Wifi performance and the new iPad

Wifi performance and the new iPad(workstuff.tumblr.com)

58 points by fields 13 years ago | 23 comments

calinet6 13 years ago |

Read to the end of the article, folks.

This is what happened: he tweaked settings galore, hoping to squeeze out more performance somehow. Nerds tend to do this; it's natural.

However by removing the automatic settings and forcing it into one or more configurations that may have been suboptimal, performance actually decreased.

When he returned the settings to "fully automatic" everything was fine and dandy and maximal.

Moral of the story (and I quote): "Resist the urge to tinker with these settings."

You can basically ignore everything except that last line—and if you're familiar with the excellent AirPort Extreme, you probably already knew that.

smackfu 13 years ago | |

The problem is that there is no particular reason those configurations are suboptimal, except the empirical "it makes the router run slower." Enforcing 802.11n for instance. If settings that should be good choices end up having side effects, that's not a great design of the Airport Extreme.

calinet6 13 years ago | | |

Agreed, the settings should be more useful in general.

However, it's possible that the flexibility of the settings toward other cases (like using the router with older hardware, or less compatible or buggy devices) necessitate their presence and complexity. Seems likely to me that each of these settings has been placed due to a specific support case with the plethora of device data and testing cases that they must have from years of customer support.

I think, then, that the settings are not for the maximal optimal case, and the misunderstanding here is that the router is somehow not initialized for maximum performance. This may be true for other router brands, but in my experience, is not true for Apple.

fields 13 years ago | | |

I agree. Hence the warning.

weiran 13 years ago |

I don't get this behaviour with my (latest-gen) Airport Extreme. I have a separate 5GHz network and get consistently 360Mbps to 450Mbps connection to it. Are you sure your Airport isn't faulty?

Changing it to a single name for both networks leaves my iMac always connected via 2.4GHz and no obvious way to switch to 5GHz.

fields 13 years ago | |

Are you sure? I don't have an iMac, but I've tested with two MBPs. They will always use the 5GHz network if it's available. This may have something to do with how good your connection to the airport is - does your signal quality say Excellent?

I can't say that this configuration change will help for everybody - I'm just reporting what I'm seeing.

weiran 13 years ago | | |

Turns out I had to delete the old network from Network preferences and add it again, it was probably set to 2.4GHz only like it was originally.

Now I'm on the 5GHz again I seem to be getting a more consistent 450Mbps link speed although actual throughput seems the same.

I think I might just leave it on fully auto now, it seems to work pretty well.

dade_ 13 years ago | | |

I found that my aTV, MBP (Lion) and iPad 2 were always connecting to the 2.4 Ghz network with my dual band Airport extreme as well. Setting them separately, I have forced it to 5Ghz. I live in a condo building so 5Ghz has far less interference, so I don't understand the reason for the behaviour.

rm999 13 years ago | | |

My MBP and MBA fall back to 2.4GHz sometimes. This is annoying because microwave interference is common in my building.

So now I keep separately named networks and can usually connect at 450 mbps (mbp) or 150 (mba). At least I believe that is the case, I can double check at home.

calinet6 13 years ago | |

He wasn't using the default settings. When he left everything on fully-automatic, it was all fine.

This is a classic case of someone geeking out over settings and over-optimizing themselves into a corner. Hence the last line of the article, and an excellent moral.

weiran 13 years ago | | |

My point was that I'm running a customised set like the one he describes and my speeds are fine, I sometimes even get a 450Mbps link speed.

Saying that, I see no downsides to leaving it fully auto and I think I'll leave it at these settings now.

eddieroger 13 years ago |

I'd like to know a little more about the network setup. Are the Expresses bridging via Ethernet, or acting as repeaters? I don't know if that could be part of what he's seeing, but I'm still interested.

fields 13 years ago | |

This airport extreme is connected directly to outside (cable modem). There are several airport expresses extending the network (I have no idea how to tell if the client devices are connected directly to them, and I'm not sure it matters). There is a second airport extreme bridged to that one, which is running a dedicated 802.11g network to keep those devices off the same network as the faster devices.

sounds 13 years ago | | |

I'd really like to know if the situation changes if you:

1. Disable your other airport expresses and the 2nd airport extreme

2. Place your iPad as close to the airport extreme as is reasonably possible (the one connected to the cable modem... just to try to get the max speed – it would be interesting to see what the speed dropoff with distance is in a second, separate test)

3. Try the different options again (especially connecting on 5ghz using a different SSID with the airport extreme's 5ghz network set to n-only)

It's not just the wifi interference (which shouldn't be a problem, but could you also post how many other wifi SSIDs are visible from your iPad?) – but multiple airport expresses mixed with an airport extreme falls outside the realm of what 99% of users do (I think it could be a bug when the airports interact).

As other posters have said, this kind of performance drop is abnormal.

svachalek 13 years ago |

When it comes to any mass-market consumer product, 99% of the users (I'm exaggerating, no, probably not) will leave all settings at the default. Therefore the default settings have orders of magnitude more real-world testing than all non-default setting combinations COMBINED. Nearly any mature product is therefore bound to behave dramatically better on its default settings than in any other configuration in sheer defiance of what "should" happen.

fields 13 years ago | |

That really depends. It's completely untrue for, say, TVs:

http://prolost.com/blog/2011/3/28/your-new-tv-ruins-movies.h...

jeffehobbs 13 years ago |

100% true. For this device, just roll with the defaults.