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BOAC
26th Aug 2006, 08:58
Excuse the lack of 'Search':\

The old hard-wired BT Voyager modem gives a speed check of 440 down and 240 up on a 512 connection - not bad I guess.

My 3Com wireless gives around 260 down and 140 up on the same connection.

3Com shows 'signal strength excellent' and 'Speed' varying between 36 and 54 Mbps.

What can I do to improve the wireless data rate, and should those figures be giving better please?

spannersatcx
26th Aug 2006, 09:01
Not getting your Kbps and Mbps mixed are you?? 512K as opposed to 54Mbps are completely different.

BOAC
26th Aug 2006, 09:08
Hope not - the k's are here "around 260 down and 140 up on the same connection." and all figures given for expert analysis:)

airborne_artist
26th Aug 2006, 09:22
Are you able to monitor the signal strength and link quality that the WiFi adaptor is getting?

Even with low levels of both measures I'd be surprised if the wifi link was limiting your ADSL speeds.

What tool are you using to measure? You need to use more than one to get ajn accurate read, so I'd suggest the speed test tool at http://www.adslguide.org, and using http://www.broadbandspeedtest.net/

ormus55
26th Aug 2006, 09:39
my speeds are 972Kbps down and 238Kbps up.

AOL 1mb connection and netgear834g wireless router.

edit:
(BT line).

BOAC
26th Aug 2006, 11:05
a_a - not sure how to chesk the 'signal strength', the pop-up window says 'excellent'? I guess the link quality is given by 36-54Mbps? Test on both modems was with adslguide, but bbst also gave 242 down on wifi, and 4% packet loss.

Currently showing 24Mbps?:confused:

ormus55
26th Aug 2006, 12:01
any network is only as fast as the slowest bit of kit.

a lot of network cards will have to be upgraded soon. poss modems too.
look at south korea. most of the pop (75%) has a 20mb connection!
common network cards are either 1 or 10mb.

BOAC
26th Aug 2006, 12:18
Not quite sure what all that means in this question, Ormus!:)

Back on 'hard-wired' and getting 469 down? Noticeably faster on PPRune.

spannersatcx
26th Aug 2006, 14:57
Think yourself lucky I'm getting 125k on a 4MB connection at the moment:mad:

Just waiting for BT to call back, 2 different modem/routers both showing a 4mb connection but only getting 125k download speed. Tis a bank holiday as well, doubt much will get done, still the threat to leave BT instigated a phone call from them. They said they'd call at 3 it's now 4. :mad:

BOAC
26th Aug 2006, 17:29
So, after all that, does anyone know where the 'choke' could be in the wifi system?:confused:

jetcollie
26th Aug 2006, 17:57
Have you got WPA enabled? I found that it slowed my Netgear a bit and with your slowish connection that could be significant. If that is the case then you could try just restricting the MAC addresses instead - depends on how paranoid you are!!

BOAC
26th Aug 2006, 18:09
Thank you, JC - yes I have. I will certainly try the MAC route.

One question please - can a MAC be detected by the radiated wifi signal - ie can someone detect a MAC on wifi enabled kit?

jetcollie
26th Aug 2006, 18:29
No system is completely hacker proof. A determined hacker with the right equipment could sit outside your house and eventually spoof your MAC code and get access but he would probably move on to find an unprotected signal. Make sure you change the default SSID and password.

Keef
27th Aug 2006, 00:37
It depends where you are. If you're in a block of flats, then others can hack your WiFi if they are so minded. If you're "detached", it's likely that the neighbours won't have enough signal to hack you - especially if you put the Wireless Access Point in the middle of the house.

Try searching for other wireless connections. If you don't see any, it's a fair bet (not a cert) that nobody else is in range. If there is a determined hacker sitting in his car outside (or in the house next door) then nothing is going to stop him - apart from not using wireless access.

I normally use hard-wired for the "fixed" machines, and wireless for the laptop and the iPaq. I don't notice any speed difference unless I'm downloading large batches of stuff.

I just ran the ADSLguide test twice using hard-wired and twice using wireless, all on the laptop, and I got 5.6meg down/369k up both times on hard-wired, and 3.8meg down/369k up both times on wireless.

Given that the wireless is running at 54 meg, there's no good reason why wireless should be slower than hard-wired. I suspect there are settings I need to tweak, but 3.8 meg is faster than I can type :)

If you're only getting 400k or thereabouts on your downlink, are you with the right ISP? Or are you in deep rural countryside where ADSL is stretching the limits?

[Edit: I pay £15 a month for this "up to 8 meg" connection in rural Norfolk. The exchange just happens to be a couple of hundred yards away. In Essex, I pay for 1 meg, they give me 2 meg because they messed me about badly a while ago, and I actually get about 1.7 meg.]

BOAC
27th Aug 2006, 06:57
'Scuse my ignorance, y'all!!

JC - SSID already changed and 'NOT' radiated. To which 'password' do you refer? If I 'dump' WEP all I understand that is left is the router access p/w?

Keef - Hi. Vastly rurual and the router is probably outside 'warchalking' range:) 512 is 'the best' I am offered, at 4.85k from the exchange. Interesting that you too see a drop in speed on WiFi. Are you saying you can run a hard-wired AND WiFi on the same phone line at the same time or are you swapping connections per machine?

BEagle
27th Aug 2006, 07:35
I have a BT Voyager 2000 to which both laptops are connected using MAC address restriction. Both are usually connected at the same time; the data speed reported for both is 11.0 Mbps.

The DSL reported speeds are 5.6Mps down and 448 Kbps up.

I doubt whether the modem/router is the choke.

jetcollie
27th Aug 2006, 08:59
The password to change is the one that you use to log into the router control panel: normally 'admin' or 'password'. I was suggesting that you disable WEP or WPA and see if that makes a difference to your speeds. If it does then to give a reasonable level of security given your 'rural' location, set up MAC address access to restrict it to just your wireless cards.

BOAC
27th Aug 2006, 09:39
Thanks, JC- I did that change a while back. I'll try the 'WEP disable/MAC allow' route when I have more time and report back.

spekesoftly
27th Aug 2006, 10:04
Are you saying you can run a hard-wired AND WiFi on the same phone line at the same time .............?
That's exactly what I do. My PC is hard-wired to a Netgear wireless ADSL modem/router (via one of four ethernet ports), and other family members' wireless laptops connect at the same time, all fed from the same single phone line.


Edit: On reflection, I suspect you may have been asking if you could independently connect both your BT Voyager and 3Com wireless at the same time to one phone line, to which I'm pretty sure the answer is no.

Saab Dastard
27th Aug 2006, 12:39
BOAC,

Are you testing on a single PC or with 2 PCs? It is possible that different PCs will provide different results depending on their configuration, particularly with Java (which a lot of the speed tests use).

Could you specify exactly your network setup?

I conducted some tests with my home network, using most of the UK sites listed here (http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest?more=1).

Over 6 comparisons, 2/3 were virtually identical between PC 1 (copper cable to Netgear router / WAP) and PC2 (11 Mbps wifi, 128-bit WEP enabled).

The testing wasn't absolutely rigorous, insofaras I tested sequentially and there could be some upstream caching at the ISP that was affecting the speed results, but as I tested wireless first, the effect (if present) seems marginal.

Try running several tests from different providers and see how the results go.

If testing with a single PC, ENSURE that you clear the browser cache before running the same tests again.

Dan Elwell's test (http://www.broadbandspeedtest.net/) might be helpful in locating any choke point (if one exists).

Finally, yes a MAC address can be detected by the radiated wifi signal - provided that one has a wifi packet analyser.

SD

Keef
27th Aug 2006, 19:13
Keef - Hi. Vastly rurual and the router is probably outside 'warchalking' range:) 512 is 'the best' I am offered, at 4.85k from the exchange. Interesting that you too see a drop in speed on WiFi. Are you saying you can run a hard-wired AND WiFi on the same phone line at the same time or are you swapping connections per machine?
Understood.

I have an "all-in-one" wireless modem router in Essex, with three computers (current, old "Linux experiment" and very old "file backer-upper" connected via cables. The laptop connects via wireless.

Up here in Norfolk, it's three separate boxes doing the same job. Normally, the laptop connects to a docking station, hard-wired to the router. To test it, I plugged in the wireless card and unplugged the Cat5 cable.

I don't know why it would be slower via wireless (when wireless is over 50MB/s) - some day I'll play with WEP and MTU settings and see if any of that makes a difference.

If you're very rural, I'd try with WEP turned off - but as advised above, change the password on the hardware first, just in case!

Memetic
28th Aug 2006, 01:18
The old hard-wired BT Voyager modem gives a speed check of 440 down and 240 up on a 512 connection - not bad I guess.
My 3Com wireless gives around 260 down and 140 up on the same connection.
3Com shows 'signal strength excellent' and 'Speed' varying between 36 and 54 Mbps.
What can I do to improve the wireless data rate, and should those figures be giving better please?

Going back to the original question, are you actually asking how to the the 3com to deliver the same ADSL speeds as the BT Voyager?

If so check you have the latest firmware in the 3Com.

The slowest point in most home networks linked to basic broadband now will the ADSL line, standard ethernet (wired) is 10 Mb/s or 100Mb/s on most modern PCs. WiFi a minimum of 1Mb/s with a degraded signal, so the theoretical 512kb/s down 256kb/s up is slow wrt the rest of the network.

5dayz
28th Aug 2006, 09:35
Having configured a number of wireless networks before, and based on the tests you have already performed, I would say that its a security protocol problem, with a problem like this if you can change from wpa to wep, as others have suggested, I have found this to give noticable gains in transmission speeds.

( The problem being that alot of soho routers dont have the mem/cpu (balls) to deal with highspeed signaling (54Mbps) and lengthy encryption bits (128bit) )

This is based on :-

1) You know your line gives top performance with a direct connect usb type adsl modem, ruleing out adsl line associated problems..

2) You have tried the new router with a direct cabled ethernet connection.. and it gives similar results to test 1..

Try one speed test with wpa, wep and unsecured if you can.. that way you can decide on the best privacy policy vs performance... :)

Hope this helps..

5dayz..

BOAC
30th Aug 2006, 08:11
Sorry for delay - work in the way!

Picking up on a few questions:

Single PC, Win XP SP2 (would like to add IPAQ to the network when it is 'sorted').

Original installation (and running now) 'Hard-wired' BT Basic Voyager 100. Trying WIFI with 3Com 3CRWDR 100A-72 11g firewall/router. I started with 128 bit WEP. Took that off following this thread and enabled PC on MAC address. SMALL speed improvement based on 1 test but still noticeably slower. I have never used WPA.

'Long-line' line classification by BT and max speed 'available' would be between 512 and 1M.

Stoopid question :) - '54MBPS' is the theoretical data rate? If so, 512kb should be well within its 'capactity'?

For memetic - I appear to have the latest software (Version 2.06) - and yes, I was expecting no significant reduction in speed.:confused:

BOAC
5th Jul 2007, 15:33
Just to close this with a :) note: problem appears to have been the PCI card, an 'Asus'. I have replaced it with a cracking offer on a Belkin 'g' card at a give-away price from Misco. The wifi is vastly improved. I now get 5 bars on the signal instead of 1-2, and speed is correspondingly better.