General Discussions

So I recently have been learning about wireless internet. (I'm not that technology smart.) And I realize I've been using internet from a Wireless G network. So today I bought a higher end router that puts out N+ internet that says it can go as fast as 600 mbps. Now obviously i know that all depends on my cable provider and stuff. But my internet doesn't seem that fast...

I went to speedtest.net and clocked my system at about 9.86 Mbps download speed but everywhere else its at 15 mbps. And the average for South Dakota is over 12 according to speedtest.net.
When I clocked my internet speed before I switched to the Wireless N router, I was clocking over 12 Mbps download speed which is faster than what I am now.


I'm so confused, I feel like I'm behind or i'm not doing something right. I hate be ignorant in something that I find interesting.

Those ratings are actually the raw data for packets. There's actually a lot of overhead that goes unnoticed that is used by the network stack in both the sender and receiver computers that tell it how to handle the data properly. There's also the problems for limitations of your ISP data plan (i.e. mine is capped at 1 Mbps downstream even though my router is more than capable of doing more than that).

Other factors include knowing the nature of Wireless N. For starters it's mean to work with WPA-2 AES encryption or no encryption on it. Any other encryption will force it to fallback to Wireless G mode. The same fallback will occur if a device that does not support Wireless N and uses G or N connects wirelessly to the router. I combat the latter problem, you can usually restrict so that only N devices can connect.

Other than that, don't expect too much over wireless. The most I've ever seen my router handle is 7 Mbps and that was transfering files to computers within my personal network. I've never seen my internet download exceed 1 Mbps (as set by my ISP).

An N router really works best with a N class wireless card/dongle. It will still use the old B and G classes.

Also be aware on how you tested your speed also, you may have been getting from a source that could only give you around 9Mb/s at that time.

It is a mistake most people make thinking that their 20mb/s or 50mb/s connections will guarentee them that speed when that is not the case.

My laptop does support N and i set it to receive 5 ghz, but im not sure if i notice the difference. My router also supports gigabit ethernet ports so i might just use that for my laptop. I play wow sometimes so that's the only reason i would want the fastest connection i can get on my computer, which before it wasn't really a problem. I set all my other laptops in my house to receive the 2.4 ghz signal to reduce interference.

You might also want to set your wireless channel to something else if your current channel is saturated with surrounding signals. Channels 1 and 6 are usually popular. You can find some freeware tools that will scan and tell you what channels the signals around you are broadcasting on.