In reply to a post by AdamBrunt:

Dual-band WiFi 6 v Tri-band WiFi 5 .... ???

I think the third band helps if you have a lot of constantly running connections, if your whole family internet use is typically bursty (even streaming in 4K UHD is actually bursty) then you might find as the speeds go up you don't need the third band, it really depends on usage, and if there is sufficient WiFi channels free.

WiFi 6 appears to be better optimised on both the 5 and 2.4 GHz bands, so even if your devices are WiFi 5 (AC) then you can see higher aggregate throughput.

Hard to test without using a lot of laptops and test software to a multi-gigabit connected NAS that can saturate >900 Mbps on wired - hence why worth looking at reviews or other forums.

Edited by jchamier (Sun 01-Jan-23 15:33:50)

In reply to a post by AdamBrunt:

Sadly the setup and build materials of the house make fully wired connections out of the question

From the sound of it the NOVAs are WiFi-5 and the next step up would be WiFi-6 ?
[/quote
TP-Link Deco X20 AX1800 are Wifi 6, but they are around £180 for a three pack.

[url]https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-Next-Gen-Extenders-HomeCare-Antivirus/dp/B0041JNUAI?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1

In reply to a post by candlerb:

With 802.11ac (a.k.a. "Wi-Fi 5") the raw bitrate is up to 867Mbps, but in my experience the best *actual* throughput you'll get is around half that, even under ideal conditions.

If you run multiple access points to the same router with Cat5e cabling, and the APs are on different channels, then you can have different users on each AP using 400Mbps simultaneously.

But really, for most people I don't think it's worth attempting to tune your wifi to go any faster. 400Mbps is 50MB per second. If you're downloading a large application or software update, at this speed the time to download is already insignificant compared to the time to install it.

I don't know an awful lot about mesh wi-fi networks, I did set one up for someone months ago, and I know about wired backhaul and wireless backhaul.
Thankfully, I have never had the need for in this house and wifi is pretty constant around the building and I have never needed super-duper speeds for Wi-fi

The dual band mesh will generally halve the throughput.

As you say most of your client devices are a bit older I'm guessing most will give a max of 400Mbit/s regardless of a higher speed AP, you'll only make use of the gigabit connection on a wired device.

In general I'd recommend tri band mesh. I use TP link APs myself EAP245 which are only AC hardwired, but on good clients in the same room I can get 650Mbit/s in close proximity.

I've fitted Deco M5 to a couple of relatives houses, hardwired, and they achieve 500Mbit/s to capable clients, but only dual band.

Within your budget of £200 you could probably grab a 3 pack of Deco M9 which are tri band AC. Tri band AC are probably going to give you a reasonably good mesh backhaul and client throughput to AC clients.

I usually test internally using an OpenSpeedTest sever on a newish PC, hardwired to the router (if you Google it you can download a sever for most OS and docker, not the online checker), particularly as my broadband is slower than the WiFi can do.

In reply to a post by adrenalize_:

The dual band mesh will generally halve the throughput.

As you say most of your client devices are a bit older I'm guessing most will give a max of 400Mbit/s regardless of a higher speed AP, you'll only make use of the gigabit connection on a wired device.

In general I'd recommend tri band mesh. I use TP link APs myself EAP245 which are only AC hardwired, but on good clients in the same room I can get 650Mbit/s in close proximity.

I've fitted Deco M5 to a couple of relatives houses, hardwired, and they achieve 500Mbit/s to capable clients, but only dual band.

Within your budget of £200 you could probably grab a 3 pack of Deco M9 which are tri band AC. Tri band AC are probably going to give you a reasonably good mesh backhaul and client throughput to AC clients.

I usually test internally using an OpenSpeedTest sever on a newish PC, hardwired to the router (if you Google it you can download a sever for most OS and docker, not the online checker), particularly as my broadband is slower than the WiFi can do.

I already have a tri-band AC [ Tenda NOVA MW12 ].

I might hold off until later in the week - the installation is on Wednesday - and see what speeds I get with the current setup first.

Good shout on the OpenSpeedTest server; I have Portainer on a Rasp Pi on the network which should be able to handle it quite well

Ah, apologies I wasn't familiar with the Tenda specs - it is a tri band mesh although I note on the specs both of the 5GHz channels are 2 stream - i.e. 867Mbps PHY link speed max.

So in reality with a client (phone/tablet/laptop) that is also 2 stream capable sat right on top of the main Tenda AP you will only likely see ~650Mbps throughput due to the overheads of WiFi etc.

The Tenda nodes that backhaul over WiFi will only see the same max - and that's when they are close together.

Yes the link speed is going to drop off pretty quicky from that as you move more than even a few metres away and especially with walls etc in the way. Same for clients or the nodes in a mesh.

For most of your clients which are probably only 2 stream this is probably as good as it gets - I guess in your setup where a number of devices are then connected to the ethernet of one of the Tenda nodes (if I read that right) then they are only going to be as fast as the node can connect back to the main unit.

If that's the bit you want to improve you're going to have to spend a bit to upgrade to a mesh with a better backhaul (AX, 4 streams etc) and watch they aren't a big distance apart.

The speed the mobile devices get (which is already up to 80Mbps) is of secondary concern I think (though, obviously, any improvement would be a bonus).

The primary concern is the speed the furthest MESH node gets from the main node (they are about 5-10 metres apart). Currently this node is getting speeds of 250Mbps [ off a 400Mbps connection into the house ]. And you did it right - the furthest node supplies the internet connection (over wired ethernet) to about 7 other devices (and very occasionally mobile devices)

As I understood from other sources (when I got the Tenda) one of the 5Ghz channels is used exclusively for the backhaul if that makes a difference.

I am also aware that the Tenda system doesn't let you muck about with the frequency it uses (can't remember how it selects that but UI doesn't let you change it) which may also be affecting it ?

As I say, I will probably do some initial testing with the Tenda once I am upgraded - to see what the Tenda can do before buying a replacement. The interesting thing will be - should it need replacing - would dual-band AX outperform the Tenda tri-band AC ?

Incidently, I got OpenReachServer running on a Pi and weirdly, through a wired connection from a PC which is only separated by a network switch, it only reaches 180Mbps down but 890Mbps up. Very odd ??

Edited by AdamBrunt (Mon 02-Jan-23 11:06:17)

In reply to a post by AdamBrunt:

Incidently, I got OpenReachServer running on a Pi and weirdly, through a wired connection from a PC which is only separated by a network switch, it only reaches 180Mbps down but 890Mbps up. Very odd ??

Have you tried it with both the Pi and the PC wired into the switch?

What is "OpenReachServer"? Can't find it via Google. Do you mean "OpenSpeedTest"?

Anything which uses HTML is potentially limited by the browser, so the best speedtest of all is something CLI based, like iperf3.

Server side: iperf3 -s
Client side (upload test): iperf3 -c x.x.x.x # x.x.x.x is server IP
Client side (download test): iperf3 -R -c x.x.x.x

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by AdamBrunt:

Incidently, I got OpenReachServer running on a Pi and weirdly, through a wired connection from a PC which is only separated by a network switch, it only reaches 180Mbps down but 890Mbps up. Very odd ??

Have you tried it with both the Pi and the PC wired into the switch?

What is "OpenReachServer"? Can't find it via Google. Do you mean "OpenSpeedTest"?

Anything which uses HTML is potentially limited by the browser, so the best speedtest of all is something CLI based, like iperf3.

Server side: iperf3 -s
Client side (upload test): iperf3 -c x.x.x.x # x.x.x.x is server IP
Client side (download test): iperf3 -R -c x.x.x.x

That was with the Pi and PC wired into the switch.

No idea where OpenReachServer came from ??!!?? I meant OpenSpeedTeat

180 Mbps "down" meaning from the Pi to the PC? Sounds like the PC has some sort of anti-virus / content scanner active.

Such tools are generally quite happy to let viruses escape to other machines

Try booting the PC from an Ubuntu live USB stick and testing from that.