Major Speed Differences on Dual Band Router!

[Ventrelix]

Hi, I recently moved in a new house and I have comcast. Due to the layout of the home and the cable connections available my router is in the front room and my desktop is in the back of the house. From comcast I pay for 50 mbits/s (so 5 or 6 mb/s downline) internet, I actually receive speeds closer to 35 mbits/s. Now to the actual problem, the router is a dual band 2.4ghz / 5ghz. On my desktop I have a USB adapter for wifi which is only capable of receiving the 2.4ghz signal. When I have the money I will purchase another one but for now I need a workaround. So on my xbox one which can connect to both the 2.4 and 5 the 2.4ghz channels speed is only 1.3 mbits/s the 5 ghz channel is 32 mbits/s give or take a little bit. Now my actual question, is there any way to change the speed of the 2.4ghz channel? Or is 1.3 mbits/s the limit of 2.4? Oh and I can connect with a couple other mobile devices to both channels and when I run speed test they all show 1.3 mbits/s on 2.4 and around 32 mbits/s on 5. I wouldn't mind an even split of the two I just don't know if this is possible. I called comcast and the nice lady on the phone was really only able to suggest I upgrade to 105 mbits/s!! Not really what I was looking for. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated thank you!! Oh yea the usb wifi adapter I am currently using is the D-link N300 DWA-140.

 

[sirstinky]

Well...Your actual download/upload speeds will vary. The 50 mbps is just a baseline (theoretical) figure. I've worked with the comcast business class 100 mbps and it's notably slower, around 20-30 mb/s download, and that's using 1 gbps hardware (wired access points running to a DC and then to a switch). As far as the speed differential between the bands, the frequency doesn't really impact the speed. The difference is range. I forget which, but one will give you better range (carries the signal farther giving you faster speeds owing to less data loss due to barriers and distance). Also, the type of hardware you run will have a impact. b/g/n protocols will give different data rates, with N band being the faster of the 3. It's ceiling is a theoretical 300 mb/s (G band is 54), but you'll never see those kinds of speeds, even with the fastest access point hardware (router where the cable plugs into from the wall) out there. As far as changing the frequency from 2.4 to 5, not possible as far as I know. It will be one or the other and switch between the two. I also want to add that the speed of your connection will only be as fast as the slowest hardware on your network, so if you've got a G band access point, expect to see G bandwidth on your N band dongle (adapter).

 

[Ventrelix]

Thank you I understand that the speeds are a ballpark figure. However this still doesn't really help. The only thing on the 2.4 frequency is this PC every other device in my home is on the 5ghz. Now when I do a speed test, using software or website on the phone or built into the xbox or the ps3 the 5 ghz channel routinely gives me 34 mbit/s which again is perfectly fine with me even if I am paying for the 50. My actual problem is no matter what device I put on my 2.4 ghz frequency and run speed test the MOST I have seen yet is around 2 mbit/s (so around 200kb/s actual DL speed) but it usually drops even lower down to the 100kb/s range. It doesn't matter which device I switch to 2.4 or how far or close I am to the router/modem hybrid that comcast gave me it is still extremely low. I am curious if comcast has set the router up to only allow a certain amount of speed to go to the 2.4ghz channel and if they did if there is a way to change this. As of right now the PC is almost unusable it has taken me about 4 tries to actually get these post on toms due to the speeds dropping so low the pages time out when submitting. And I have also just moved I wont have my money to pay for another card or usb dongle to get the PC on the 5ghz frequency. Sorry if I am not explaining this very well, for years I have just plugged the ethernet cable into my PC so this is all super new to me. Thanks for the help so far though, I appreciate all of the help.