Not exactly.
Fiction:
- I throw $300-$400 at these routers and I get a wifi router 2 to 5 times faster than wired Gigabit Ethernet
Facts:
- A 1800 mbps router is 802.11 ac based with 3 MIMO antennas. It can do maximum 450 mbps per antenna with 802.11 ac (1350 mbps total in 5 Ghz band plus 450 mbps 802.11n in 2.4 Ghz band) but only 150 mbps per antenna in pure 802.11n which is spread across all clients. In mixed mode this throughput limit is further reduced.
- Most clients have one antenna only and the good ones (iPad, Laptop, big tablet, expensive smartphone) may have two and only low-gain antennas. You are never going to see the type of theoretical throughput in (1).
- Most clients are still 802.11n and only the latest and greatest from Samy and Fruit company may have 802.11ac with 2 antennas. So you are capped theoretically to 300 mbps on 802.11n and 900 mbps on 802.11ac devices).
- The signal strength drops off as distance increases from router to client and therefore speeds also drop off. This does not happen in gigabit ethernet till 100m cable length with cat6 cable
- in an Multi-Dwelling (MDU) environment like apartment complex a lot of homes are clustered on one block/tower and each wifi router faces interference from neighboring flat (up, down, same floor units) and this limits the real world throughput considerably. Please do not look at bench-marking sites and derive throughput conclusions. That is a controlled lab environment test report.
In contrast an 8 port GbE wired LAN switch has 1 Gbps capacity in each direction per port (same on client machines) and 16 gbps totally. This is something the Wifi gear marketing brochures conveniently hide. Bottom line is don't look at Wifi Speeds advertised on routers and client devices and compare it with wired speeds. You will be greatly disappointed if you ever try to take things to that level in real life.
- Suman Kumar Luthra @ APRC-P3 Telecom Sub-committee
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