Bandwidth Clamped by Router

[gkamieneski]

I measure 18Mbps coming from my cable modem at the patch cord entering my Linksys router's WAN port. However, any patch cord coming out of the router seems to be clamped down right around 6Mbps. Yes this is a BEFW11S4 old wireless 802.11b router, but I'm only talking of wired connections here. I have another newer wireless Netgear router in line with the Linksys, but the Linksys handles my DHCP, etc.

I know the wireless speeds of the Linksys are low by today's standards, but shouldn't I still be getting the 18Mbps out of the wire, just as it is going in?

 

[jdabbs]

The Linksys's router CPU's capability is the likely bottleneck. NAT is CPU intensive, as well as logging (if it's enabled). I don't know the reason for keeping it in your network, but using it as a dumb AP/switch would sidestep the CPU issue.

 

[gkamieneski]

Thanks, first I'll bypass it altogether and run everything through the Netgear then based on my results, I will bring it back inline as a "dumb" AP/switch. I will just reverse the roles that the Linksys and Netgear are playing now. The Netgear is a 54G device. Sound like a plan?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

That sounds like the real world throughput of those first generation Linky routers....5-8 megs or so is all their humble little CPU can muster.

Todays routers are several generations newer, faster CPU, more RAM, able to sustain the speeds of todays typically faster internet connection.

 

[thiggins]

The Netgear is a 54G device. Sound like a plan?

Depends on what the "Netgear" is. It might also be too slow. See if you can find it in the Router Charts and look up its throughput. Wireless speed and wired routing speed are not really related.

 

[gkamieneski]

I got around to switching the positions of my old Linksys and newer Netgear routers, dumbing down the Linksys to just a 4-port switch.

I had good news and bad news. With the new arrangement I increased my pipe to the wired PC from 5Mbps to 14Mbps but the wireless devices are only pulling 6+ Mbps. Taking the old Linksys completely out of the network did not improve wireless performance.

The Netgear is a model WGR614v7 802.11g router. Perhaps that is its limit?

 

[thiggins]

Wireless speed measured from the Internet to a client is limited by both routing speed and wireless connection speed. The slowest link is the limit.

If your Internet connection is 18 Mbps and your router can do 50 Mbps, but the wireless connection is only 10 Mbps, your speed will be 10 Mbps.

An 802.11g wireless connection is ~20 Mbps best case, with 6 Mbps not unusual unless you're in the same room with no competing networks and no interference.

 

[gkamieneski]

I would think the 802.11g wireless router could provide 54Mbps in wireless mode, thereby defaulting to 14Mbps, the incoming capacity?

 

[thiggins]

You would be thinking wrong.

 

[gkamieneski]

Updating: close proximity to the antenna gets me about 7Mbps. Still, it's good to correct the throughput problem I was having to the wired PC (up to arount 17 - 18 Mbps now).

 

[mojo]

I know it seems kind of crotchety and grumpy and that the manufacturers all make great claims about what their wireless can do, but my philosophy has always been that wireless is terrible for any local network activity where speed actually matters. Wireless is good for browsing the internet and not much else. Wired gigabit is the way to go for any high bandwidth local LAN traffic.