[ale] Buy your wifi routers now...

[Derek Atkins]

On Thu, September 10, 2015 12:22 pm, DJ-Pfulio wrote:
> On 09/10/2015 11:25 AM, Derek Atkins wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, September 10, 2015 11:16 am, DJ-Pfulio wrote:
>>> On 09/10/2015 10:50 AM, Derek Atkins wrote:
>>>> My laptop is ac-capable, and iwconfig on it claims "802.11abgn" at
>>>> 5.745GHz, and apparently 585.1 Mb/s (which definitely implied ac!).
>>>
>>> What are the iperf numbers?
>>
>> 200Mbps -- so not too bad considering the 400-600Mbps is raw speed and
>> doesn't account for any IP overhead, etc.
>>
>>> For example, my powerline network gear all says "600 Mbps" everywhere,
>>> but I see only 60 Mbps.
>>>
>>> There are lies, damn lies, and bandwidth specs for wifi/wireless.
>>
>
> Well, I got 219Mbps when the powerline adapters were in the same room -
> not very
> useful and definitely not 600Mbps.

I'm not in the same room as the AP (although I admit I've very close to it).

> If a GigE connection doesn't provide 850+ Mbps, I freak out. Why are the
> other
> physical transports given so much slack?

Shared vs non-shared medium?  Wifi is completely shared; GigE is usually
switched which means it's a question of who is talking to whom that will
affect you capacity and not just a question of who is talking, period,
like it is with wifi.

On Wifi I've got multiple devices sharing the air-waves.  3 devices could
be sharing that 600Mbps to get it down to 200.  My laptop doesn't know how
many other devices are associated, so it's just showing the 'max
capacity'.  So that's why Wifi gets more slack than wired interfaces. 
It's also why I ran over 4000' of Cat6a in my house.

-derek

-- 
       Derek Atkins                 617-623-3745
       derek at ihtfp.com             www.ihtfp.com
       Computer and Internet Security Consultant