[SOLVED] Does Wds bridge between main and another router reduce speed?

[ravin_29]

Hi,
I have read about it but still confused. I plan to enable wds bridge on second router which will wirelessly connect to first. Thus there will be only 2 routers. main and wds bridged. will the wifi speed from second router now reduce?
Also can wds be enabled on both bands in case of dual band router? Thanks.

 

[bill001g]

It depends on how you connect to the second router. If you use a ethernet cable then it will be as though you had a wifi nic connected via ethernet rather than say USB,

If you connect to the second router with wifi you are running as a repeater. A repeater will drop your speed in 1/2 because you now 2 signals sharing the same wifi bandwidth. At higher traffic rates it gets worse because the signals can collide and cause data loss.

Using a repeater should always be your very last option. You only use them when you choice is no signal at all from the main router or a crappy repeated signal.

 

[ravin_29]

Thanks. I think the reason I am confused is because there are many terms. access point, repeater and WDS. I am referring to WDS option available in routers, where you search for existing WiFi and establish WDS bridge between two. That's where I want to know if it will reduce speed. I will only have main router and second one as WDS.

 

[bill001g]

Again how do you connect to the second router. If it is via wifi you have a wifi signal between the main router and the second router and a second wifi signal between the second router and the end device. Because you have 2 wifi signals in the path you are using 2 times the shared bandwidth.

 

[ravin_29]

Thanks. I believe wds itself is meant for wireless, so it's wifi connection, no wires involved. So does sharing bandwidth between 2 wifi networks by wds reduce speed by 50% approximately?

 

[bill001g]

The WDS is purely a method to pass mac addresses over a encrypted wifi connection. It is not even a actual part of the wifi standard it is a hack to get past the restrictions that the mac address of the device is used as part of the encryption keys.

What matters is do you have 1 or 2 wifi signals. If there is only 1 that is between the 2 routers then you are running in bridge mode and there is no bandwidth penalty. If you also have a wifi signal between the second router and the end device you are running in repeater mode and there is at least a 50% reduction.

It really doesn't matter it WDS is running on the devices or not there are other technical ways to accomplish a similar network without WDS. What is key is how many radio signals are there.