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wifi questions

S

stefmesman

macrumors 6502
Original poster
so i have 120Mb/s internet at home. my imac has download speeds around 110Mb/s and 118Mb/s on cable. On my Macbook Pro the max i can get is around 14-18Mb/s. My question is:

is this the max of wireless internet on a 2011 mbp or is this the max of my wireless router?

i tested using speedtest.net

thanks 😀
 
Could be the router.
Click on the AirPort icon while holding down the OPTION key and see, if you have a 802.11n network or not and what the Transmit Rate is.
 
simsaladimbamba said:
Could be the router.
Click on the AirPort icon while holding down the OPTION key and see, if you have a 802.11n network or not and what the Transmit Rate is.
Click to expand...

im working on 802.11g 2.4Ghz

should be working on 802.11n at 5Ghz right?

i always used to work on desktops with cable. this is literally the first portable computer i bought.
 
is the wifi signal you are getting strong enough?
You could use Mroogle(i.e Forum search)
I'm sure you will find your answers in other solved threads 🙂
 
Srirama said:
is the wifi signal you are getting strong enough?
You could use Mroogle(i.e Forum search)
I'm sure you will find your answers in other solved threads 🙂
Click to expand...

im getting full signal.

will there be benefits in purchasing an N router? if so how much would that differ?
 
stefmesman said:
im working on 802.11g 2.4Ghz

should be working on 802.11n at 5Ghz right?.
Click to expand...

wireless clients tend to connect to the strongest signal available which, more often than not, is the 2.4 GHz band. the 5 GHz band loses signal strength over distance or if there are obstacles (walls, furniture, etc.) in the way - it requires near "line-of-sight".

wireless interference

try moving your portable closer to the router, then do the option-click thing to see if that changes anything.

could also be that one of your neighbor's wireless networks is interfering with yours. download e.g. iStumbler and note the channels other networks in the vicinity are broadcasting on. change the channel(s) of your network as far away as possible from those.
 
sitting right next to my router right now. still on G network. i get download speeds up to 17Mb/s. most of the time im not really near my router but i can move the router closer to my working desk.

just looked at the router, its a belkin wireless G router. could not find any specific model numbers, it has 1 antenna.

just searched up google and it pointed out that wireless N can have an throughput up to 50Mb/s. should i be able to reach this speeds in real life performance?
 
Last edited:
You could just use an Ethernet cable if you want to do any serious downloading or file transferring...
 
Erasmus said:
You could just use an Ethernet cable if you want to do any serious downloading or file transferring...
Click to expand...

true, but i do alot of home sharing through laptops in the house, including backups, video transfer etc. don't wanna hassle with cables all the time 🙂
 
stefmesman said:
just searched up google and it pointed out that wireless N can have an throughput up to 50Mb/s. should i be able to reach this speeds in real life performance?
Click to expand...

Yes and more but this depends on the conditions and environment. If you use channel bonding (or 'channel widening' in Apple-speak) with a 2x2 transmitter/receiver config, you can achieve a 300 Mbits/s link speed but wireless 'N' will eat up ~25% of that to give you a absolute maximum throughput of ~225Mbits.
 
bigjobby said:
Yes and more but this depends on the conditions and environment. If you use channel bonding (or 'channel widening' in Apple-speak) with a 2x2 transmitter/receiver config, you can achieve a 300 Mbits/s link speed but wireless 'N' will eat up ~25% of that to give you a absolute maximum throughput of ~225Mbits.
Click to expand...

what kind of throughput would an airport extreme give me for example? when using just my build in mbp wifi.

thanks for all the comments so far
 
Sorry I dont have a solution but i just wanted to infom you that i get 1.42 Mbps on a good day so i would just be happy with what you have🙂
 
smoge said:
Sorry I dont have a solution but i just wanted to infom you that i get 1.42 Mbps on a good day so i would just be happy with what you have🙂
Click to expand...

Why, when he has 120mb contracted?

@OP: If the iMac gets such performance, then it's clearly your router's WiFi. It may not be a N capable router (the fastest there is, along with N1). Also, try testing your connection while next to the router so as to bar out interferences (though it's highly unlikely, it's possible).

Any modern router is N capable nowadays, I recommend you try one (Linksys and Belkin are excellent choices) and see how it goes.

Alternatively, try changing your wifi channel as sometimes if there are many wifi signals on one specific channel/frequency, speeds get slowed down.
 
smoge said:
Sorry I dont have a solution but i just wanted to infom you that i get 1.42 Mbps on a good day so i would just be happy with what you have🙂
Click to expand...

yes i know these speeds are pretty high, but i also pay for them so if i can use only 15Mb/s why pay for 120Mb/s? right. im just trying to find the bottleneck and its not just ''internet speed'' im also talking about local sharing.
 
stefmesman said:
what kind of throughput would an airport extreme give me for example? when using just my build in mbp wifi.

thanks for all the comments so far
Click to expand...

Without knowing much about the Airport Extreme, I do use my wireless from my Time Capsule which I'm currently connected with a data link speed of 300Mb/s however the actual data speeds can vary between 200-270Mbps depending on whereabouts I am in the house and the radio noise levels at the time. To give you more of a real world idea, I've just transferred a file at ~750MB from my TC to my desktop (~3m apart) over 802.11n with "channel widening" on and it took just under 45 secs.

Because, and as I believe, you have 3 antennas in your MBP, this will give you a 3x2 transmitter/receiver configuration (if you used a 2-antenna router) which will not necessarily increase the data rate but it may provide more resilience than my 2x2 configuration.

Before diving into any router products outside of Apple, do a bit of research just in case there's any known issues with particular routers that may not play ball very well with MBPs.
 
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