorough description of the configuration and performance of my AirPort network, which the forum software proceeded to throw away (except for the title) when I navigated away to edit my product list. Lovely.
Nutshell...
My FiOS Quantum 75/35 service is giving me about 80Mbps straight out of the Ethernet port, as measured via Speedtest.net.
By and large, my 2008 model MBP is getting me around a quarter of that when connected wirelessly via the 5Ghz network, more or less regardless of where I go around the house.
My iOS devices are giving me about a third to a quarter of what the laptop is providing–six to eight percent of at-the-port throughput, in othe words—with the iPad 2 on the 5Ghz network, and the iPhone 4S on the 2.4 (it can't ever seem to find the five).
It's a fairly big, fairly brick-y house, 170 years old. Stringing Ethernet throughout is not an option, as much as I'd love to. In addition to the dual-channel base station, my network has three Airport Express 802.11n's, all set up to "Extend a wireless network."
I know that my house is not nirvana for wireless, and that I'm not going to get test bench throughput from my Airport devices in any event. But a factor of 15 degradation with my iOS devices seems kinda severe. I can live with factor of four with the laptop, I guess, but even that seems like kinda lousy performance.
Thoughts? Ideas? Pointers? Any and all would be appreciated.
iPhone 4S, iOS 5.0.1