# 11 Mbps?



## WarmCurb (Mar 15, 2004)

I just networked my laptop with a router that is 11 Mbps. When I had the laptop connected straight to the modem, I got 100 Mbps. What happened?


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

You connected wirelessly and at least one of the devices is 802.11b.

If this is a quiz, try something harder.


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## WarmCurb (Mar 15, 2004)

I don't know what that means...


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## jmwills (Sep 28, 2005)

The wireless card can only connect at a speed of 11 mbps while the wired connection is connected to the LAN at a speed of 100 mbps.

Wired is better.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

And neither of these speeds have anything to do with the speed of Internet access, which is determined by the ISP in question.


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## WarmCurb (Mar 15, 2004)

I was getting 100 Mbps with my last router - a Linkysys - but this Netgear router only gives me 11 Mbps, which fluctuates between 11 and 5.5 Mbps. I notice a significant difference in browsing and image loading. Is there anything I can do?


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

"Is there anything I can do?"

You could tell us some information.

Were you using ethernet before and now wireless?

What model router? Is it 802.11b only? Is it 802.g but you have it set to 'b'?

Is your wireless adapter 'g' or 'b'? Are there any other 'b' devices on the network?


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## jmwills (Sep 28, 2005)

You were getting 100 mbs on the wired side, not the wireless.


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## WarmCurb (Mar 15, 2004)

TerryNet said:


> "Is there anything I can do?"
> 
> You could tell us some information.
> 
> ...


- I've been wireless with both routers, using ethernet only to set up the network.

- Netgear MR814 802.11b [http://kbserver.netgear.com/products/MR814v2.asp]. I believe I can switch to 'g' but I'm not sure how.

- Dell Wireless 1450 WLAN, which is descrbed as, "_supporting the Wi-Fi Certified IEEE 802.11g specification. The card delivers maximum channel speed of up to 54 Mbps, while maintaining full backward compatibility to 802.11b networks_."


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## VirtualMe (Sep 27, 2002)

According to the Interface Specs., the most it will do is *11mbs*.

http://www.netgear.com/Products/RoutersandGateways/BWirelessRouters/MR814.aspx?detail=Specifications

*Interface Specifications *

Internet/WAN: 10 Mbps Ethernet, RJ-45

LAN: 4 ports @ 10/100 Mbps (auto-sensing) Ethernet, RJ-45 
*Wireless: Network Speeds: 1, 2, 5.5, 11 Mbps with Auto-fallback support *
Modulation Type: Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) 
Encryption: Hardware-based 40/64-bit & 128-bit WEP encryption 
Frequency Band: 2.4 GHz 
Standards Capability: 802.11b 
Antenna: 2 dBi


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## WarmCurb (Mar 15, 2004)

That's disappointing. I got the router two years ago. Were they not capable of 100 Mbps back then?


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## VirtualMe (Sep 27, 2002)

I've only had wireless about a year or so, so I'm now real sure what the deferent stages are, but I don't think 802.11b ever got over 11mbs.

802.11g, what my Laptop's wireless adapter is, gets up to 54mbs. on my wireless network.

Some 802.11g versions advertise they get upto 108mbs., and now the 802.11n/pre n are getting upto like 300mbs. I think.


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## jmwills (Sep 28, 2005)

802.11b = 11mbps
802.11g = 54 mbps
802.11g Super = 108 mbps
N = not worth the hastle


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## UNIKSERV (Feb 2, 2002)

WarmCurb said:


> That's disappointing. I got the router two years ago. Were they not capable of 100 Mbps back then?


Can you tell us the manufacturer and model of the router you had that gave you 100Mbps over wireless?

Joe


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

WarmCurb said:


> That's disappointing. I got the router two years ago. Were they not capable of 100 Mbps back then?


Other than for a really fast ISP, there's no point in 100mbit connections for the WAN port of the router, and it's not going to affect your speeds. The switch section of the router is capable of 100mbit speeds, which is the end that affects local file sharing.


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

"Were they not capable of 100 Mbps back then?"

Yes, they were capable, and your router, according to the specs that VirtualMe gave a link for, supports 100Mbps:

"LAN: 4 ports @ 10/100 Mbps (auto-sensing) Ethernet, RJ-45"

Maybe you should do some reading--enough to understand that an ethernet cable is not wireless (it contains 8 wires), and wireless 802.11b is not the same as an ethernet cable. All this information has been given in this thread about a half dozen times.


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## WarmCurb (Mar 15, 2004)

TerryNet said:


> "Were they not capable of 100 Mbps back then?"
> 
> Yes, they were capable, and your router, according to the specs that VirtualMe gave a link for, supports 100Mbps:
> 
> ...


Yeah, I know the difference between an ethernet cable and a wireless router. The issue is how to match my wireless speeds to that of the modem, which was demonstrated successfully with a Linksys router. The solution I'm fishing for is how to change a setting within the router, but I simply don't know how to do that.


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

You have a 802.11b 11Mbps wireless router. Your 802.11g 54Mbps wireless adapter should quite easily and automatically match the 11Mbps router. I think that in an earlier post you stated that happens.

If/when the bandwidth drops below that it's probably because of wireless network congestion, wireless interference (e.g., 2.4Ghz cordless phone or another network on the same or close channel), you need a driver update for the adapter, you need a firmware update for the router, or the router or adapter is beginning to fail.

What kind of setting within the router do you have in mind?


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## WarmCurb (Mar 15, 2004)

I was thinking I could just switch from 'B' to 'G.'


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

See post #10. Virtual Me quoted some of the specs for your router, including the wireless maximum.

A 'g' router can run as 'b' but not vice versa. Sorta like my car--I can drive slower than its maximum speed but not faster.

And, do you really have a problem? I think JohnWill pointed out in an earlier post that your wireless bandwidth is probably not less than your internet access. You'll see a restriction only on file transfers within your LAN. Wireless 'g' routers are not very expensive if you look for specials and rebates.


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## UNIKSERV (Feb 2, 2002)

WarmCurb said:


> Yeah, I know the difference between an ethernet cable and a wireless router. The issue is how to match my wireless speeds to that of the modem, which was demonstrated successfully with a Linksys router. The solution I'm fishing for is how to change a setting within the router, but I simply don't know how to do that.


WarmCurb, I read over everything in this thread and at best it's confusing. If you're telling me that your broadband connection is greater than the slowest speed you reported over wireless (5.5 Mbps) then you must be paying quite a bit for your connection. The speed between the router and your computer is completely irrelevant to the speed of your internet connection. Try to envision a pipe that starts in the internet and ends at your computer. From the internet to your ADSL modem you get 5 Mbps (I'm guessing) download and 800 Kbps upload, from your ADSL modem to your router you get say 100 Mbps (most are 100 Mbps nowadays) symetric and between your router and your computer connected wirelessly you'd get between 5.5 to 11 Mbps if you're running 802.11b and 100 Mbps if you're connected to your router using a cable; also symetric. So, it doesn't matter how fast your traffic gets to the ADSL modem it's always going to go to the internet at 800 Kbps and it's always going to come to you at 5 Mbps because that's the slowest part of the network.
Does that help?

Joe


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## WarmCurb (Mar 15, 2004)

All I'm asking is if my router and wireless card are 100 Mbps compatiable, why am I not getting those speeds? Pages take 20 more seconds to load than my old connection.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

Well, your wireless card clearly won't run at 100mbit speeds, that's the specification for the wired ports.


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## UNIKSERV (Feb 2, 2002)

If your wireless router connects using 802.11b then the max you'll get is 11 Mbps, if you're using 802.11g then without special technology the max you'll get is 54 Mbps, and if you're using 802.11g with something like speed booster you should get a max of 108 Mbps.
The router you specified is an 802.11b wireless router so the maximum you can get while connected wirelessly is 11 Mbps. You didn't mention what your old router was but I highly doubt you were getting 100 Mbps wirelessly on it. If you'd like us to be sure please post the make and model of your old router.

Joe


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## TerryNet (Mar 23, 2005)

Hey, Joe and John and others, you think maybe one of us should mention the difference in rated and experienced bandwidth between ethernet and wireless? 

WarmCurb, what bandwidth do you experience when you connect via ethernet to your current router? What bandwidth does your ISP claim to provide? When you run a speed test http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ wired and then another one wireless what are the results?


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## UNIKSERV (Feb 2, 2002)

I think that could help. 

Joe


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

I was going to bring that up when I read the post about 108mbit. Not in this lifetime, at least in real throughput! 

I just did an experiment for someone else doing file transfers over a optimum 802.11g link, and I got reads of 2mbyte/sec and writes of 2.3mbyte/sec. Contrast that with the read speed of 9.5mbyte/sec and write speed of 9mbyte/sec over a 100mbit link, and you'll see real vs. imagined wireless link speeds. 

I also note that that was the best case scenario, since the router was 6 feet from the workstation, and the signal strenth was 98%.


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## UNIKSERV (Feb 2, 2002)

Yep, just going through the theory on this one. 

Joe


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## jp1203 (Jul 21, 2005)

You won't get the full 11 MBps no matter how hard you try, It'll end up about 1/2 that in the long run or from 600-700 KB/second. If you have a cable ISP you could be getting up to around 10 MBps, which would give you a decreased speed on the wireless, but not the wired (since it is 100 MBps). 

In most cases, you won't notice a significant difference in your ISP speed over wireless unless it's very fast. Try the speedtest as the others suggested. 

How good is the signal on the router? It should hold at the full speed for quite a distance, but I have seen some slow down on the outskirts. That's about all I can think of.

Can you clock a file transfer, say a 100 Megabyte file from within your LAN
over wireless if you have another machine. This could rule out an issue with the internet connection itself, but rather the router.


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## WarmCurb (Mar 15, 2004)

Wireless:
Download - 3553 kbps
Upload - 347 kbps

Wired test coming soon.


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## jp1203 (Jul 21, 2005)

Wireless isn't bad at all, I get 730K down and 132 K up and there is almost no wait for pages to load. I'm betting it's malware since Wireless B will probably hit about 5 MBps actual throughput.


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## jmwills (Sep 28, 2005)

That's the speed from the modem to the router, not from the router to the wireless card.


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