I have a Linksys E2500 router that is resulting in terrible WiFi speed. With a wired connection, I have the following results (I pay for 50 Mbps speed):
With wireless, at best it reaches 20% on a good day:
Most of the time my speed barely reaches 6 Mbs. This is even when my device is the only device connected to the router (wireless and wired). Also note that my device has an Intel Centrino Wireless-N 1030 Adapter.
I have tried many things to improve my wireless speed, most with little success, including:
- Changing the channel to an unused channel in my area (i.e. channel 2)
- Limiting the channel width (i.e. 20 MHz only)
- Enabling/Disabling QoS and WMM
- Finding and setting the optimal DNS server (using Namebench)
I can also confirm that there is only one wireless device near the router that could possibly interfere (an LG 47LN5700 TV). However the wireless feature is not being used; it is connected directly into the router with an Ethernet cable. Prior to the current location, the router was in a room with no other wireless devices with which it could interfere and I still experienced the same behaviors.
Beyond my experimenting, I am failing to find any reason why my router is producing awful WiFi speed when it can support up to 300 Mbs speeds. I appreciate any recommendations for improving my WiFi speed.
Best Answer
The WiFi signal is lossy, the distance between your machine and the access point greatly affects transfer speed. If you have another PC, you can find out by yourself by sending some files over ftp.
Furthermore, even though an ap is one one channel, the signal interferes with others. Its like a parabola. If you can, you should pick a channel that does not overlap. These are 1, 6, and 11.
If another ap is on channel 1, do not use channel 2, since there will be too many interferences. It is actually better to stay at channel 1 since there are collision prevention algorithms that are used.