Need advice on setting up home network

[Yarga]

Greeting O Great and Powerful SNB HiveMind!

I live in a 2200 sq ft apartment in NYC (VERY crowded wifi environment).

The apartment is provisioned with 400Mbps from TWC/Spectrum. I have a Asus RT-AC86U router, a 210 Araknis managed switch, and a 110 unmanned switch. Within the apartment I have 3 OpenMesh A60 APs (3X3, 450/1300) at various ceiling locations.

Here's the issue, I seem to be having quite low speeds from the AP's....Wired, I get the full (and then some) provisioned speed. I really don't have a lot of people in my apartment (2 others). But, AT BEST, I get ~170-200Mbps from the AP's. In fact, I seem to be getting the best speeds (~375) with the router's radio.

I have used every combination of 40 and 80 Mhz windows as well as Phy channels. For some reason I seem to get the best/most consistent speeds with ALL of the radios set to 80Mhz width....which conventional wisdom would hold that I would be getting all sorts of interference.

I am really confused and could use some wisdom here.

Thanks in advance

 

[ulaganath]

It’s matter how much signal strength and which band you are connecting to.

Try dslreports for real speed


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Easy Rhino]

What are you using as your test client? most clients are 2x2 or even 1x1. So 2x2 has a max link speed of 833mbps, and max effective speed of around 400mbps, assuming everything is working great.

What kind of reported link rates are you getting?

You're completely avoiding 2.4ghz, right?

I'm not familiar with the OpenMesh products, but it looks like they have two Ethernet ports in back. If you plug a client into their Ethernet port what kind of speeds do you get? That would establish if the openmesh APs are just inherently a bottleneck.

 

[Yarga]

What are you using as your test client? most clients are 2x2 or even 1x1. So 2x2 has a max link speed of 833mbps, and max effective speed of around 400mbps, assuming everything is working great.

What kind of reported link rates are you getting?

You're completely avoiding 2.4ghz, right?

I'm not familiar with the OpenMesh products, but it looks like they have two Ethernet ports in back. If you plug a client into their Ethernet port what kind of speeds do you get? That would establish if the openmesh APs are just inherently a bottleneck.

I do see the link rates as the bottleneck....most of the time I am not getting better than ~250Mbps.....which is odd since I am practicing good channel management (I think)....what are the factors that influence link rate? My signal strength is really good, channels are not overlapping.....

I will try the wired port test but it is a giant pain in the butt as they sit on the ceiling.....

 

[Easy Rhino]

Oh, the link rate is only 250mbps? Well that's no good.

The things I can think of for 5ghz are:
* verify both AP and client are using 80mhz bandwidth
* free 5ghz channels (ideally the idea upper or lower range)
* close range and no obstructions.
* no power saving on the client

Even then link rate may vary some. My phone fluctuates between 400 and 833 mbps link rates for unknown reasons.

 

[Yarga]

Oh, the link rate is only 250mbps? Well that's no good.

The things I can think of for 5ghz are:
* verify both AP and client are using 80mhz bandwidth
* free 5ghz channels (ideally the idea upper or lower range)
* close range and no obstructions.
* no power saving on the client

Even then link rate may vary some. My phone fluctuates between 400 and 833 mbps link rates for unknown reasons.

I hear you....I have been using 40Mhz windows because of what I thought would be cross-channel interference if I use 80Mhz on all of the APs....Is this not a real fear with at least 20-30 feet (or walls) between each AP? Should I go ahead and provision all of them with 80 Mhz windows?

Is there a power saving toggle on iOS devices? Wasn't aware.....

 

[MichaelCG]

40MHz or 80MHz is more of a question to what the local airspace looks like for you. You just have to see what is free and and what is not to see if 80MHz works best for you. If your link rates are that low, it sounds like your airspace may be quite congested/dirty and there may not be much you can do.

Make sure your transmit power is turned down so you don't have major overlap past the dividing walls. Also to note, if you use the DFS channels, there is plenty of airspace to have 3 80MHz channels running. I have three APs in my house, one on non-DFS and two on DFS. I do have a handful of older clients that refuse to connect to the DFS APs, so my main central AP runs non-DFS while my edge case APs are on DFS channels.

 

[Yarga]

40MHz or 80MHz is more of a question to what the local airspace looks like for you. You just have to see what is free and and what is not to see if 80MHz works best for you. If your link rates are that low, it sounds like your airspace may be quite congested/dirty and there may not be much you can do.

Make sure your transmit power is turned down so you don't have major overlap past the dividing walls. Also to note, if you use the DFS channels, there is plenty of airspace to have 3 80MHz channels running. I have three APs in my house, one on non-DFS and two on DFS. I do have a handful of older clients that refuse to connect to the DFS APs, so my main central AP runs non-DFS while my edge case APs are on DFS channels.

I'm in the middle of NYC so dirty as dirty can be.....Sorry to be such a noob but here are the channels available to me---which are DFS and which aren't? 36,40,44,48,149,153,157,161,165?
What is your suggestion regarding power....running now 24 dBm.....I think standard is 23.....

 

[Easy Rhino]

What are you using as a test client?

Do you see interfereing 5ghz signals, besides your own?

since I don't know what your walls are like, if you have a laptop or a android you could install a wifi analyzer app (I use netgear wifi analytics on android, I think InSSIDer is popular on windows). to see if there's any 5ghz interference. It's much less likely than 2.4ghz.

I would definitely give the 80mhz a shot as the default though. you'll only worry about interference with your other APs if the APs are actually actively transmitting data. But if it's mostly just one client at a time, it will get more of the bandwidth faster.

 

[MichaelCG]

which are DFS and which aren't? 36,40,44,48,149,153,157,161,165?

Doesn't appear your device supports DFS.

What is your suggestion regarding power....running now 24 dBm.....I think standard is 23.....

Guessing your power is way too high as well. When you are only trying to cover a single room or two, there generally isn't any reason to be running your radios over half power. I know on my UAP-AC-LR, I run my 5GHz radio on Medium (16dBm). My 2.4GHz radio is disabled on one, on Low on another, and Medium on the most central AP.

 

[tannebil]

I don’t see an answer to the question as to how you are testing? Also, do your OpenMesh APs use wireless or wired backhaul?

If you use an app like WiFi Sweetspot, it will test the speed of the connection between the client and it’s attached AP but doesn’t tell you anything about the speed back to your router/modem. The best way to test your internal speed is to run iperf3 as a server on a computer that is attached to your wired network. You should have a standard set of benchmarks that you run while connected to each access point to highlight any differences.

I’d also suggest asking if this is really worth the trouble. If you are getting 250Mbps instead of 400Mbps, does it make any practical difference? It is important in some use cases, but 99% of the time, I don’t see any difference between 100, 250, or 1GB when using my iPhone, iPad Pro, or MacBook Pro. Occasionally with my MBP it makes a difference (a large backup/restore with my local sever for example) but that’s about it. I’ve got 250-350 everywhere (as tested with iperf3) as a point of reference. I spent a lot of hours screwing around with mine until I remembered that physics and the real world mean that all wireless is crap and, if I wanted reliable, max performance, I needed wired connections.

 

[MichaelCG]

I’d also suggest asking if this is really worth the trouble. If you are getting 250Mbps instead of 400Mbps, does it make any practical difference? It is important in some use cases, but 99% of the time, I don’t see any difference between 100, 250, or 1GB when using my iPhone, iPad Pro, or MacBook Pro. Occasionally with my MBP it makes a difference (a large backup/restore with my local sever for example) but that’s about it. I’ve got 250-350 everywhere (as tested with iperf3) as a point of reference. I spent a lot of hours screwing around with mine until I remembered that physics and the real world mean that all wireless is crap and, if I wanted reliable, max performance, I needed wired connections.

My thoughts exactly. There is only one wireless client in my house that I ever care about true high performance and that is my laptop. And when I really care, I take it downstairs and plug it into a 1Gbps wired connection. As long as I can get a consistent and reliable 100Mbps anywhere in my house and 10Mbps outside in my yard, I am pretty much happy. And even 100Mbps is generally more than the majority of needs really require.