Will there be a difference in speeds when you connect through a router and through LAN cable ?

[krish_techie]

I've been using ACT Fiber net previously beam in Hyderabad for a while now. I did not take the router they give along with the connection as they were charging more and instead bought a TPLink one from Amazon. Now my internet speed connection is 75 Mbps. When i connect LAN cable directly to a laptop and do speed test it shows 75 Mbps but when i connect the cable to router and do speed test on my mobile it shows 50 Mbps only. So i'm not sure why the difference. Is it a problem with router ? Will i get 75Mbps if buy some other router or should i purchase it from ACT themselves to avoid this ? Any insight on this issue would be helpful

 

[meetdilip]

Depends on your WiFi adapter and ethernet card. Some LAN cards give 100 Mbps as standard. WiFi is slower than LAN in some cases.

Even with maximum speed in equation, if WiFi signal is less, you will get slower speeds.

 

[krish_techie]

Depends on your WiFi adapter and ethernet card. Some LAN cards give 100 Mbps as standard. WiFi is slower than LAN in some cases.

Even with maximum speed in equation, if WiFi signal is less, you will get slower speeds.

How can i check my wifi adapter and ethernet card ? Is there a way i can check the speeds given by LAN card ?

I understand that if wifi signal is less we get slower speeds, i checked speed by connecting only one device sitting next to router

 

[thatsashok]

Replies are inline bold and italic

How can i check my wifi adapter and ethernet card ? Is there a way i can check the speeds given by LAN card ?

Check your motherboard / laptop technical specifications for WiFi standards supported (should be written like IEEE 802.11 b/g/n/ac) and LAN ethernet card mentioned as 10/100/1000 or 10/100 Mbps top speed rating)

I understand that if wifi signal is less we get slower speeds, i checked speed by connecting only one device sitting next to router

Both LAN and Wifi reduce speed and signal strength with increased distance from the source (unless a intermediate step up source is used to accomodate the losses). this is why people use repeaters for Wifi and Switches for LAN. Just make sure none of the programs are downloading anything in background & Also your Wifi adapter speed is not maxed out. Try on different mobiles and see wifi speed

Reading some literature/ watching some helpful videos on both the topics will give an insight and troubleshoot yourself. Google is your friend here

 

[meetdilip]

@krish_techie

These are hardware specifications. I do not know of any software related method to find them. Mostly, you can check adapter properties in Windows and see if it is listed. Otherwise, get the model no. and try on manufacturer website.

 

[krish_techie]

@krish_techie

These are hardware specifications. I do not know of any software related method to find them. Mostly, you can check adapter properties in Windows and see if it is listed. Otherwise, get the model no. and try on manufacturer website.

Replies are inline bold and italic



Reading some literature/ watching some helpful videos on both the topics will give an insight and troubleshoot yourself. Google is your friend here

Thank you so much for the suggestions guys.
I will try with a friends router and see if the same thing is happening. If so then i will buy the router from the service provider itself so that i can bug him with the speed issue,else i will replace the router with a proper one.
I read in some websites where they said wifi speed will be less than LAN ideally but 25 Mbps is a huge difference.
so i guess the problem is either with router or the service provider doing some stupid tricks. I will do a little testing and findout.

 

[Hrishi]

NO

Thank you so much for the suggestions guys.
I will try with a friends router and see if the same thing is happening. If so then i will buy the router from the service provider itself so that i can bug him with the speed issue,else i will replace the router with a proper one.
I read in some websites where they said wifi speed will be less than LAN ideally but 25 Mbps is a huge difference.
so i guess the problem is either with router or the service provider doing some stupid tricks. I will do a little testing and findout.

If you're connecting your laptop to your router via WiFi , there will definitely be significant speed and latency issues directly proportional to the Wireless standards, distance and interference/obstacles in between.
If you are getting 25% less speed even while patched through a LAN cable to the router, then it's likely that there is some sort of QoS(bandwidth restriction) implemented on the device, or the device is simply too weak to handle and process a buffer that large.
Although directly hooking you laptop will always be faster than any router in between (the difference depends on the quality of routers being used), however I don't recommend doing so mostly due to security perspective.

 

[whitestar_999]

In tplink & many other routers,wireless settings default mode is 'g/n mixed' which will never achieve more than 54mbps because that is the max speed of 'g' standard & mixed mode means router will operate at the slower 'g' standard.Change mode to 'n only' & you will see the 75mbps speedtest results over wifi(solved this exact issue with a friend of mine with same ACT 75mbps connection).

 

[krish_techie]

In tplink & many other routers,wireless settings default mode is 'g/n mixed' which will never achieve more than 54mbps because that is the max speed of 'g' standard & mixed mode means router will operate at the slower 'g' standard.Change mode to 'n only' & you will see the 75mbps speedtest results over wifi(solved this exact issue with a friend of mine with same ACT 75mbps connection).

I'm trying to setup the settings you mentioned but in wireless settings I see only 11bg mixed and 11bgn mixed options.where can we find the n only mode ?

 

[whitestar_999]

You can select bgn mixed,many older tplink routers like W841N have only this setting.Just note that if ever a "g" standard wifi device connect to wifi in this mode than speed of entire wifi network will be reduced to 54mbps but for last few years only "n" standard wifi devices are made.

 

[krish_techie]

You can select bgn mixed,many older tplink routers like W841N have only this setting.Just note that if ever a "g" standard wifi device connect to wifi in this mode than speed of entire wifi network will be reduced to 54mbps but for last few years only "n" standard wifi devices are made.

Thanks for the quick response. I tried it and now i see better speeds

 

[whitestar_999]

For future reference also note that wifi password encryption standard also affects wifi speeds.e.g.some cable broadband providers use TKIP+AES standard for wifi password by default in their cable modems which will limit the max wifi speeds to ~40mbps.Only AES encryption is the standard encryption for wifi passwords that support full wifi speeds of n & ac standard wifi till now.

 

[meetdilip]

Most WiFi devices these days support n mode. Unless, you are using an old laptop's WiFi adapter.