AC68W Question

[ABlizz]

Hey all -

I recently upgraded my router from the AC66 to the AC68. I found the 2G throughput on the 66 to be completely awful, and have a lot of devices that primarily rely on it more than the 5G band. I'm not completely savy with wireless networking, but I get the general jist of things. I use TWC - my internet plan supposedly is 200MBPs down w/ 20 MBPS up

However, I'm getting slower download speeds than what I had on the 66.

1. 2G band is around 30-40 MBPS (which is more generous than the 20MBPs I was getting)
2. 5G band is 40-60 MBPS whereas on the 66 I was maxing out at around 200 MPBS

I'm using the same settings I had on the 66. The least crowded channels, 20mhz frequencies on each band. So I thought this would be an upgrade, but it seems pretty dismal at this point. I'm running on Merlin's new firmware update btw.

Any suggestions?

As always - appreciate the help.

 

[TonyH]

Hey all -

I recently upgraded my router from the AC66 to the AC68. I found the 2G throughput on the 66 to be completely awful, and have a lot of devices that primarily rely on it more than the 5G band. I'm not completely savy with wireless networking, but I get the general jist of things. I use TWC - my internet plan supposedly is 200MBPs down w/ 20 MBPS up

However, I'm getting slower download speeds than what I had on the 66.

1. 2G band is around 30-40 MBPS (which is more generous than the 20MBPs I was getting)
2. 5G band is 40-60 MBPS whereas on the 66 I was maxing out at around 200 MPBS

I'm using the same settings I had on the 66. The least crowded channels, 20mhz frequencies on each band. So I thought this would be an upgrade, but it seems pretty dismal at this point. I'm running on Merlin's new firmware update btw.

Any suggestions?

As always - appreciate the help.

Hi,
Just to be sure, are you counting by the bits or bytes?

 

[ABlizz]

I've been using speediest.net to gauge everything. Bytes?

I'm more concerned with the disparity between the overall numbers. Seems like I should hypothetically have better performance / at the least the same in the 5G Range.

The 2G band isn't much different compared to the 66 either.

 

[Rankdropper84]

Hey all -

I recently upgraded my router from the AC66 to the AC68. I found the 2G throughput on the 66 to be completely awful, and have a lot of devices that primarily rely on it more than the 5G band. I'm not completely savy with wireless networking, but I get the general jist of things. I use TWC - my internet plan supposedly is 200MBPs down w/ 20 MBPS up

However, I'm getting slower download speeds than what I had on the 66.

1. 2G band is around 30-40 MBPS (which is more generous than the 20MBPs I was getting)
2. 5G band is 40-60 MBPS whereas on the 66 I was maxing out at around 200 MPBS

I'm using the same settings I had on the 66. The least crowded channels, 20mhz frequencies on each band. So I thought this would be an upgrade, but it seems pretty dismal at this point. I'm running on Merlin's new firmware update btw.

Any suggestions?

As always - appreciate the help.

Hard to help you slightly because I am not sure of your actual speeds. How are you checking the speeds you are getting on each band? Taking the link speed and diving by 8? Honestly sounds like part of your problem is using the 20mhz frequency. Set your 2.4 band to 20/40 if not in a crowded area, and set your 5g band 20/40/80

 

[Rankdropper84]

I've been using speediest.net to gauge everything. Bytes?

I'm more concerned with the disparity obviously between the overall numbers.

Check the link speed of the devices you are having slow speeds with and report please. I would imagine the link speed is your limiting factor with whats been presented

 

[ABlizz]

Hard to help you slightly because I am not sure of your actual speeds. How are you checking the speeds you are getting on each band? Taking the link speed and diving by 8? Honestly sounds like part of your problem is using the 20mhz frequency. Set your 2.4 band to 20/40 if not in a crowded area, and set your 5g band 20/40/80

speedtest.net and I also use an app called Wifi Scanner from Access Agility.

I live in NYC in a crowded apartment building, so I was worried about increasing the frequencies. My complaint is that I seemed to have stronger performance with the AC66 - and I don't necessarily know why.

 

[ABlizz]

Check the link speed of the devices you are having slow speeds with and report please. I would imagine the link speed is your limiting factor with whats been presented

This is from my laptop - which is getting subpar speeds compared to the 66.

 

[Rankdropper84]

View attachment 3593

This is from my laptop - which is getting subpar speeds compared to the 66.

Set the 5g band to use all frequencies and recheck if its any quicker. You shouldn't have to worry about interference on the 5g band. For future use to figure out the max speed of any network device take the link speed and divide by 8 to get the speed in megabytes per second instead of megabits per second. Of course there are other factors when dealing with wifi that will affect the max speed a device can get. Your apple device there will only be able to receive at best 27.125 megabytes per second. Also since its on the 5g band i would imagine setting the 5g to 20/40/60/80 could increase your devices link speed and thusly increasing its connection

At the very least give the 20/40/80 frequency a try. I am sure most will tell you its the 2.4 band that you need to worry about will channel bonding since it really only supports 3 channels.