It has happened to many of us: we hire a brand-new 50, 100 or 300 Megas fiber optic with an operator, but when we try to access the web or download that WhatsApp video, the mobile stays as if thinking and it takes a lot. Pest against our internet operator or that router that has installed us and told us it was wonderful.The WiFi is slow and, with it, slows down our enthusiasm for the internet.
I am not going to deal with the obvious case that router coverage does not reach us, since it is quite evident that if we only have a "hairline" signal, the thing cannot go very fast.In these cases the solution will go through to find a better location for the router or use WiFi repeaters that you can find in many stores.arm in other cases not so clear, in which, despite receiving good signal from the router, we can not get the desired speed.
WIFI GOES SLOW; THE FAST, FAST
What is paradoxical is that, as the contracted line is faster, our dissatisfaction can become greater , because we expect at all times to have that speed from any point and from any team from that we access the internet.Unfortunately, life is not so simple and although sometimes the cause may be a specific technical problem (saturation in the connection of the operator or a WiFi problem in the router) most of the time the causes are others.
First of all, and this is very important, you have to understand very well what it means to hire a 100Mbps line (or 300Mbps or 500Mbps) and what it is for. Of course, it is not to use that mobile App that measures the internet speed from my smartphone and expect to see the fixed indicator at that speed.This is rarely going to happen and in most cases for a very simple reason: the Smartphone, PC or any other equipment with which we do the test is not able to reach that speed by WiFi, except for very specific cases of very high-end equipment with the latest technology.
So does it make sense to hire a fiber of more than 100, 300 or 500 Megabytes? Of course you have it, although it will depend logically on our needs.Today weird is not having at home 8 or 10 computers connected to the internet.And if the family is a little big and there are teenagers at home I would say that it is almost essential to have a bandwidth greater than 50Mbps.
For what it is good to have such a large bandwidth, it is not for a specific device to connect to the maximum contracted speed, but to have many devices at the same time accessing the internet and that the connection of all of them goes smoothly .Yes, while my son is watching some YouTube videos, I can be downloading a file and my wife watching that Netflix series and none of us will have to wait or notice cuts.
COMFORT HAD A PRICE
Only a few years ago when one wanted to access the internet, he sat on his desktop computer, which was normally connected via a "network" cable to the router.The connection could go more or less fast depending on the good It was your ADSL (especially due to the quality of the copper pair and the distance to the Telefonica plant) but it was always or almost always the same, so we knew to stay.
But the way we connect today has changed a lot. Having a desktop PC at home is almost a thing of the past.We mainly use our smartphone or our tablet, they have nowhere to plug in any cables! or our laptop, that it has where to plug it, but we do not use it because we have taken it to the living room or the bedroom and there the cable does not reach us.
That is, for us the internet connection is already, de facto, the WiFi connection and in fact we associate the phrases the WiFi is slow or no I have the WiFi with which we have lost the internet connection.
And it is that WiFi has made our lives more comfortable: we tweet from the sofa, upload the photo of our risotto plate to Facebook while we are eating, etc.But this comfort came with a dark side that we were not told...
CABLE CONNECTION
When we connected by cable, all the information that was going through us was ours, nobody could disturb us nor did we have to wait turns to get the data.With WiFi the thing changes.The WiFi uses a shared transmission medium And besides, if that were not enough, this medium is half-duplex .Let's see what these two things mean:
The air, or rather so that some purists don't kill me, the radioelectric spectrum, is the means by which the WiFi connection goes. Your router uses certain frequencies within that spectrum, divided into 2 bands, 2.4GHz and 5GHz, although the simplest routers, especially ADSL, usually only include the first one.Each of these bands in turn is divided into WiFi channels.Something important is that these specific bands are "free" that is, they can be used by anyone without paying a license, unlike the bands used for the mobile network (2G, 3G, 4G).
When you share something you have to organize, and that is exactly what the WiFi equipment does: they ask for a turn to be able to transmit.The half-duplex thing means that at any given time we are either transmitting data or receiving, but it is not possible to do both at the same time (as in those walkie-talkies that you used as a child).Eye, this does not mean that we can not be downloading a video and uploading another at the same time to the "cloud", which if that is possible.Here we are talking at the level of individual data packets that go through the air.
One of the few things I've learned in this life is that when something is free or doesn't work well or we have to wait in line. In the case of WiFi, the "fault" of our misfortunes , as we will see, it is almost always from the neighbors.
WIFI IS SLOW BECAUSE THERE IS JAM IN THE ROAD
Now imagine the 2.4GHz WiFi band as a highway with 13 lanes (channels). The 5GHz band is a different highway much larger but I will not go into much detail here, because it is much more complex and we will leave it for another article.In some countries, these highways have different lanes, but we are going to focus on Spain, which is what interests us.
Now imagine each of those WiFi devices around the house as a vehicle that goes along one of those 13 lanes of the highway.The lane has been chosen by your router normally at the time of turning it on and all the equipment connected to That router will have to use that lane to be able to talk to it.The routers that your neighbors have in their home will also have chosen a specific lane to talk to their computers that can be the same as yours or another.
To complicate it a bit, let's say that the vehicles that circulate on the highway are larger than the lane on which you are traveling.In fact, they also occupy the 2 lanes adjacent to yours on one side and the other.
For example, if I place myself in lane (channel) 1, I will be occupying part of lanes 2,3.If I get in lane number 6, I will be occupying part of channels 4,5,7 and 8.And if I get on lane 11 I will occupy part of lanes 9,10, 12 and 13.
There is no need to be a lynx to realize that the only way for vehicles not to "bother" is to use only lanes 1, 6 and 11 as a "central" lane.
Now we are going to see scenarios that can occur on this road and that can justify the phrase my WiFi is slow ...The first and most idyllic is that there are only 3 vehicles and each through one of these lanes 1,6 and 11 that we will call "non-interfering" because the vehicles will pass without crashing.
This case is ideal, everyone goes down their lane and also alone.You can go at the speed your engine allows because nobody is going to bother you.
Now let's complicate it a bit assuming that a vehicle is added to one of the central lanes where there is another one, for example, in lane 6.
This case is still well if we take for granted that the two cars that go by the Lane 6 has a similar engine that allows them to go more or less at the same speed, they will hardly notice a difference from the previous case.
But what if Is the other vehicle that goes along the same lane much slower ( case 3 )? Well, in that case we have a small problem.Here we have to leave the highway simile for a moment to explain how they transmit each of the equipment that goes through the same channel:
THE GUILT IS OF THE NEIGHBORS
As we said a little above each team must ask for a turn to transmit, so the total airtime (in English "Airtime") is necessary to share it between each of the teams of that channel.In WiFi terminology we say that The fast computers are those that support the 802.11n or 802.11ac standard.Those that only support 802.11g are somewhat slower but we have the auction with those that only support 802.11b.These devices are from when the dawn of WiFi (the standard was launched in 1999) and if you still have one out there (it will probably be more than 10 years old) it is best that you throw it directly in the trash because it will be greatly slowing down the WiFi network.And if you know your neighbor tell him to throw them too because you It may be affecting both if your router uses the same channel or one adjacent to yours.
The problem with these slow teams is that when it is their turn they take a long time to transmit their information so the rest have to wait much longer for their turn to come to them.the highway, an 802.11b device would be like that garbage truck that has been put in front of you with the additional inconvenience that it cannot be overtaken.
On the other hand, even if all the teams on the same channel are equally fast, it really does start to show a certain slowness when the number increases, that is, case 2 above will not be as good if instead of two cars in the lane we have eight or ten, because the distribution of that "Airtime" will already begin to become appreciable as there are fewer opportunities to transmit.More equipment on the same channel, more slowly.
Well, we have already seen some of the reasons why our WiFi can go slow, but this has only just begun...
THE INSOLIDARIES
Actually, the case of the highway that we have described above is to use a channel width of 20MHz (with which we occupy 5 channels), but the 2.4GHz band also allows us to use channel widths of 40MHz with what we would occupy twice as many channels to, in theory, have twice the bandwidth.Let's imagine the highway before, but one of the vehicles is of these special transport that leaves on the sides occupying not 5 lanes but 10, the chaos they create is huge because it will be interfering with almost all other teams.
If the Router works as God commands (not everyone does) and there are neighbors around, they should always work at 20MHz.That is called protocol of coexistence in the 2.4GHz band and let's say those who do not They comply with it, they are quite unsupportive, not to mention some "thugs" of the WiFi.In addition, in a saturated environment, these devices are really not going to get more speed than those that go to 20MHz so it is really counterproductive to transmit with a width of 40MHz except that you live isolated in the forest with no neighbors around.
The worst thing is that against this we can do very little.As a lot if we know the neighbor we can talk to him and try to explain it and ask him to configure his router at 20MHz or ask his operator, although most likely he does not understand or dad of what you are telling him and send you for a ride.Although in some cases this is something voluntary (the user has entered the router and has configured it in 40MHz) the most likely is that the router has already been provided by its operator So and don't be aware of the problem that is causing your WiFi and that of your neighbors.
THE LISTILLOS ARE ALSO WRONG
There are some Smartphone applications that sweep the WiFi spectrum and are able to show which channels your neighbors' routers are using.Perhaps the most used is "WiFi Analyzer" that is available for Android (if you have iOS forget that Apple's operating system does not allow access to virtually any technical information about WiFi).
The first reaction when one sees with one of these Apps that you have 2 or 3 neighboring routers on the same channel as you is go to the router configuration page and tell it to be put on another channel.The problem is that today in day it is rare that there is not at least one router around in all the "good" channels 1, 6 and 11 so the "smart" thinks: well look like there are many people on channel 1 and 6, I'm going to put in the 3 so that only a little touch those who are in the 1 and those who are in the 6.Error error.
Having a lot of equipment on the same channel as you, well man, well it is not, because you have to distribute the transmission time between all of them.From 5 or 6 routers on the same channel, little by little each one of they have a couple of computers connected the speed in that channel is going to suffer a lot.But at least you all speak the same "language" and you agree on when to speak.Now, when a router starts talking on the channel 3, both the equipment and the routers that speak on channels 1 and 6 will see all that traffic on channel 3 as electromagnetic noise , that is, pure interference.And that is bad, but that very bad.
These routers that are on interfering channels affect the performance of the general WiFi network very negatively and usually trigger the phrase my WiFi is slow. Obviously the closer they are to your own router or worse equipment speed you will notice in your WiFi.
EACH HOUSE IS A VIETNAM
In the following image you can see some of these examples of neighboring routers making the point, it is a real case, specifically that of my house.
We can see that most of the routers are "decent" and are placed on channels 1, 6 or 11 and with a correct channel width of 20MHz.For example, on channel 1 we have 4 routers broadcasting and on the channel 11 we have 6 routers.
On channel 6 we have an unsupported ("1") router broadcasting with 40MHz of channel width, although at least it has been placed on one of the "good" channels.
On channel 10 we have a "smart" ("2") that transmits correctly with 20MHz but is on an inappropriate channel, so it is bothering all those of channel 11 who see it as if it were noise.Also annoys the unsupportive of 6, but this one that zurzan.
But we also see ("3") as there are several completely unpresentable routers that are not only transmitting with a width of 40MHz but, on top, have been placed on channels 3 and 4.In the graph can be seen as these routers are causing interference to all those correctly located on channels 1 and 6.On channel 9 we have another similar router disturbing all of channels 6 and 11.
Seeing how the panorama is in my house, you still understand my motivation for this article. Getting a WiFi speed of more than 15 or 20Mbps in the 2.4GHz band with this environment is quite complicated. The worst thing is that my house is not an exceptional case if you live in an apartment in a big city. If you bother to check how is your environment with "WiFi Analyzer" or another App, maybe you find the cause of your despair with WiFi.
DO NOT WAIT AND ATTEND THESE RECOMMENDATIONS
Next, a couple of recommendations to try to mitigate these problems a bit:
If your router has automatic channel selection , use it.Never select a channel manually because the channel that is good at this time can stop being it in a while, in a day or in a week, so or you are permanently looking at the best channel or the remedy will be worse than the disease.Let the router select it for you.If your operator has worried a bit when choosing the router that supplies you, you should have a Automatic smart channel selection algorithm that always chooses the best (or in most cases, the least bad).
It's not a bad idea to reboot the router once in a while .Some routers only choose channel when Restart.If it has the function of automatic restart, activate it to do it every two or three days.In this case we do not recommend you to program it at dawn because it is usually the “cleanest” hours when there are many people who turn off the router at night, so the router will choose a channel that seems good at that time but may not be within a few hours.
As you can see, although WiFi has greatly improved our lives when it comes to being connected at all times, it is sometimes a bit desperate due to its own shared nature, but then there is no solution for it.WiFi slow? Fortunately yes, at least for now...
THE 5GHz BAND IS SALVATION
As the environment of the 2.4GHz band is already very saturated the chances of having a slow connection are very large.To solve this and also allow to reach higher transmission speeds, a few years ago routers and devices began to appear with the 802.11n standard that they could use, in addition to the 2.4GHz band, a second band at 5GHz frequencies.
The routers provided by the main operators with the most bandwidth (Fiber) offerings usually support this second band at 5GHz.In that case it is said that the router has a " WiFi Dual Band ".The most current also support the new 802.11ac standard that allows to reach higher speeds in that band, even higher than 1 Gbps, (although in practice there are practically no WiFi equipment on the market that can reach these speeds) by including more flows in parallel and larger channel bandwidths (up to 160MHz versus 20MHz or 40MHz of the 2.4GHz band)
But the 5GHz band also comes with a dark side: by using higher frequencies, the signal penetrates obstacles and walls much worse. This makes overall the coverage we have at home in this band it is usually somewhat lower than the one we had in the 2.4GHz band.
last generation routers
Some routers of last generation include 4 antennas/streams (called 4 × 4 since they have 4 streams of transmission and 4 of reception) and compensate for that worse penetration with what they get to have a coverage very similar to that of the band of 2.4GHz. An example of these 4 × 4 routers is the "Livebox Fibra" provided by Orange in Spain with the highest-speed FibraOptica offers.
Even so, this band has two clear benefits: the first one (and whose cause is related to the previous paragraph) by having a smaller range will also interfere less with the signals of neighboring routers that are not really very close.that not all routers support it yet, we will generally see few around.
The second is that the speed/coverage ratio is much higher.At a similar signal level we will have much more bandwidth.If we usually connect more or less close to the router (same room or next door) and our team supports 802.11ac we can arrive without problems at speeds of more than 300Mbps in WiFi that is not bad.
For all these reasons, if your router and equipment support this 5GHz band, I strongly recommend that you use it. You can usually know it because two Wi-Fi networks are labeled on the router and almost always one of them is labeled They are called "5G".In that case, look for it from your PCs, smartphones, etc.and if you find it (if it does not appear in the list of WiFi networks, your equipment, unfortunately, does not support this band) connect to she immediately. You will gain in connection quality...and life.And you will avoid sighing again while you say the phrase: my WiFi is slow.
Image : Pixabay
Comments
Post a Comment