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iPad connection caps at 20Mbps something?

A

AppleHater

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 9, 2010
788
104
I've got a new Netgear 3500L, which works great. The connection stregth is great and I'm happy in overall. This is a N router with upto 300Mbps. However, the connection speed goes only upto 20 something Mbps. Shouldn't I get 150 or 300Mbps instead?

I tried to set wireless setup to switch from 54Mbps to 150 and 300 however, the speed actually dropped to teens. I wonder what's going on...

Any tips on getting 100+Mbps?
 
AppleHater said:
I've got a new Netgear 3500L, which works great. The connection stregth is great and I'm happy in overall. This is a N router with upto 300Mbps. However, the connection speed goes only upto 20 something Mbps. Shouldn't I get 150 or 300Mbps instead?

I tried to set wireless setup to switch from 54Mbps to 150 and 300 however, the speed actually dropped to teens. I wonder what's going on...

Any tips on getting 100+Mbps?
Click to expand...

Its not the iPad capping it, it is your service provider. I have not heard of anything greater than 50Mbps. Mine, with Time Warner Cable, SoCal is 37Mbps and that is the fastest that anyone that lives around me has heard of. Nothing to do with the iPad at all.

Edit: If the speed drops when changing settings its because there are other factors causing it. How many people are browsing the web in your area, and so on. Within 10 seconds I can run a test get 36.2Mbps and run it again right after and get 29.1Mbps. All depends on usage.
 
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Mlrollin91 said:
Its not the iPad capping it, it is your service provider. I have not heard of anything greater than 50Mbps. Mine, with Time Warner Cable, SoCal is 37Mbps and that is the fastest that anyone that lives around me has heard of. Nothing to do with the iPad at all.

Edit: If the speed drops when changing settings its because there are other factors causing it. How many people are browsing the web in your area, and so on. Within 10 seconds I can run a test get 36.2Mbps and run it again right after and get 29.1Mbps. All depends on usage.
Click to expand...

Does it mean that 300Mbps rating is pretty much pointless?
 
AppleHater said:
Does it mean that 300Mbps rating is pretty much pointless?
Click to expand...

Well not exactly, for internet yes it is but usually people buy the faster routers to transfer files around the house.

For example if you have computer A transfer files over the network to computer B you will truly take advantage of that speed.

However most peoples internet does not exceed 20mbps some faster services like newer Comcast offerings and Fios can get faster then 60mbps but I don't expect internet to be able to hit 300mbps for at least half a decade (not counting college internet and the like).
 
AppleHater said:
Does it mean that 300Mbps rating is pretty much pointless?
Click to expand...
You're not going to get more than about 100Mbps (that's bits-per-second) in real throughput out of any consumer-grade 802.11n WiFi basestation unless the device and basestation are sitting right next to one another. Those 300Mbps ratings are pretty much theoretical limits and in the real world you won't get data throughputs anywhere near those speeds. Also, as others have noted, your transfer rates (downloads) over the internet are going to be limited more by your ISP rather than by your router.

To get an idea of what you might expect over 802.11n you can visit a benchmarking/testing site like SmallNetBuilder ( http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless ). Here you will see that data transfer rates over WiFi are generally well below 100Mbps even for the best 802.11n basestations.
 
inside/outside your LAN

As others have stated, the speeds outside your LAN are capped by your ISP. The benefits of these speeds and the design of these devices are to benefit traffic inside your LAN. I'm talking about transferring files between computers. For instance, I have a central file server with a large drive that serves all content to the other computers in my house (music, video, documents, photos, etc.). That's where these speeds benefit. You can transfer large files much quicker.
 
I'm sure I read somewhere about the Antenna situation inside the iPad that caused it to be slower than say a PC Laptop or MacBook

I'm guessing, but something along the lines of the iPad has 2 and the MacBook has 3 or 4 which allows it to connect at a higher speeds.

There were some articles that explained this, but it's a physical limitation and that's that.
 
Yes, the third article is actually the one I meant to post.

It is true, it doesn't really matter. Although I can always use more network speed when I'm transferring files with GoodReader.
 
Really, the only reason to use 802.11n on the iPad is NOT for speed but for freedom of interference from other 2.4GHz devices (since the iPad supports 802.11n's 5GHz radio band). Of course, if your WiFi setup already runs at 5GHz then the iPad can join right in which means that you won't be forced to use a dual-band basestation just because you also use an iPad. It's interesting to note that the iPhone 4 does NOT support the 5GHz band (battery issues?), so the iPad is unique among all of the mobile iOS devices in supporting that feature of the 802.11n standard.
 
Even if it is capped at 65Mbps, a lot of individual users won't even see close to that because it can get very expensive for speeds like that. Like I said earlier, I'm getting just under 37Mbps and that is the most expensive plan TWC offers.

Nonetheless, 37Mbps is extremely fast, 5 years ago we barely saw 5Mbps if you were lucky. 37Mbps is just under 5MBps and thats screaming. I downloaded Navigon@1.60GB in just under 7 minutes.

I do think it is just a matter of a few years till we see 100Mbps at the consumer level when everything goes fiber optic, currently mine is fiber optic at the pole, when it goes directly to the modem it will scream.
 
AppleHater said:
Does it mean that 300Mbps rating is pretty much pointless?
Click to expand...

The 300 MPS rating is for your LAN, it means that the iPad can transmit and receive with other devices on your local network at up to 300MPS for applications like streaming multimedia. The 20MPS rating that you are getting is your data throughput from the internet.
 
Gordon Gekko said:
The 300 MPS rating is for your LAN, it means that the iPad can transmit and receive with other devices on your local network at up to 300MPS for applications like streaming multimedia. The 20MPS rating that you are getting is your data throughput from the internet.
Click to expand...
But you're never going to get 300Mbps even on your LAN. The link rate may show 300MHz or something close to that but your data transfer rate will generally be below 100Mbps. It's not uncommon for 802.11n connections to run at 50 to 70Mbps at their best (given a connection in the "next room" and other factors).
 
while we're on the subject, if your N network is mixed b/g/n and you have b or g clients on it, the whole network will run at b or g speeds.

this led me to segregate my fancy router to N only, whilst running another less fancy router in 'legacy' b/g mode on a separate ssid.
 
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phyrexia said:
while we're on the subject, if your N network is mixed b/g/n and you have b or g clients on it, the whole network will run at b or g speeds.

this led me to segregate my fancy router to N only, whilst running another less fancy router in 'legacy' b/g mode.
Click to expand...
This makes the most sense in my case. Since wireless routers are no more expensive than wired only I'll probably run multiple wireless networks then.

I'm using switch for my bedroom pc and ps3, but I think I can switch that to another router.

While speedtest numbers are identical to netgear 150 router, my newer netgear 3500L router gets me more stable YouTube playback on HD contents.
 
You cannot get 300MBPS as that speed isn't offered by the service provider. T3 is a different story and I won't go in the technical details of it. In gist, you will only receive speeds at about 100 to 150 MBPS when you're transferring a file using only the router within your home; in that case you're not limited to the internet provided by your service provider.
At 20MBPS - depends on where you are - it is generally considered to be a very very good speed in the U.S. You can download an entire movie from iTunes within 5 minutes (for a 2.5-4.7) GB file.
Unless you're putting your router in the basement, you're better of creating a 5GHz channel along with the 2.4GHz on the router. Limit all video and game streaming to the 5GHz while regular browsing and others to 2.4. This is the optimal solution.
Regarding the NetGear router, I have owned that particular model along with 4 other D-Link models. So far, I have found the greatest stability with the Linksys E3000 router.
At work, I have our headquarters set up with 20 channel incoming/outgoing signals limiting at about 2MBPS/user - since no employee will be downloading movies or playing games - it is a speed far greater than needed while providing everyone with no lag or radio interference.
 
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