Disable WMM??

[mogulman]

I have a Linksys EA3500. I was reading some articles on the net about people achieving higher throughput by disabling WMM in their routers. Specifically, Linksys routers.

I tried disabling it, and the throughput on my ipad did go up about 10-20%.

I also read an article from SmallNetBuilder from back in 2009 that said if you disable WMM, then basically you are going back to a max of 54MB ("G type"), speeds.

Is this still true?

Anyone have recommendations on WMM? It is enabled by default on my EA5400.

 

[tipstir]

Wi-Fi MultiMedia
Priority tagging and queuing capabilities for Wi-Fi networks of QoS

Test your network with or without WMM enabled and see if your happy with the results? It's enabled by default.

 

[mogulman]

Interesting... tested with my laptop and my throughput with WMM off is only 15-16Mbs. With it enabled, I am getting 50-60Mbs.

So I guess for me, even though it is a little slower on the ipad, it isn't worth it for my laptop.

 

[tipstir]

Interesting... tested with my laptop and my throughput with WMM off is only 15-16Mbs. With it enabled, I am getting 50-60Mbs.

So I guess for me, even though it is a little slower on the ipad, it isn't worth it for my laptop.

What are you options on the iPad for NIC? Tablet speed is not like full workstation, desktop, laptop or netbook speeds. Seems to be off by 10%. What's your Link speed on that iPad?

 

[mogulman]

There is no way to tell link speed on an ipad.

Also, my router, Linksys EA3500 does not show link speed in its status for clients.

 

[thiggins]

I am checking on this. WMM enabled is still required to enable > 54 Mbps, i.e. HT (High Throughput) link rates AFAIK.

 

[stevech]

I believe that WMM looks into packets to try to guess if the content is streaming (e.g., UDP variants like RTSP).
For HTTP and perhaps FTP, I've assumed that WMM doesn't activate.

Anyone know for sure?

 

[tipstir]

There is no way to tell link speed on an ipad.

Also, my router, Linksys EA3500 does not show link speed in its status for clients.

No you need to use use your NIC adapter Status of your connection. Software can tell you the same but mostly NIC will. WMM has to be enabled. On tablets I have it enabled.

 

[thiggins]

I believe that WMM looks into packets to try to guess if the content is streaming (e.g., UDP variants like RTSP).
For HTTP and perhaps FTP, I've assumed that WMM doesn't activate.

Anyone know for sure?

Does Wi-Fi MultiMedia (WMM) Really Do Anything? - Part 1
Does Wi-Fi MultiMedia (WMM) Really Do Anything? - Part 2

Does Wi-Fi MultiMedia (WMM) Really Do Anything? - Part 3

 

[sfx2000]

I believe that WMM looks into packets to try to guess if the content is streaming (e.g., UDP variants like RTSP).
For HTTP and perhaps FTP, I've assumed that WMM doesn't activate.

Anyone know for sure?

WMM looks at the packet headers - the frames are tagged if priority/QoS is desired.

It's important to note however, WMM is needed for HT mode - even if QoS is not used - WMM enables frame aggregation at the MAC layer - this is one of the ways that HT mode gets better bandwidth utilization.

I've seen a couple of implementations where the WebUI radio button only affects the QoS functionality - I would consider those devices to be WMM-Lite, as the frame aggregation aspect is still there.