6 ms·

Anyone tested the "real" throughput of Wifi 6? I wanted to make a point to point connection for 500 Mbit/s and figured AC will be more than enough. Well, turne

by jotm 5y ago

Anyone tested the "real" throughput of Wifi 6? I wanted to make a point to point connection for 500 Mbit/s and figured AC will be more than enough. Well, turned out I can squeeze at best 260Mbps between 2 fully optimized AC routers with 3 streams (3x3 antenna config) at 975 Mbit/s (40Mhz band) negotiated speed. Which was really disappointing, I was thinking AC would be faster than N, which gets around the same real throughput of ~1/4 of the negotiated speed (i.e. 450 Mbps 3x3 = ~120 Mbps real bandwidth). So, the only real way to get a higher speed is to use more streams (on both ends) or 80 MHz of band width, which is only available on higher end chipsets and is really finnicky in most conditions.

swalsh 5y ago
I have wifi 6, it took quite a bit of fiddling before I got the good results I wanted. But a good first thing to check is that your network adapter had 802.11 AX enabled (on Windows, my experience is it is not enabled by default.)
thfuran 5y ago
For fixed-location point to point with line of sight, I'd recommend avoiding wifi. You should be able to get a gigabit or so at hundreds of meters for just a few hundred dollars with point to point wireless bridges.
- walrus01 5y ago
  At a few hundred meters max and on a tight budget, people should be looking at ubnt and mikrotik 802.11ad/ay based 60GHz stuff, in the price category of under $300 per radio.
  - lillecarl 5y ago
    One thing to know is if you do the ptmp setup one unstable connection (trees, trucks) will cause other radios to DC momentarily as well. I tried all possible mkt config, including fully routed and fully switched, same result.
walrus01 5y ago
For greater speeds you are certainly going to need to use an 80 MHz channel. If you want an outdoor high speed five gigahertz point-to-point connection, I would recommend using a pair of dedicated radios designed for that purpose rather than regular Wi-Fi stuff. Such as ubnt af5xhd or similar.
tyrfing 5y ago
With AC and a relatively congested area, I see 1/2 under poor conditions, 2/3+ normally. For example, forcing 144.4 Mbps negotiated (or 130 Mbps, one side is misreporting it) gives stable 100 Mbps throughput. Worth noting that a different AP does noticeably worse under the same conditions, more like 75-90 with high variance. Unfortunately I can't effectively test the AP-reported ~ 600 Mbps throughput on 867 negotiated, but it's pretty accurate at lower bandwidth.
shadowpho 5y ago
I was able to get 800 MBps real bandwidth with 2x2 and 80MHz :). No tinkering required either, just changed to 80MHz channel and voila.
- dheera 5y ago
  i got worse bandwidth with 80Mhz. not sure why. i get some shit 230 Mbps with a U6-LR-US. So much for gigabit Wi-Fi.
microtonal 5y ago
Anyone tested the "real" throughput of Wifi 6? Yes, I tested with a Fritz!Box 4060 with WiFi 6 (4x4 Multi-User MIMO) and a MacBook Pro 14". Confirmed on the Mac that 802.11ax is used. When standing right next to the router, I get between 400-700Mbs (it varies a lot). I also use a WiFi 6 repeater as an additional access point (hooked up to ethernet), so I am getting 200-400Mbs in most of the apartment. So, it's ok-ish, but very variable. We have most of our apartment wired up with Ethernet, so Wifi is mostly for iPhones/IPad or when setting on the couch with a laptop.
smat 5y ago
Wifi6 adds QAM1024 as a modulation, so under excellent condition its downlink will be faster. Many of the changes aim at high density environments, such as trade fairs and conference centers. Once the majority of devices are upgraded, these situations will be handled much more effectively. Lastly, OFDMA is capable of significantly lowering latency if all devices in a network support it. If you are using Wifi6 at home with few devices connected, do not expect noticeable improvements.
Stratoscope 5y ago
With my AT&T fiber modem/router and Galaxy S22 Ultra or ThinkPad P1 Gen 3, I typically get 600-800 Mbps both directions, either in the same room as the router or an adjoining room. It drops to 300-400 Mbps if I go outside and the signal has to go through stucco on chicken wire. The interior walls are drywall so they interfere less. The router is on the floor; I haven't tried putting it on a high shelf to see if that improves the outdoor coverage. I haven't done any special configuration on the router or phone/laptop, just running everything as it came out of the box.
sgtnoodle 5y ago
802.11ax probably won't help you for a point to point link. The only thing that would potentially help is the 1024QAM modulation, but unless you have really nice antennas, it probably won't work at that distance. The three streams may not be helping much either, since there may not actually be much spatial separation point to point at several hundred meters. Best case, you're only going to get maybe a bit over half the link rate in real bandwidth. There's just a lot of overhead with wifi. If you're using omnidirectional dipole antennas, you're losing a lot of signal strength at that distance by radiating mostly in the wrong direction. Your best bet, I think, would be to use two sets of linearly polarized directional antennas offset by 90 degrees. That way, they're out of phase and you may be able to get 2 independent spatial streams. Alternatively, use two directional antennas but point one set indirectly at a big flat metal wall or something, in the hope that the signal reflects and intentionally gets some "multipath". Also, turn off "legacy" support so that you're using lower overhead greenfield preambles.
zamadatix 5y ago
> between 2 fully optimized AC routers with 3 streams (3x3 antenna config) at 975 Mbit/s (40Mhz band) negotiated speed. Doesn't seem to add up. The max rate for AC 3x3 40 MHz is 600 Mbps PHY rate not 975 Mbps. This is with GI at 400 ns and the maximum signal quality. 975 would only be reachable on AC via 80 MHz channel 3x3 with a GI of 400 ns and a less than optimal signal quality. > Which was really disappointing, I was thinking AC would be faster than N, which gets around the same real throughput of ~1/4 of the negotiated speed (i.e. 450 Mbps 3x3 = ~120 Mbps real bandwidth). That's a ~2.16x increase for a single generation jump! > So, the only real way to get a higher speed is to use more streams (on both ends) or 80 MHz of band width, which is only available on higher end chipsets and is really finnicky in most conditions. Depending on your environment bumping to an 800 ns guard interval may help, or at least lower the jitter from retries. Also for P2P having a good directional antenna can be more important than having more spatial streams/spectrum. Both of the latter increase maximum bandwidth but decrease signal quality while good RF design like a good antenna and placement will serve to increase signal quality. Alternatively for P2P there are purpose built solutions that tweak a lot of the standard Wi-Fi assumptions to deliver better performance. A typical go-to is Ubiquiti's airmax line which is on the lower end of the cost spectrum and has options in the 2.4/5/60 bands. On the higher end there is the airfiber line which adds in the 24 GHz band as well as dedicated send/receive options. This makes the connection full duplex rather than half duplex which solves a litany of slowdownsz in one swoop. Unfortunately it also comes at a premium price point. If you don't like Ubiquiti then Cambium also has decent P2P gear, I don't recall if they have any cheap options though. On airfiber I was able to achieve gigabit speed over a couple miles between buildings. We actually used it as the primary link for the IT office to the rest of the network as it performed overal better than the 300 mbps fiber line. . To your original question I've gotten real world >800 Mbps goodput on AC 2x2 80 MHz and real world >1 Gbps on AX 2x2 80 MHz. These are half duplex speeds of course. If the P2P use case is long distance I'd stay away from 6 GHz as there are some power limitations there.
- jotm 5y ago
  Hmm, you're right, I might be misremembering and was actually using 80 MHz, so I wanted to try 160 MHz but the routers did not support that. Right, so Wifi N had 20/40 MHz. Thanks! Reading the replies I'm thinking better chipsets could've achieved higher speeds, but that doesn't quite make sense - if the negotiated rate is the same, why would the real speed differ between routers? I used Archer C7s, which I love because I'm poor, very cheap, very reliable with OpenWRT. I ended up running fiber - it was surprisingly cheap and I didn't even need special tools for the connectors, just have to be veeery careful when cutting and inserting the cable.

by jotm 5y ago

swalsh 5y ago

I have wifi 6, it took quite a bit of fiddling before I got the good results I wanted. But a good first thing to check is that your network adapter had 802.11 AX enabled (on Windows, my experience is it is not enabled by default.)

thfuran 5y ago

For fixed-location point to point with line of sight, I'd recommend avoiding wifi. You should be able to get a gigabit or so at hundreds of meters for just a few hundred dollars with point to point wireless bridges.

walrus01 5y ago
At a few hundred meters max and on a tight budget, people should be looking at ubnt and mikrotik 802.11ad/ay based 60GHz stuff, in the price category of under $300 per radio.
- lillecarl 5y ago
  One thing to know is if you do the ptmp setup one unstable connection (trees, trucks) will cause other radios to DC momentarily as well. I tried all possible mkt config, including fully routed and fully switched, same result.

walrus01 5y ago

For greater speeds you are certainly going to need to use an 80 MHz channel. If you want an outdoor high speed five gigahertz point-to-point connection, I would recommend using a pair of dedicated radios designed for that purpose rather than regular Wi-Fi stuff. Such as ubnt af5xhd or similar.

tyrfing 5y ago

With AC and a relatively congested area, I see 1/2 under poor conditions, 2/3+ normally. For example, forcing 144.4 Mbps negotiated (or 130 Mbps, one side is misreporting it) gives stable 100 Mbps throughput. Worth noting that a different AP does noticeably worse under the same conditions, more like 75-90 with high variance. Unfortunately I can't effectively test the AP-reported ~ 600 Mbps throughput on 867 negotiated, but it's pretty accurate at lower bandwidth.

shadowpho 5y ago

I was able to get 800 MBps real bandwidth with 2x2 and 80MHz :). No tinkering required either, just changed to 80MHz channel and voila.

dheera 5y ago
i got worse bandwidth with 80Mhz. not sure why. i get some shit 230 Mbps with a U6-LR-US. So much for gigabit Wi-Fi.

microtonal 5y ago

Anyone tested the "real" throughput of Wifi 6? Yes, I tested with a Fritz!Box 4060 with WiFi 6 (4x4 Multi-User MIMO) and a MacBook Pro 14". Confirmed on the Mac that 802.11ax is used. When standing right next to the router, I get between 400-700Mbs (it varies a lot). I also use a WiFi 6 repeater as an additional access point (hooked up to ethernet), so I am getting 200-400Mbs in most of the apartment. So, it's ok-ish, but very variable. We have most of our apartment wired up with Ethernet, so Wifi is mostly for iPhones/IPad or when setting on the couch with a laptop.

smat 5y ago

Wifi6 adds QAM1024 as a modulation, so under excellent condition its downlink will be faster. Many of the changes aim at high density environments, such as trade fairs and conference centers. Once the majority of devices are upgraded, these situations will be handled much more effectively. Lastly, OFDMA is capable of significantly lowering latency if all devices in a network support it. If you are using Wifi6 at home with few devices connected, do not expect noticeable improvements.

Stratoscope 5y ago

With my AT&T fiber modem/router and Galaxy S22 Ultra or ThinkPad P1 Gen 3, I typically get 600-800 Mbps both directions, either in the same room as the router or an adjoining room. It drops to 300-400 Mbps if I go outside and the signal has to go through stucco on chicken wire. The interior walls are drywall so they interfere less. The router is on the floor; I haven't tried putting it on a high shelf to see if that improves the outdoor coverage. I haven't done any special configuration on the router or phone/laptop, just running everything as it came out of the box.

sgtnoodle 5y ago

802.11ax probably won't help you for a point to point link. The only thing that would potentially help is the 1024QAM modulation, but unless you have really nice antennas, it probably won't work at that distance. The three streams may not be helping much either, since there may not actually be much spatial separation point to point at several hundred meters. Best case, you're only going to get maybe a bit over half the link rate in real bandwidth. There's just a lot of overhead with wifi. If you're using omnidirectional dipole antennas, you're losing a lot of signal strength at that distance by radiating mostly in the wrong direction. Your best bet, I think, would be to use two sets of linearly polarized directional antennas offset by 90 degrees. That way, they're out of phase and you may be able to get 2 independent spatial streams. Alternatively, use two directional antennas but point one set indirectly at a big flat metal wall or something, in the hope that the signal reflects and intentionally gets some "multipath". Also, turn off "legacy" support so that you're using lower overhead greenfield preambles.

zamadatix 5y ago

> between 2 fully optimized AC routers with 3 streams (3x3 antenna config) at 975 Mbit/s (40Mhz band) negotiated speed. Doesn't seem to add up. The max rate for AC 3x3 40 MHz is 600 Mbps PHY rate not 975 Mbps. This is with GI at 400 ns and the maximum signal quality. 975 would only be reachable on AC via 80 MHz channel 3x3 with a GI of 400 ns and a less than optimal signal quality. > Which was really disappointing, I was thinking AC would be faster than N, which gets around the same real throughput of ~1/4 of the negotiated speed (i.e. 450 Mbps 3x3 = ~120 Mbps real bandwidth). That's a ~2.16x increase for a single generation jump! > So, the only real way to get a higher speed is to use more streams (on both ends) or 80 MHz of band width, which is only available on higher end chipsets and is really finnicky in most conditions. Depending on your environment bumping to an 800 ns guard interval may help, or at least lower the jitter from retries. Also for P2P having a good directional antenna can be more important than having more spatial streams/spectrum. Both of the latter increase maximum bandwidth but decrease signal quality while good RF design like a good antenna and placement will serve to increase signal quality. Alternatively for P2P there are purpose built solutions that tweak a lot of the standard Wi-Fi assumptions to deliver better performance. A typical go-to is Ubiquiti's airmax line which is on the lower end of the cost spectrum and has options in the 2.4/5/60 bands. On the higher end there is the airfiber line which adds in the 24 GHz band as well as dedicated send/receive options. This makes the connection full duplex rather than half duplex which solves a litany of slowdownsz in one swoop. Unfortunately it also comes at a premium price point. If you don't like Ubiquiti then Cambium also has decent P2P gear, I don't recall if they have any cheap options though. On airfiber I was able to achieve gigabit speed over a couple miles between buildings. We actually used it as the primary link for the IT office to the rest of the network as it performed overal better than the 300 mbps fiber line. . To your original question I've gotten real world >800 Mbps goodput on AC 2x2 80 MHz and real world >1 Gbps on AX 2x2 80 MHz. These are half duplex speeds of course. If the P2P use case is long distance I'd stay away from 6 GHz as there are some power limitations there.

jotm 5y ago
Hmm, you're right, I might be misremembering and was actually using 80 MHz, so I wanted to try 160 MHz but the routers did not support that. Right, so Wifi N had 20/40 MHz. Thanks! Reading the replies I'm thinking better chipsets could've achieved higher speeds, but that doesn't quite make sense - if the negotiated rate is the same, why would the real speed differ between routers? I used Archer C7s, which I love because I'm poor, very cheap, very reliable with OpenWRT. I ended up running fiber - it was surprisingly cheap and I didn't even need special tools for the connectors, just have to be veeery careful when cutting and inserting the cable.