RT-AX58U Wifi 6 Speed with iPhone 11

[mach2joe]

Hi Everyone,

I have recently purchased and set up a RT-AX58U to replace my old Linksys router. Everything works fine except for the Wifi speed with my only Wifi 6-capable device - my iPhone 11 Pro Max. As you can see in Fig.1 below, I could not get speed any higher than low 500Mbps. This speed is only slightly better than the Wifi 5 speed I was getting with my previous router; And this is with the iPhone as the only wireless device connected to either the 5GHz and 2.4GHz frequency. I held the iPhone standing right beside the router. Fig. 2 shows my router Wifi settings. I was expecting the Wifi speed to be higher... am I correct to have that expectation?

To give more background the router is running the latest Asus firmware, connected to a 1Gbps broadband connection. I tested the wired speed and it is stable with download and upload at 900+ Mbps.

Any suggestions for setting change or further test are welcome. Thanks for your help in advance!

Fig.1

Fig. 2

 

[jsz]

Try control channel 36 instead of auto to start with. Leave DFS off for now. Might be interference

 

[mach2joe]

Try control channel 36 instead of auto to start with. Leave DFS off for now. Might be interference

I did, and restarted the modem, router and the iPhone before testing. The download speed actually got worse, down too low 400Mbps, while upload speed remains in the same range.

 

[jsz]

Might just be heavy interference. Do you live in an area with a lot of neighbors?

I'm not exactly sure what to recommend other than trying different channels. Automatic should technically figure out the best option but you may need to try using DFS as a last resort.

 

[mach2joe]

Might just be heavy interference. Do you live in an area with a lot of neighbors?

I'm not exactly sure what to recommend other than trying different channels. Automatic should technically figure out the best option but you may need to try using DFS as a last resort.

Yes, I live in Hong Kong and it's crazily populous here - got tons of other routers sending out interferences in the surrounding units and buildings. Just didn't expect the improvement over 802.11ac would be so minimal.

I will continue to try other channels and see if it helps. Thanks for your help!

 

[jsz]

Set auto + auto select channels including DFS. This is likely the best option.

If you ever end up using an AX200 wifi AX desktop/laptop card, id advise against this though. It will limit the full potentially bandwidth heavily. 160mhz requires the correct set of channels to work properly and DFS doesn't always wanna play nice.. especially in terms of max potential link speeds.

Doesn't matter much for iPhone but it may impact usage in the future for other devices.

 

[thiggins]

iphone 11 does not support 160 MHz.

 

[jsz]

iphone 11 does not support 160 MHz.

Didn't say it did, but his throughput should be a little higher than that for DL on 80mhz.

Closer to 700mbps at least.. id guess.

 

[thiggins]

Didn't say it did.

My comment was not directed to you. Just providing information in case there was an assumption that the phone supports 160 MHz.

 

[jsz]

Ah my mistake. But yeah I think the issue here is general congestion of channels around him.

160mhz would certainly help though if the iphone supported it.

 

[LongRangeSkeet]

I just got the same router. I got an older iPad mini and after setting up the router it now speed tests at a fraction of what my bandwidth is. No other device in the house has any issues.

It's strange. Could it be only related to Apple devices?

 

[digits n bits]

Try resetting network settings on your iOS device after installing a new router.
It’s worked for me in the past with slow internet speeds.

 

[LongRangeSkeet]

Try resetting network settings on your iOS device after installing a new router.
It’s worked for me in the past with slow internet speeds.

Bummer. It still didn't work for me. Upload is where it should be, but download is less than half.

Thanks for the tip though.

 

[mach2joe]

Bummer. It still didn't work for me. Upload is where it should be, but download is less than half.

Thanks for the tip though.

Is return/refund an option? I at least got some improvement over 802.11ac albeit a tiny one; What you are experiencing is just unacceptable.

Actually I have not tested the connection on my old iPad Air (1st gen). Let me see if it has the same issue.

 

[LongRangeSkeet]

QoS is totally borked on both stock and Merlin. Spent all day dicking around in the settings. All a man ever wanted was some fq_codel.

One day all of a sudden my Note 10+ disconnected. It would then connect back to WiFi but no LAN or WAN. No other device was experiencing any WiFi issues at that time. Eventually rebooting the router fixed the issue on the Note.

Then there's the issue with the iPad.

The plan is to exchange for the X6S but there aren't any in stock. Hopefully they'll get some soon before my two weeks expires.

 

[sanke1]

Try control channel 36 instead of auto to start with. Leave DFS off for now. Might be interference

Nope. Channel 40 gets you to utilize the 160 width.But in this scenario it depends on interference you rightly said in 2nd part of your sentence.
@OP you need to do trial and error to see which channel gives you the best speed.

 

[jsz]

Nope. Channel 40 gets you to utilize the 160 width.But in this scenario it depends on interference you rightly said in 2nd part of your sentence.
@OP you need to do trial and error to see which channel gives you the best speed.

wouldn't "36" just use channels 36(p)+40+44+48+52+56+60+64 ?

 

[sanke1]

wouldn't "36" just use channels 36(p)+40+44+48+52+56+60+64 ?

I had posted about the same few months back and was wondering why 160 Mhz wasn't enabled. Then someone suggested to use channel 40 and bam! success.
I live in an area which has 2.4 Ghz congestion but 5 Ghz is totally free. So I do hit peak 1 Gigabit speeds on my Intel AX200 client.

 

[jsz]

I had posted about the same few months back and was wondering why 160 Mhz wasn't enabled. Then someone suggested to use channel 40 and bam! success.
I live in an area which has 2.4 Ghz congestion but 5 Ghz is totally free. So I do hit peak 1 Gigabit speeds on my Intel AX200 client.

Weird. ch. 36 def does 2.4 gbps on the ax58u.

 

[LongRangeSkeet]

Nope. Channel 40 gets you to utilize the 160 width.But in this scenario it depends on interference you rightly said in 2nd part of your sentence.
@OP you need to do trial and error to see which channel gives you the best speed.

Weird, but I couldn't get the 160 to ever show up for my devices. I've tried all of the channels including DFS.

According to this article, only channels 50 and 114 offer 160mhz widths.