[SOLVED] Internet download speeds over WiFi 10-20x slower than Ethernet

[builder2020]

Hello folks!!

The Internet download speeds over WiFi are 10-20x slower than Ethernet. I tried various settings on the wireless pages of the GPON ONT like..

1. Band - 2.4GHz b/g/n (all combinations)
2. Radio power - 15% (min), 35%, 50%, 70%, 100% (these are the only options available)
3. Data rate - Auto by default. Tried a couple of manual settings like 54M and MCS15

Nothing worked.

Essential details as per forum guidelines...

1. Laptop: Acer Nitro 5 AN515-45
2. Wireless GPON ONT: Optilink OP-GONT 90211VW (The manual is no longer on the OEM site. So uploaded screenshots here)
3. OS: Windows 11 22H2 - Build 22621.608
4. WiFi Adapter: MediaTek Wi-Fi 6 MT7921 (latest drivers)
5. ISP: BSNL, India
6. Connection Type: FTTH
7. Connected devices: At the time of testing only one (01) laptop

Screenshots attached for...

1. Download speeds over ethernet and wifi (Tested using https://www.speedtest.net/)
2. Wireless adapter settings on Windows
3. Wireless settings on GPON ONT

Please help..

 

[Tom cruise432]

Speeds of a wired connection. The amount of time it takes for your router to reply to a request you've made is known as latency. High latency could be the cause of slower internet, and Wi-Fi often has lower latency than ethernet. If there is additional blockage or if you are far from the Wi-Fi signal, this latency will grow.

 

[Tom cruise432]

Speeds of a wired connection. The amount of time it takes for your router to reply to a request you've made is known as latency. High latency could be the cause of slower internet, and Wi-Fi often has lower latency than ethernet. If there is additional blockage or if you are far from the Wi-Fi signal, this latency will grow.

 

[builder2020]

Speeds of a wired connection. The amount of time it takes for your router to reply to a request you've made is known as latency. High latency could be the cause of slower internet, and Wi-Fi often has lower latency than ethernet. If there is additional blockage or if you are far from the Wi-Fi signal, this latency will grow.

Hi ! Thanks for the response!!

The laptop is barely a couple of meters from the router.

 

[bill001g]

I guess it is more the question of why you would expect more than that.

Those numbers you see related to wifi speeds are mostly marketing numbers. They are actually representation of how that data is encoded. They are doing things like adding the transmit and receive rates. That would be like calling a ethernet cable 2gbit except ethernet can actually do that since it is full duplex wifi is half duplex.

In addition you are running on the 2.4g radio band which has limted bandwidth and you are using 802.11n which is a older encoding protocol.

Your speeds are more or less what is expected.

 

[builder2020]

I guess it is more the question of why you would expect more than that.

Those numbers you see related to wifi speeds are mostly marketing numbers. They are actually representation of how that data is encoded. They are doing things like adding the transmit and receive rates. That would be like calling a ethernet cable 2gbit except ethernet can actually do that since it is full duplex wifi is half duplex.

In addition you are running on the 2.4g radio band which has limted bandwidth and you are using 802.11n which is a older encoding protocol.

Your speeds are more or less what is expected.

I guess I expected more than that because I thought I could.

So there's no other solution than to get a better device?

 

[bill001g]

It is the router that is causing the issue and you can't do much about that since it has a fiber adapter in it. I guess in india you can buy router with gpon most other place you must get them from the ISP.

The simpler solution is going to buy a normal router and put it in front of the ISP router and just turn off the wifi on the ISP router.

What you need is a router that has gigabit wan and lan ports. Other than that you do not need anything really fancy. Although your pc supports wifi6, wifi6 does not work as well as they claim because of issue getting the 160mhz radio band. Things like weather radio run on some of this bandwidth and the cards need to stop using it if they detect it. Most people find that wifi6 cards do not run much faster than wifi5 (802.11ac).

What this means is you can likely buy a router with a 1200-1450 number on it and it will work fine. Your nic card only has 2 antenna so stuff like 4x4 mimo will not be used.

You should easily get 150-200mbps using the 5g radio band with 80mhz channels. You likely could get the full 330mbps close to the router.

 

[builder2020]

It is the router that is causing the issue and you can't do much about that since it has a fiber adapter in it. I guess in india you can buy router with gpon most other place you must get them from the ISP.

The simpler solution is going to buy a normal router and put it in front of the ISP router and just turn off the wifi on the ISP router.

What you need is a router that has gigabit wan and lan ports. Other than that you do not need anything really fancy. Although your pc supports wifi6, wifi6 does not work as well as they claim because of issue getting the 160mhz radio band. Things like weather radio run on some of this bandwidth and the cards need to stop using it if they detect it. Most people find that wifi6 cards do not run much faster than wifi5 (802.11ac).

What this means is you can likely buy a router with a 1200-1450 number on it and it will work fine. Your nic card only has 2 antenna so stuff like 4x4 mimo will not be used.

You should easily get 150-200mbps using the 5g radio band with 80mhz channels. You likely could get the full 330mbps close to the router.

The current router is actually from the ISP. I'll ask them if they have a better one. Otherwise, I'll just get a simple router for the wifi.

 

[builder2020]

It is the router that is causing the issue and you can't do much about that since it has a fiber adapter in it. I guess in india you can buy router with gpon most other place you must get them from the ISP.

The simpler solution is going to buy a normal router and put it in front of the ISP router and just turn off the wifi on the ISP router.

What you need is a router that has gigabit wan and lan ports. Other than that you do not need anything really fancy. Although your pc supports wifi6, wifi6 does not work as well as they claim because of issue getting the 160mhz radio band. Things like weather radio run on some of this bandwidth and the cards need to stop using it if they detect it. Most people find that wifi6 cards do not run much faster than wifi5 (802.11ac).

What this means is you can likely buy a router with a 1200-1450 number on it and it will work fine. Your nic card only has 2 antenna so stuff like 4x4 mimo will not be used.

You should easily get 150-200mbps using the 5g radio band with 80mhz channels. You likely could get the full 330mbps close to the router.

Ok. Now I'm confused. Didn't change a thing since the last post. Just did a speedtest now. On WiFi...

 

[bill001g]

That is somewhat surprising normally you can't get that much on 2.4g about 100mbps tend to be the very top people see right on top of the router. Maybe a neighbor was using wifi when you tested before. Pretty much the average is about 30-40mbps on 2.4g. Your first test was a little low and now your second test is high.

Wifi is almost unpredictable. It is affected by so many things mostly how much signal is blocked by the house and how many neighbors are also using wifi.

If you get that kind of number on 2.4 you should get over 300 on 5g close to the router.

Note be careful about chasing big numbers. You really only need high speed for downloads. If you play games you want to use ethernet not because it is faster but because it is more stable. Games only use about 1mbit/sec except when you first download them.
Most other things tolerate the issues with wifi much better and most thing do not need a lot of bandwidth. 4k netflik wants about 25mbps but most other things are far less than that.

 

[builder2020]

That is somewhat surprising normally you can't get that much on 2.4g about 100mbps tend to be the very top people see right on top of the router. Maybe a neighbor was using wifi when you tested before. Pretty much the average is about 30-40mbps on 2.4g. Your first test was a little low and now your second test is high.

Wifi is almost unpredictable. It is affected by so many things mostly how much signal is blocked by the house and how many neighbors are also using wifi.

If you get that kind of number on 2.4 you should get over 300 on 5g close to the router.

Note be careful about chasing big numbers. You really only need high speed for downloads. If you play games you want to use ethernet not because it is faster but because it is more stable. Games only use about 1mbit/sec except when you first download them.
Most other things tolerate the issues with wifi much better and most thing do not need a lot of bandwidth. 4k netflik wants about 25mbps but most other things are far less than that.

The speeds are not really an issue on the laptop. Only when using the TV. I was just testing it out on the laptop. I was also watching the active client list on the router settings page to make sure that only the laptop was connected. Perhaps, there's heavy interference from other Wi-Fi networks around.

The whole idea behind the exercise was... Since I mostly connect on wi-fi these days, what I get out of that would be what I get out of my internet connection. So unless I get something decent, I wouldn't be getting my money's worth. So, either I need to do the router/extender thing. Or I might as well downgrade my plan.

 

[bill001g]

That is a good way to look at it. The ISP like people who buy large intenet plans and then never use them. When my plan hits the end of the contract and I lose the special rate I might downgrade also, don't really "need" a gigabit internet.

 

[USAFRet]

That is a good way to look at it. The ISP like people who buy large intenet plans and then never use them. When my plan hits the end of the contract and I lose the special rate I might downgrade also, don't really "need" a gigabit internet.

Indeed.
I have 100/100 FiOS, have had that for several years.
Could easily go to 500/500 or gigabit.

But I have seen exactly zero need for greater than 100/100.
No operation of mine has seen use that would benefit from gigabit.

Why pay for performance I do not need nor can use?