WiFi Speeds?

I currently am using an EE Brightbox (Original) as my WiFi router along with the Openreach Modem and PlusNet Router (with the wireless off). My problem is that my laptop, an Acer C720, will get around 72 mbps down and 18 up but when I use my phone, an HTC One (M7), I struggle to get 40 mbps.

Normally you would think that the phone is in fault but it turns out it has superior WiFi specs to the laptop as it supports AC wireless and the laptop only supports up to N. I have WiFi bandwidth set to 20/40 MHz and just can't seem to find out what's making it slower.

BrightBox 1 does not do AC anyway. Try forcing phone to N to see if that helps.

That won't make any difference. If the AP doesn't do AC then the phone isn't even trying to anyway.

The AP announces what it can do and the client associates if it is capable of the minimum compatible rate and security.
Modes and data rates are then adaptive based on errors/retires due to channel conditions,

For the OP,
another factor will be whether a client device makes do with a single antenna (strictly, what types of MIMO it can do). Products are always advertised based on the maximum theoretical rate at 40, 80 or 160MHz, even if these wider channel modes are unsuitable.

If an AP is properly configurable, set 2.4GHz (b/g/n) to 20MHz wide and 5GHz (a/n/ac) to 40Mhz wide (this is really a bond of 2x adjacent 20Mhz channels), as a starting point unless you have e.g. a detached house out of range of neighbouring Wi-Fi.

BrightBox 1 doesn't do 5 GHz either.

In reply to a post by prlzx:

unless you have e.g. a detached house out of range of neighbouring Wi-Fi.

In which case, what do you do?

Edited by XRaySpeX (Thu 11-Dec-14 23:00:22)

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

In reply to a post by prlzx:

unless you have e.g. a detached house out of range of neighbouring Wi-Fi.

In which case, what do you do?

In which case you can reasonably configure the 2.4GHz band as auto 20/40 for compatibility such that a capable client device will be able to take advantage of the bonded channels while a less capable client can still negotiate for 20 (the AP switches dynamically for each client slot.

In this case if you have 1 to 2 APs and client devices have UK drivers / region, start on channel 1 and 13 (as the additional channels in the bonds will be 5 and 9).
And experiments with wider AC channel widths are more likely to be worthwhile.

In an urban environment you can try to use 1/5/9/13 but will invariably find too many neighbours on 6 and 11 (and everything else in between !) and it's a compromise. And you'll observe that the spread of 40MHz is unhelpful on 6 and 11 so it's better for all parties to stick to 20MHz

Edited by prlzx (Thu 11-Dec-14 23:09:17)