MacBook Pro 16 WiFi Speed

[MacKey76]

Just upgraded from a 7 year old MacBook Air 13 running Catalina to a brand new MacBook Pro 16 running Big Sur.

Noticed a few things running slowly, so did a speed test and got 100-150Mb download speeds over WiFi. My iPhone 11 Pro Max which was in my hand next to the MacBook ran the same test from the site site and got 400-500Mb (my connection is 500Mb and reaches 545Mb max).

Repeated multiple times and same results, significantly lower WiFi speeds on MacBook Pro compared with iPhone.

So I got out my old MacBook Air and ran same test and got a faster download than the Pro.

Is there something I am missing that I need to tweak to improve this, because my phone shouldn't have faster WiFi than my MacBook which cost a lot more and will be used for more intensive tasks.

Thank you

 

[Lobwedgephil]

Yes, your iPhone has wifi 6 and will be faster on wifi than you MacBook Pro. Though I wouldn't say anything running at 100-150Mb down as being close to slow at all.

My MacBook Pro can get 100-300 down usually while my phone is 400-600 on my gigabit connection.

 

[TallGuyGT]

I have a MBP 16 connected to an AirPort Extreme router (802.11ac) with Gigabit FiOS. I routinely get 500 Mbps download on my MBP, comparable to my iPhone 12 Pro Max.

Is it posible your MBP is connecting to the 2.4 Ghz band instead of the 5 GHz band? That provides lower speeds. To check, hold down the Option key and click on the WiFi icon in the menu bar. There you can see the channel and band, as well as which version of 802.11 the MBP is using.

 

[MacKey76]

I didn't know you could pull that info up.

So it shows me on 5GHz, 80MHz, 80211ac with Tx rate fluctuating but always over 500Mb.

I appreciate that 150-200Mb is not a slow connection, but sometimes I need faster. And for my phone to be capable of it but not a MacBook Pro seems absurd.

 

[Steve686]

The new M1 machines have wifi 6.

 

[ght56]

Something has to be off. I just got 317 Mbps down and 473 Mbps up on my 16-inch with SpeedTest.

What channel are you using? 36?
Does the signal have to pass through any walls or floors to reach the router?

 

[MacKey76]

I'm on channel 44. No walls. I'm sat about 10ft from router and the only thing in the way is my TV that it's sat behind. My old Air and my IOS devices all get good speeds in same location.

 

[Steve686]

I'm on channel 44. No walls. I'm sat about 10ft from router and the only thing in the way is my TV that it's sat behind. My old Air and my IOS devices all get good speeds in same location.

Tou sure your laptop wasn’t doing a massive sync with iCloud since it is new?

 

[MacKey76]

No, it's fairly consistent and nothing syncing in the background.

Just checked tonight and it says Tx is 780Mbps but I'm only getting 180Mbpps on speed test. IOS device gets 540Mbps.

Now I know 180Mbps is a good speed still, but a $5000 MacBook shouldn't be slower than an iPhone in my view. Especially when the MacBook is likely to get used for far more network intensive applications.