Slower when wireless

[koevet]

Hello,
I guess this is a recurrent problem but I could not find a clear answer on this forum so I try posting my problem.
When I'm directly connected to the Internet using my cable provider my average download speed is around 1426 Kbps. Very fast, very good.
When I plug in my wireless router, the download speed basically is 60% slower (around 650Kbps). This values are measured using a ADSL speed connection test (http://www.adslguide.org.uk/tools/speedtest.asp).
This is my hardware setup:
- Router: Lynksys WRT54GS
- One laptop using a Netgear WG511 Wireless card
- One laptop using a Intel Pro/wireless 2200BG

My clients are very close to the router (few meters). I understand that this may affect negatively the connetction speed, but I still believe that getting 60% less than a direct connection is a little bit too much.
I would like to know some approaches for a diagnosis of the problem.

Thanks a lot,
Luciano (Italy)

[thats_wright]

koevet,

What is connection speed as indicated by the wireless card (on the clients) utility? It will probably be of the following 1,2,5.5,11,24,48,54 MBps depending on what mode you are in. Different Wireless card manufacturers deal with Dynamic rate shifting differently (algorithms related to link quality over time). For example my Belkin G card will shift to 1 MBps connection speed, when my Belkin B card will regularly hover between 5.5 and 11 MBps. There may be an adjustment that can be made within the card utility to compensate for poor rate shifting.

What security do you have enabled if any? Different forms of security will drop your effective throughput rating. Throughput (meaning actual download speed versus what your broadband provider says, i.e. i have 512Kbps broadband, but effective throughput is only 55KBps due to the poor contention ratios) with no-frills, no security wireless is approximately half of the connection speed. So if you are connecting at 2 Mbps, your effective throughput will be about 1 Mbps. Meaning that even though wired you can reach 1.5 MBps, the max throughput you will see is 1 Mbps. Security will decrease throughput depending on which type you are using. I don't have the stats, but a google search on which one you are using will yield exact figures for you.

Hope this helps,

- Nate
support@trafalgarnetworks.com

[koevet]

Hello Nate,
thanks for your reply.
I'm constantly connected at 54Mbps and I have WEP security enabled (128 bit).

I have wired a laptop to the router and the connection speed is as fast as a direct connection to the cable modem. So the router is working fine, only the wireless connection is slower.

Luciano