Wireless Speed
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- silentseven
Does having a password such as WEP or WPA slow down a wireless router?
- JSK0
No.
- redrum0
speeds it up cause other ass holes aren't using it
- waterhouse0
possibly the opposite
- silentseven0
Okay just wondering if having security the speed between laptop and access point was slower.. assholes at time warner say its on my end
- ribit0
You could use the access control list to allow only certain computers, and leave WEP off...
- Vicentvangogh0
Dream the impossible dream!
- BuddhaHat0
Adding a password slows a wireless connection by the teeny-tiniest amount that you would NEVER notice (because the security encapsulation adds a few bits to the beginning of the packet header). A range of other issues can affect wireless speed, including:
signal reflection/refraction
electrical interference
saturation of the network
backwards compatability issues (if an 802.11b and 802.11g device are connected to an 802.11g router, most of the time both devices will only run at 802.11b speeds)What some people forget is that wireless isn't fully duplex, so 802.11g, rated at 54mbps only runs at half that speed in a perfect environment. Hop through two wireless routers to your gateway, and it's a quarter of the speed etc etc.
My advice is to remove all settings from the wireless part of your router, strip it back to no authentication whatsoever, then keep adding layers of security, while testing that it still works properly. If it runs like crap with no security settings at all, you have another problem.
- PS. WEP is useless. Use WPA2 with TKIP or AES, it doesn't really matter.BuddhaHat
- silentseven0
Sweet... thanks BuddhaHat.
My tivo, iphone and laptop are the only things connected and its a 802.11G netgear wireless. I just for shit and giggles these are the speedtest.net numbers 1434 down/ 352 up.
I had the WEP password and reset the router to factory fresh and its the same numbers +/- a few ...
- BuddhaHat0
Okay, so the real world math for 3 802.11g adaptors is:
54mbps/2=27mbps (accounts for duplex)
account for environment affecting performance -> ~24mbps for argument's sake.
24mbps/3 connected devices = 8mbps (assuming they're all passing traffic simultaneously)
8 megabits per second = 1 Megabyte per second real world transfer rate.Conclusion: Great for the 'Net and remote desktop purposes, crap for large file transfers around your local network.
The big mistake you're making is that the speedtest site you're visiting is reading the speed out of your gateway device onto the Internet, not the speed of your computer to the wireless router. These are completely different. Funnily enough though, with a downstream speed of 1434bps down, and wireless bandwidth between your PC and your router being around 1000-2000bps, the wireless connection in your house isn't that much of a bottleneck.
Can you get anything faster in your area? VDSL? Cable? WiMAX? 3G?
- BuddhaHat0
PS. If you do want faster wireless transfers around your house, buy an Access Point for each device, put them on different channels, and connect them all into the same switch.