My wifi speeds in the house are less than half of ethernet. Set up correctly?

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84 points

My wifi speeds in the house are less than half of ethernet. Set up correctly?

I've seen various threads with similar themes but some are dated or not quite an exact fit. Sorry if I've missed on that is better.

I have Verizon Fios and pay for their 50Mbps/25 plan. When I run online speed tests via ethernet I always get at least 50Mbps, sometimes even faster.

With Wifi, I admit I'm no expert but I've spent some time creating extensions so that my house would good coverage. I have about a 5,500 square foot house and my goal was/is to have wifi service throghout the house including outside. I've noticed that I have signal strength of all 5 bars everywhere but the speed tests I run online are consistently in the 9 to 21 Mbps range. Why?

Verizon ran their equipment in through the lowest level so I was stuck with that. My set up is I have their Verizon router cut off for wifi and connected directly to a Airport Extreme. That airport extreme has wifi turned on. Three rooms in the house are connected by ethernet to this router. One room is connected to an imac that runs by ethernet connection. The other two rooms are just for extenders. For each of the two devices that are connected (a time capsule and an airport extreme) I "created" a network by the same name as that broadcasted by the AE broadcasting the wifi signal.

I also have two airport expresses elsewhere in the house that I used to "extend" the network wirelessly.

I've experimented through the years with letting the wifi select the channel automatically versus selecting a fixed channel for each one. I currently have a fixed channel as I seemed to get better results.

I'm using 802.11 a/n - 802.11 b/g/n (Automatic). Is that the best for my set up?

If this matters, I have multple wifi devices in the house including a 1st gen ipad, 2nd gen ipad, the current ipad air, 2 iphone 5s, and 3 ipod touches of various years. I've been trying to use a signal such that all devices will continue to have access. I'm willing to drop one of the older devices internet connectivity if needed to improve the overall wifi speed.

Any suggestions?

Thank you.

Posted on Apr 21, 2014 3:03 PM

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Answer 1

turbostar

Level 4

2,941 points

Apr 21, 2014 4:16 PM in response to Ramblinmanva

my favorite warning from Apple mainly because I had the same issue until I got smart about wireless

In the case of a wirelessly extended network, throughput may be reduced to less than 60 percent of that of a single device.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4145

start by unplugging everything but your lower level extreme and the wired extreme in the farthest location from the first one then run speedtests in various corners

note, you'll want to turn wifi on/off when you get to where you want to test to make sure you're connecting to the strongest signal in that room

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Answer 2

Ramblinmanva Author

Level 1

84 points

Apr 21, 2014 5:21 PM in response to turbostar

Thanks. I've seen the article before but never digested the warning.

I ran the tests as you suggested. The iphone was 24.25/29.21. My ipad air was 44.54/37.98. Both standing in the same spot and running the tests one at a time. Not sure what to do with this info from here.

As a side note on the wirelessly extended, I've never been able to get the Airport Express to be recognized by the airport utility until I plug it in to by ethernet, configure it, then unplug it from the ethernet. I thought the airport express was supposed to be recognized as a device and be configurable from Airport utility without having to first connect via ethernet.

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Answer 3

turbostar

Level 4

2,941 points

Apr 21, 2014 6:15 PM in response to Ramblinmanva

ok, so use the ipad since i'm guessing it is newer hence why it is able to pull down the almost 50mb speeds. you are basically using it as a wifi network test device.

so you only have 2 extremes running, right

go to the corners of your home, doesn't have to be literal corners but practically those areas far from the routers where you still want a connection, once there turn wifi on/off on the ipad and test again and note the different speeds

you'll have to gauge what's good enough for your needs. iiwy and was getting at least 20 in the far reaches (that i'm assuming are not the main rooms that need connection) that would be good enough.

as for the expresses, you should factory reset (google) them and try again. you do not need to connect them to ethernet for setup.

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Answer 4

Ramblinmanva Author

Level 1

84 points

Apr 21, 2014 6:30 PM in response to turbostar

Correct, the ipad I was testing with is the ipad air that came out in Oct/Nov 2013 I believe. Though the iphone 5s is the latest version as well that I was using to test.

I had 2 expresses connected wirelessly and 2 extremes (both connected via ethernet). Based on your point about the wirelessly extended I ended up taking one of the Expresses and connecting that via ethernet to extend the network. When I re-ran the same tests I had the following based on two tests:

Ipad air: 58.77/38.06 and 55.64/38.35

Iphone 5s: 37.48/29.12 and 60.08/29.12 (big difference)

I've done a factory reset a number of times on these devices. I just tried it again for the one remaining airport express that I'm unable to connect on a regular basis via ethernet. I need this one connected to the network as I use it for the airplay feature for audio to our sound system. That thing absolutely does not show up unless I connect it first to ethernet.

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Answer 5

Ramblinmanva Author

Level 1

84 points

Apr 21, 2014 6:38 PM in response to turbostar

Well, I have to admit a dumb mistake on my part. I've just come to now realize that everytime I opened utility, the reason it wasn't seeing the expresses was apparently because I had wifi turned off on the imac where I opened utility. Because the imac was connected by ethernet I had turned off wifi. Wow what time I've wasted on that in the past.

Question: For the lone airport express I now have that I just wish to use for airplay, if I have it "extend" the network, I'm thinking there is a chance some devices may jump to that signal even though it may not be as good. Is that correct? Should I just have it "join" the network so I could use it for the airplay but it wouldn't be throwing out it's own wireless signal?

Sorry for all the questions, thanks.

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Answer 6

Apr 21, 2014 7:01 PM in response to Ramblinmanva

if I have it "extend" the network, I'm thinking there is a chance some devices may jump to that signal even though it may not be as good.

If you do not want devices to connect to that AirPort Express, configure it to "join" a wireless network.

If you want devices to use that AirPort Express when/if they detect that a stronger connection is available through the Express, configure it to "extend" a wireless network. But, note that a "stronger" connection does not necessarily mean a "faster" connection.

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Answer 7

turbostar

Level 4

2,941 points

Apr 21, 2014 9:37 PM in response to Ramblinmanva

Beyond the 40% tax on wireless extenders, the other issue is iOS/phones/tablets stickiness

Computers are pretty good about refreshing to the best signal periodically

Phones etc suck at it, they basically hold onto the most recent one until they are forced to switch, that's why I had you turn wifi on/off before you run a test, that's the only way you're making sure you're on the best signal at that moment in that location

So if you move clients around a lot and have a lot of routers providing wifi, you will not see the best performance unless you get into a habit of turning wifi on/off, make sense?

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