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WiFi Speed

S

Spudracer

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 4, 2009
257
0
I've seen some random carping about iPad WiFi speed on this forum but no thread pulling the whining together so we can get an idea how this thing performs. I just ran the CNet bandwidth meter on my iPad.
  1. My ISP is comcast
  2. I'm running a 1TB Time Capsule with a wireless n router built in.
  3. I'm sitting about 30ft from my router with full signal strength.
  4. My CNet speed was 834.5Kbps based on an average of three runs.

The iPad feels plenty responsive. I really can't complain about speed at all. In fact, I think 3G would be a disappointment after experiencing my home WiFi connection. What are the rest of you experiencing?
 
Subjectively, my iPad feels like it pulls down and renders web pages faster or as fast as any of my other computers on my wifi network. It just feels fast.
 
diabolic said:
Subjectively, my iPad feels like it pulls down and renders web pages faster or as fast as any of my other computers on my wifi network. It just feels fast.
Click to expand...

mine feels half as slow as my macbook pro and slightly faster than my iphone. Macrumors seems ESPECIALLY slow. PLUS NO CACHE!
 
I have Comcast connection with Apple Extreme and I am receiving 14/5 speeds based on the Speedtest.net app. There are a few things I would try. First log into the Airport Utility and under wireless > wireless network options make sure Interference Robustness is not checked. If it is, uncheck it and see if you notice a difference. If that does not change things, try different security protocols. I am using WPA/WPA 2 Personal
 
speedtest.net dslreports.com, etc. are useless for testing WiFi performance, as they are throttled by your connection to your Internet provider, their connection to the Internet, and the bandwidth and load of the server. For the typical user, an N WiFi connection (at least in the same room) is going to be far higher than the number these tests report.

The only reasonable way to test this is using a local server. That is, a server on your LAN - say, your Macbook.

You might want to search for an iPhone app that works with a companion server you can install on OSX or Windows. Not sure if there is such a thing.

Otherwise, time downloading a file of known size from a local machine. You might use ezShare, etc. to do this.

On the iPhone, these sites have been able to provide some rough estimates, because the iPhone only supports G and is a pig at it anyway.

As an example, the highest numbers I've seen on dslr on my 3G iPhone are 5600 kbps down/2535 kbps up. As you can see, these are WAY higher than the OP's results, which appear to be constrained by their broadband connection. On my Macbook or Linux systems, I get close to 60,000 kbps down (during Cox Speedboost with my new DocCIS 3.0 modem with 2 bonded channels - drops back to 36,000 after the speedboost times-out) and 6000 kbps up. This shows that the iPhone is constrained by internal processing speed.

On my Macbook, on 5gHz N, I get a transmit rate of 300,000 kbps in the same room with the router, and have confirmed with a local server that I get throughput to my Linux server very close to that.
 
Again, all meaningless measurements for WiFi performance.

We can probably get some estimate, though, by having people with really fast connections post their best and taking the highest. Will run into some issues with ISPs that compress data, though.

I'll post mine when my 3G model arrives, since I probably have one of the fastest consumer connections in the U.S. I think some Cox customers in some other areas have 3 bonded channels and 90,000 kbps service, so checking with them would be better yet.

If you really want to know, though, local is the way to go.
 
Local will not provide the web experience which is what he is talking about. Speeds will vary by ISP, my preference would be the speettest.net iPhone app test over the CNet test, but I understand people are curious what the download experience is. With wireless there will always be a difference compared to a wired connection, but with N it should not be far off. I would compare the same results to wired or wireless computer within your own network, not others. Cox does have some DOCSIS 3 speeds, which are also available in many Comcast areas too.
 
Seatactony said:
Is there anyway to determine whether a router is running at g or n speeds from an iPad itself?
Click to expand...

I'd be interested in knowing the answer to this question as well. I've got a "N" airport but the only other device I can use to see the speed of the network is my old "G" MB. The old MB is no longer on the network and I was hoping that the airport would run at N speeds now that the only G device has disconnected from the network. Would love to verify this with the pad if possible.
 
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