how fast SHOULD 802.11n be?

[drawstring]

i am less interested in knowing what various benchmark tests will show me, but rather how fast a file will transfer wirelessly between two computers.

in this place, there's a netgear router, a sep 07 MBP and a march 07 MB. router is on channel three and is unsecured.

as a test, i use a 350MB file and move it to the other computer. i've found this takes 5-6 minutes. I think it should take 1 minute or so (would seem to me to be healthy throughput).

In a vacuum, to spec, it should take 21 seconds. if netgear's marketers had their way, it would take 10 seconds for such a file.

is my network eff'ed or are my expectations wildly incorrect?

 

[UltraNEO*]

should be 300megabits/sec

more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11n

 

[ayeying]

its rated at 130 mbps on our systems.

 

[Tex-Twil]

and is unsecured.

ouch ... this is not good !

should be 300megabits/sec

Wrong. 300Mbps is the theoretic through put which includes the bandwidth needed for the protocol itself. This is called the protocol overhead. I know that in the 802.11g protocol, this protocol overhead is bigger that 50%.

I don't know much about the 802.11n but I found this test which says that the speed can be up to around 80 Mbps.

So for a 300 MB file, you wound need around
300*8/80 = 30 seconds

Of course, the wifi if very tricky and the speed depends on many other factors such as wall, distance, microwave running in your kitchen ...


cheers,
Tex

 

[nick9191]

Does your Macbook have N?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbook#Specifications

 

[Me1000]

Does your other machine have a gigabit ethernet port? If not then it is 100Mb/s (slower than n, theoretically).

Do you have any other devices on the network using wireless. If you have an iPhone, or some other laptop or wifi device that only has 802.11 G it will slow the whole the whole network down the G...

 

[alphaod]

It's theoretically:

300 Mbps on 5GHz

130 Mbps on 2.4GHz

Real world would be around 1/5 of that theoretical.

Also 2.4GHz has better range than 5GHz, but the 2.4GHz frequency also suffers from more interference such as cell phones, microwaves, cordless phones, etc.

 

[Eidorian]

It's theoretically:

300 Mbps on 5GHz

130 Mbps on 2.4GHz

Real world would be around 1/5 of that theoretical.

Also 2.4GHz has better range than 5GHz, but the 2.4GHz frequency also suffers from more interference such as cell phones, microwaves, cordless phones, etc.

I can get 48-50 Mbits/sec on 54 Mbit/sec 802.11g.

 

[Tex-Twil]

I can get 48-50 Mbits/sec on 54 Mbit/sec 802.11g.

I think this is impossible.

 

[drawstring]

thanks for all the thoughts folks!

I also think it's pretty hard to get something like 48-50 Mbps on G.

I checked my network, and no devices except for both macs which are both n.

I dig that what i'm getting is about 7Mbps on the network, which is about 1/18th the theoreticals...

i don't have a microwave or cordless phones; but i'm sure that on 2.4 ghz there is some interference.

but even with the interference and the overhead, shouldn't i expect more like 20Mbps throughput. at least...

not really sure what is left to try. i reboot the router, the computers, the airport - doesn't make much difference. i adjust some of the settings (channel, security, overhead, etc) on the network, doesn't change much.

generally i don't mind an unsecured network, since I so appreciate it when I'm elsewhere and I can log on gratis without hassle for a quick wifi fix.

thanks again for any ideas!

 

[UltraNEO*]

ouch ... this is not good !



Wrong. 300Mbps is the theoretic through put which includes the bandwidth needed for the protocol itself. This is called the protocol overhead. I know that in the 802.11g protocol, this protocol overhead is bigger that 50%.

I don't know much about the 802.11n but I found this test which says that the speed can be up to around 80 Mbps.

So for a 300 MB file, you wound need around
300*8/80 = 30 seconds

Of course, the wifi if very tricky and the speed depends on many other factors such as wall, distance, microwave running in your kitchen ...


cheers,
Tex

Cause your in Europe...
I heard 802.11n only runs at 2.5x there!!
And it'll very according to which EU country your in. True?

 

[Eidorian]

I think this is impossible.

That's what I got off of my Airport Express until I switched back over to 100 MBit Ethernet.

 

[Tex-Twil]

I dig that what i'm getting is about 7Mbps on the network, which is about 1/18th the theoreticals...

well yes, this is strange. How do you transfer your files ? On my Windows network, I have problems when I transfer file via Samba. I got around 700Kbps while on ftp I get 22Mbps (on a G network)

The most reliable test tool I've ever tried are wget to simple download a large iso image file or iperf (http://dast.nlanr.net/projects/Iperf/). I don't know if the latter is supported on OSX. For wget, you would have to set up a www server on one of your notebooks.

cheers

 

[alphaod]

I can get 48-50 Mbits/sec on 54 Mbit/sec 802.11g.

Are you really getting 48-50Mbps or does it says 48-50Mbps?

 

[nick9191]

I'm pretty sure your Macbook is the one that comes with N but N is disabled or something. Someone else will know what I mean.

Check on the wiki page I posted above.

 

[Eidorian]

Are you really getting 48-50Mbps or does it says 48-50Mbps?

I was using SFTP to transfer files around. Activity Monitor, iStat Pro, and the file sizes matched to 48-50 Mbps.

 

[alphaod]

I was using SFTP to transfer files around. Activity Monitor, iStat Pro, and the file sizes matched to 48-50 Mbps.

Nice... So what kind of AP are you using.

 

[Eidorian]

Nice... So what kind of AP are you using.

It was an Airport Express 802.11g. Like I said earlier...

 

[hankolerd]

Wikipedia says that 802.11n has a typical data throughput of 74Mbps.
Since there are 8 bits per byte:
74Mbps =~ 9MBps
So for a 350MB file, it should take
350MB/9MBps = 39 seconds.
The further you are from the router the slower the connection will be. Then throw in factors like slow spinning hard drives, like in a macbook or most laptops, and running other processes while transferring the file on both computers, etc. and you will see those times keep going up.

 

[ntrigue]

Appleinsider did a terrific series exploring the intricacies of N and G protocols. Also in Airport Utility you can log your through put. Mines 113.

 

[Tex-Twil]

Appleinsider did a terrific series exploring the intricacies of N and G protocols. Also in Airport Utility you can log your through put. Mines 113.

That's true that Apple might be using some proprietary extensions to mahe the 802.11g faster. It is probably why Eidorian can get a throughput of 50Mbps.

 

[eXan]

I can get 48-50 Mbits/sec on 54 Mbit/sec 802.11g.

When I used AirPort Express g I had the maximum of 1.5 MB/sec (12MBps) no matter what I tried.

Now with AirPort Extreme N (100MBit Ethernet) operating in the 2.4 GHz mode I get 7-10 MB/sec (56-80MBps).

Do you live in vacuum? O_O

 

[ntrigue]

I am getting 26Mbps on a Time Capsule sitting two feet from me?

 

[radx]

I usually get around 4-6 mb/sec, 5 ghz N, SR macbook.
Router - linksys wrt600n.
And yes, there's a wall

 

[Tex-Twil]

Hi,
I reopen this topic. I've just got myself an Airport Express and I'm a bit disappointed by it"s speed.

A transfet on the wlan between a MBP and a MB (both 802.11n) using the AFP protocol is only around 2.5 MB/s.

On my previous 802.11g Access point I got around 2 MB/s !!

Isn't that weird ?

Thanks,
Tex