Wireless speeds

Hi,

I've been using a Plusnet supplied wireless router, Thomson TG585 V8, for over a year. I use it on wireless. It sits about 4 feet away from my Laptop.

In the last 2 weeks I have noticed quite a bad slow down in the time it takes to load pages from the internet.

If I use speedtest.net, ---- ON WIRELESS, it shows I am getting over 3Mbps download and only about 0.05Mbps on UPLOAD. Sometimes the upload test fails.

I used to get a fairly decent upload speed of about 0.3Mbps when using wireless, but now it has slowed a lot. Could this be the cause of my internet pages now loading so slowly?

When I do the same test as above, but WIRED, I get roughly the same download speed of over 3Mbps, but a much better 0.3Mbps, the same that I used to get on wireless, and my internet pages load very quickly.

What could cause my wireless to be so poor and how do I check it?

inSSIDer to avoid neighbours' channels.

or this if u have android phone
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fa...

Edited by deleted (Thu 02-Aug-12 03:53:18)

a good idea but most user's routers have their wireless channel set to auto meaning the jump around mostly from channel 6 & 11

Sorry, I'm afraid I don't understand any of those replies. Are you saying that my next door neighbour is causing my wireless upload speed to drop, and that's causing my internet pages to load slowly?

As a test, I took my laptop next door yesterday, -- semi detached --- and used my neighbours wireless router to connect to the internet.

He is on Talk Talk, and uses a D-Link router. Although he has a slower download speed than I have, about 2Mbps, I got over 0.3Mbps upload speed, and the internet pages loaded pretty well instantly. So it's definitely something to do with the wireless on my Thomson router, and not my laptop.

From my room, I can't see his D-link router on my list of wireless connections, but from his house, I can see mine (Plus-net Thomson router), albeit with a very weak signal. I couldn't connect to mine from his though, because the connection was too weak.

My question was about internet pages loading slowly, and could this be caused by the slow UPLOAD speed I get on my Thompson router?

Looks like you have proved that it is.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Looks like you have proved that it is.

But not the reason why!

I assume you have more than one neighbour - could be interference from the other side.

Having said that I would have thought WIFI would be impacted equally on download as well is upload.

Got a spare router to try?

In reply to a post by greenglide:

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Looks like you have proved that it is.

But not the reason why!

In reply to a post by slpj:

So it's definitely something to do with the wireless on my Thomson router

I wonder what the wireless settings are on the router?

Hi, thanks for the replies.

I did some reading so I could understand the first posts. I have intel proset software, and that allows me to see the detaills of the routers in range. None have a signal strength more than the absolute minimum. My house is a semi detached, and the nearest next house is at least 60/70 feet away.

This is a copy of the configuration of my router. It WAS on channel 1, but I changed it to 6, as suggested.

Interface Enabled: Yes
Physical Address: Blanked by me.
Network Name (SSID): PlusnetWireless xxxxxxxx
Interface Type: 802.11b/g/n
Actual Speed: 65 Mbps
Band: 2.4G Hz
Channel Selection: Manual
Region: Europe
Channel: 6
Allow multicast from Broadband Network: Yes

Security

Broadcast Network Name: Yes
Allow New Devices: New stations are allowed (automatically)
Security Mode: WPA-PSK
WPA-PSK Preshared Key: Blanked by me.
WPA-PSK Encryption: TKIP+AES
WPA-PSK Version: WPA+WPA2

Does this tell anyone anything useful about why my upload speed is low, and if the upload speed is really the cause of the problem?

Unfortunately I don't have a spare router to try.

Thanks.

Have you tried the speed test when connected to the router with a wire? With those wireless connectivity stats then the average upload on adsl shouldn't be giving it any issue. Are you sure it is wireless causing the problem rather than the ADSL itself?

Yes no obvious reason why Wi-Fi should be a limiting factor on upload in this case, and no way to tell if there is interference from a non-Wi-Fi device in the 2.4 band (without more expensive scanning equipment).

Other than trying a different router as suggested previously,

Do you have something else you can wire to the router LAN so you can test copying files between wired and wireless (this will eliminate ADSL as a factor to see if there is a Wi-Fi issue)?

This would include a mobile / tablet with Wi-Fi if you have the laptop wired to the router.

For example with an Android device I use a file manager to copy files to / from a Windows share (actually, Samba on Ubuntu), or run an FTP server on the Android device and copy files from a computer.

Edited by prlzx (Thu 02-Aug-12 16:05:16)

In reply to a post by slpj:

WPA-PSK Preshared Key: Blanked by me.
WPA-PSK Encryption: TKIP+AES
WPA-PSK Version: WPA+WPA2

This won't be the reason for upload speeds as low as you report, but I'd also suggest:

WPA-PSK Version: WPA2 only
WPA-PSK Encryption: AES only (not TKIP)

as if using encryption, TKIP (and WEP) can both limit the data rate compared with AES (and Wi-Fi logo devices made since 2006 have to support WPA2).

Hi,

Ian72, you asked, "Have you tried the speed test when connected to the router with a wire?" Yup, please see my first post. The download speed on wireless and wired are about the same, but the UPLOAD speed on wireless is much less than on Wired.

Prlzx,
I've tried asking Plus-net to supply me with another router, I'm waiting for them to respond. Meanwhile, that's why I tried using my next door neighbours wireless connection. The result was faster upload and pretty well instant loading of internet pages, even though overall, his talk talk broadband, is slower than my plus-net, according to speedtest.net. So I concluded it was my wireless setup. But are you saying it could still be my broadband connection? Is that what you mean by ADSL?

You also asked, "Do you have something else you can wire to the router LAN so you can test copying files between wired and wireless (this will eliminate ADSL as a factor to see if there is a Wi-Fi issue)?"

My girlfriend has a samsung galaxy phone. Would I be able to use this? It can connect wireless to my laptop and the router, and via USB to my laptop.

I also have an older laptop, with a Cisco wireless PC card (10Mbps), and a wired 3Com (10/100) pc card that I can connect. But it's pretty old and only runs Windows 98se, or NT4 at a stretch lol.

I'm a bit out of my depth with wireless networking issues and the connections you suggest above -- FTP etc -- so could you explain a bit more?

I've changed to WPA2 only as you suggested.

As for encryption, these are my only options on the configuration page of the router.

Encryption: Disabled
Use WEP Encryption
Use WPA-PSK Encryption


Edit.

After setting it to WPA2 only, it automatically set itself to AES only. So now the config page looks like this below.

Security Mode: WPA-PSK
WPA-PSK Preshared Key: blanked by me.
WPA-PSK Encryption: AES
WPA-PSK Version: WPA2

Thanks again.

Edited by deleted (Fri 03-Aug-12 10:12:17)

Slow upload speeds have nowt to do with slow downloading of Web pages; they are contra-directional.

If page requests are slow to go, then the required page will seem slow to arrive. Also, if any ACKs are delayed, then the sending server may see them as missing and retransmit.

Update:
After making the encryption and security changes, and nothing else, my upload speed has improved. Now maybe that's coincidence, or maybe Plusnet have done something to my line.

However, my wireless download speed is now about 2.5Mbps rather than over 3Mbps, and my wireless UPLOAD speed is now about .15Mbps rather than 0.05Mbps.

The result is that web pages are now loading significantly quicker on wireless, than they were before.

Can anyone please explain upload and download speed to me, as the upload speed definitely seems to affect the speed at which pages load. I thought loading pages was all one way traffic TO my laptop, and none going the other way. So how can upload speed be causing the slower or faster page display?

Thanks

In reply to a post by slpj:

So how can upload speed be causing the slower or faster page display?

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/multiuser/t/4145143...

In a case like this I would make a note of all the settings in the hub turn, then everything off and disconnect the hub from the line. Leave everything off for a couple of hours - do absolutely nothing.

Power up the hub and connect the PC - wired, and re-enter all of the settings but leave wireless turned off. Reconnect to the line and allow the hub to login and a session to establish. Take a note of line stats - in case you need them for reference later on.

Run a speedtest

Turn wireless ON - but without any encryption, yes someone might see an unsecure WAP, but it is a small chance. Disconnect the wired connection and then connect with wireless. Run a speedtest.

Introduce basic encryption - speedtest, increase encryption - speedtest &c.

When you do each speedtest, have TBB meter running with the window scaled to 500kbps and take a screenshot - for comparison.

Then look at the various results and TBBmeter graphs - what does it now say?

Hi Xray, you said "If page requests are slow to go, then the required page will seem slow to arrive. Also, if any ACKs are delayed, then the sending server may see them as missing and retransmit. "

Could you please put that in the kind of English someone like me can understand? Do you mean that my laptop is too slow making page requests? If so, why is it ok on my neighbours wireless connection, and not on my own? And why is it OK on my wired connection?

MHC,
Ok, I'll give all that a try. When you say hub, do mean my Thomson router? Also, can you please tell me what a TBB meter is? Is that some kind of software diagnostic tool?

Thomson may call it a router but it is more than that as it includes a modem. They were at one time called Gateways. But yes, that is what I refer to as the Hub.


TBB Meter - http://www.thinkbroadband.com/tbbmeter.html allows you to monitor and record the amount of data you use with history going back many, many months and you can aggregate several PCs that use one connection.

There are also plenty of test files and utilities available.

A quick simple time line for loading page.

You type http://www.somerandomsite.com into address bar
PC sends request to router or over internet to convert the domain name to an ip address - first delay
PC gets DNS request back now talks to http server
PC gets back the basic HTTP page
Web browser parses this page and uploads the requests for all the images and other content on the page
If content is from other sites/domains then another DNS request may be needed.
This contents comes back to your web browser and is drawn
Viola you finally see the complete webpage.

A very slow upstream can delay the requests for all the elements, and while you may type one http address, the web browser may have fetched MANY elements in the process of getting the data to draw the page.

Post deleted by MrSaffron

In simple terms, everything over the Internet (or any network) is a two way conversation.

Sort of
"Can I have that?"
"Here you are"
"Got it O.K."
or variations on this.

The requests and confirmations tend to be very small.
The data requested tends to be quite large.

So this is the basis for the more technical descriptions using acronyms and specialist tems for the different requests and responses.

HTH

Oh, and the tests you have described so far seem to indicate a local problem with your wireless connection as the wired connection still seems to perform as expected.

As you work O.K. with next door's router the main suspect is your router.
Causes could be a router hardware fault, or interference from another wireless source.
You say that you can easily see next door's router from your house but not vice versa.
This seems to suggest that your wireless router has a poorer signal and/or is suffering more interference.

The best way to progress is to swap around the channel your router uses (try all the numbers) just to confirm it isn't interference or you can't avoid the interference. If this doesn't help, borrow another router or get a replacement.

Why is download O.K. but upload not?
No real idea, apart from a possible fault in the radio receiver on your router where it can receive the small messages O.K. (request and response) from your PC for downloads but tends to fail when receiving larger data messages from your PC destined for uploads.
I suggest the receiver because the transmitter seems to be sending the larger data blocks O.K.

Cheers

Dave R

Edited by deleted (Wed 29-Aug-12 11:10:02)

Thanks for the continuing replies.

After trying various things, including resintalling the operating system and all applications on my laptop (just in case), and still not resolving the issue of slow upload speed, I reset the router back to default settings.

Voila, I have now got back to the .35Mbps upload speed that I had before it slowed to about .05Mbps.

I have no idea why it is now ok, but thanks for confirming why a slow upload speed would result in web pages being displayed on my computer.