Help WiFi Link Speed

[bobby2478]

On my S4 I go under network settings, WiFi, and I see that I'm connected to my 802.11n router with very strong signal strength, however link speed shows as only 52Mbps (a little while ago it only showed 39 Mbps). I just refreshed it again and now it only shows 5Mbps.

On my laptop, which is right next to my phone, it is also connected via WiFi and shows link connection speed of 144 Mbps.

Curious why this "link speed" is so slow and fluctuates so much even though I'm right next to my router and another WiFi device has speeds almost 3x higher?

 

[bhero]

Thats a natural fluctuation. Different hardware, different connection speeds.

 

[bobby2478]

Thats a natural fluctuation. Different hardware, different connection speeds.

But it would seem to me if the n protocol can handle up to 300Mbps connection speeds, than getting speeds of 5Mbps (even only intermittently) is a pretty big degradation in performance, especially considering my phone is literally 1 foot away from my router when I'm doing this test. My internet speed is 11Mbps.

 

[trucky]

You might be experiencing channel interference. Download and run WiFi Analyzer and see if your channel has other nearby APs running on the same channel. Most APs are shipped with the channel set to 11 so unless you changed it you might be running in the crowd. Also, your internet speed is 11Mbs. You will never get a speed great than that and likely never get any speed over 9 or 10 Mbs due to overhead and oversubscription. Your router could be capable of running at 1000Mbs but in actuality, you cannot go any faster than your primary 11Mbs connection.

 

[jdCaptivate]

You might be experiencing channel interference. Download and run WiFi Analyzer and see if your channel has other nearby APs running on the same channel. Most APs are shipped with the channel set to 11 so unless you changed it you might be running in the crowd. Also, your internet speed is 11Mbs. You will never get a speed great than that and likely never get any speed over 9 or 10 Mbs due to overhead and oversubscription. Your router could be capable of running at 1000Mbs but in actuality, you cannot go any faster than your primary 11Mbs connection.

Excellent app, advice!