Wireless Speed Question

[killian6pk]

For all you who know a bunch more about this than I do. Could someone explain this to me.

My internet service is with ATT. I have what they call DSL Extreme which is supposed to be 3.0 Mbps Download Speed.

The Icon on my computer says that I am getting data at 54 Mbps (Wireless G Router & Desktop Card). Now my understanding of math is that 54 is a lot higher than 3. So I don't understand how my computer is reporting a speed that I am not getting. Maybe I have just had to much

[shovenose]

Re: Wireless Speed Question

OK. 54Mbps (in this case) is the speed of the link between the computer and the LAN (local area network). This means your computer is connected to the router at 54Mbps.
This has nothing to do with your actual internet speed.
Make sense?

[killian6pk]

Re: Wireless Speed Question

Yes it does. Thanks
If ATT only has speeds of up to 6Mbps why does one need a 300 Mbps Router and Adapter. Upgrading from G to N would not help me at all, would it?

[shovenose]

Re: Wireless Speed Question

No, it wouldn't, unless your computer is far enough away at the limits of G, so N, with better range and signal reliability, would help.
I've always wondered why my netgear 300n router has 100mbps ports... AFAIK the "300mbit" is very very very optimistic...

[Behemot]

Re: Wireless Speed Question

The theoretical limits are usually very far from reality.

But well having faster LAN means faster communication between your local computers.

[ratdude747]

Re: Wireless Speed Question

also, 54g is also optimistic, speed decreases as distance from the router (or AP) increases and as the level of interference increases (large metal objects, walls, microwave ovens, other wireless devices (cordless phone, wireless mice, etc), etc.)

you will only get 54g when you are close to the router with little interference. the further away you are the slower the speed to the router will be.

[Behemot]

Re: Wireless Speed Question

Yeah, I am curious under what conditions and what distance they get these results in lab. Burst on 10 cm distance? Why is it standardized than when it is impossible to get the speed? Jeez…

[killian6pk]

Re: Wireless Speed Question

I thought there was a Class Action Case won over ATT about this issue of Advertised Speed versus Actual Speed? I never received anything on it and I have been an ATT customer for more than 10 years.

[shovenose]

Re: Wireless Speed Question

That's a whole different tpoic, though.
I could sue the shit out of the them given that my "6mbps" internet is always between 0 (broken) and 4Mbps (LUCKY to get this)...
And it's very unreliable lol

[mariushm]

Re: Wireless Speed Question

I think the maximum speed advertised by the modem/router is the maximum speed possible under the standard.
It's related to how the communication standard packs several bits into a "constellation" of bits which gets sent through the air and this multiplied by the width of the communication channel gives you that maximum throughput.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrat...ude_modulation (albeit very techical) for one way to pack bits of data and send them through the air to other devices.

So basically 300 mbps IS possible, under very controlled condition... let's say a metal cage with two devices 2-3 feet away from each other - the metal cage would block any interference from outside so there would be nothing messing up with the signal except the devices themselves.

In real world, the radio frequency through which the modems talks to the computer or other wireless devices is already busy with data and interference from other devices such as taxi stations, garage door openers, maybe security guards walkie-talkies etc. This ON TOP of other routers and modems and computers talking on the same frequency.

So while ideally the standard is capable of transferring 300 mbps, in real world an end user would see 150mbos, 250 mbps at best.

If they were to equip the modem/router with a 1gbps connector, I'm sure they would have received lots of complaints from people saying they have 1gbps network cards but they can only download with 150mbps so the device is faulty...

It's less headaches to just restrict the port to 100mbps - oh... and I suspect they may also have chosen 100mbps only because the processor inside the device is not capable to process the quantity of data packets a connection above 100mbps would have.

[shovenose]

Re: Wireless Speed Question

Hmm... but if the processor can't support over 100mbps how can it support 300?

[mariushm]

Re: Wireless Speed Question

I wasn't talking about the part that takes data packets and converts them to radio frequency.
In the case of routers or modems with several wired ports, there's a "all in one" chip that's basically a switch, moving data packets between wired ports and the data it receives from the wireless section.

In some cases, this all in one "network switch" chip is not powerful enough to manage 300 mbps of data packets to pass to the wireless chips

[Behemot]

Re: Wireless Speed Question

Of course, it is not limited by the wirless transfer only, but also the inside processors, buses, caches etc. In both devices which are communicating.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Wireless Speed Question

Yes it does. Thanks
If ATT only has speeds of up to 6Mbps why does one need a 300 Mbps Router and Adapter.

To send 54 or 100 [or whatever] Mbps to multiple PCs.
.

[Mad_Professor]

Re: Wireless Speed Question

I thought there was a Class Action Case won over ATT about this issue of Advertised Speed versus Actual Speed? I never received anything on it and I have been an ATT customer for more than 10 years.

This person obviously lacks knowledge on networking.

Listen, AT&T is called an Internet Service Provider, they provide you access to the internet via a DSL Modem which is then connected to a Router and/or Switch which is then connected to your computer via wired or wireless.

The connection between the computer/device and the router is called the LAN *Local Area Network* This connection is provided at one of these speeds 10/100/1000Mbps through a wired Cat 5/6 ethernet cable OR wirelessly via WIFI B/G/N wireless adapter at speeds of 11/54/108/150/300/450/600Mbps.

The router allows you to share your paid internet provided connection via the modem to your other computers or devices on your network instead of having one device connected directly to your modem.

The Connection between your modem and the ISP *Internet Service Provider* is called a WAN *Wide Area Network.* WAN allows termination between two or more routers or gateways via copper *ethernet, coaxial* or optical *fiber* based solutions. Some routers are integrated with a modem and are sometimes called gateways.

ISP's have sole discretion what equipment and speeds are provided in your area either due to demand or limitations of hardware and ease-of-access.

Example: AT&T provides DSL *Digital Subscriber Line* vs Comcast that provides Cable-Internet *Coaxial connection.*

Bandwidth is essentially speed, the ones I've listed above. It's the channel capacity, or the maximum throughput of a logical or physical communication path in a digital communication system.

For example a 10/100 LAN network will allow 10 or 100MegaBits/second dedicated connections from a computer to the router. This allows you to transfer data from one computer to the other computer on "YOUR" network via the connection to the maximum throughput of a 100Mbps or 12.5 MegaBtyes/second.

The same thing wireless, you connect at 54Mbps you can transfer data from you to another computer on your wireless network.

But if you transfer data from a wireless computer at 54Mbps to a wired 100Mbps computer on your network. You will only go as fast as the wireless connection, meaning your 100Mbps computer will only utilize about 20-50% of it's connection depending on signal quality of the wireless computer and network overhead.

Due to network overhead, you can only achieve 80-90% of the connection. With poor quality cables/connection or slow computer it might be even less.

When it comes to the ISP and WAN side of things, your ISP provides your connection and bandwidth

For example, AT&T provides you a DSL connection of 3MegaBits/s download and 512KiloBits/s upload. When your router is connected, all your computers will share that connection and only go fast to the available bandwidth that's provided. If you got one computer downloading a video from the internet at 1Mbps, that only leaves 2Mbps of bandwidth available for your other computers, until that computer is done downloading.

Same thing if someone is uploading a picture and took half of your upload bandwidth which would be 256kbps out of 512Kbps.

Remember network overhead will eat 10-20% of your connection, that's why in the fine print you're only guarantee a percentage of service commitment.

In layman terms, your wireless bandwidth has no relations to your internet speed *bandwidth.*


As far as AT&T having a class action lawsuit for not meeting advertise speeds, here's a snippet from dslspeedsettlement.com

The lawsuit alleges that AT&T failed to deliver DSL Service to its customers at the speeds promised. Specifically, the lawsuit alleges that AT&T breached its contracts with and defrauded some of its customers by limiting the maximum data speed that some of its customers could obtain to a rate below the maximum rate for the plan the customer purchased. The lawsuit also alleges that AT&T breached its contracts with and defrauded some of its customers by delivering speeds lower than the minimum promised under the customer’s plan, or otherwise disappointed its customers’ expectations regarding the speed of the DSL Service.

This means if you sign a contract that says you're guarantee 80% of rated speed and you go do a speed test like the one at speakeasy.net or speedtest.net and you don't get within 80% of what you're paying for consistently. The ISP must confirm/verify and resolve it by finding and fixing the issue or reduce the plan rate to a level that is consistent for the service.

Meaning if you have 6Mbps plan for $45.99 a month and you can only get 3-4Mbps consistently and the ISP has exhausted every option they could to fix it. Then they must reduce the rate of plan to match the service you're getting.
In this case they may have a 3Mbit plan for $24.99 and will bump you down to that.


Do you understand now?