Annoyed with your WiFi being slow?
I live in a country where often the service providers are known for providing a terrible service and citizens are known for their high expectations.
This article is intended for Maldives but feel free to read..
The first thing I am going to be talking about is clean channels, and 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz frequency band which we use for WiFi, this may sound complicated for a novice user but let me try to make this as laymen as possible.
As you may know we have been using 2.4Ghz (frequency band) as its the most widely supported band (band = multiple frequency). However, newer mobile phones and devices have started supporting 5Ghz band and we are seeing a huge adoption.
Most homes are still using the 2.4 Ghz band in Maldives, although 5Ghz is available, people rarely use this band. Some users have both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz configured but still connect to the 2.4 Ghz band.
From the picture you can see 1, 6 and 11 channels are not overlapping.. Means they don’t run into each others frequency.. These are called the 3 non-overlapping channels and best to use in the 2.4Ghz band as they don’t share the frequency with the each other (example: 1 does not share with 6 and 9). These are the frequencies which are supported in the 2.4 GHz band and its quiet less compared to 5GHz band.
However, if your neighbors still use the channel 1, 6 and 9 then they can still interfere with your access point.
The 2.4 GHz band, which runs from about 2,400–2,483.5 Mhz frequency. To make this simple, lets refer to these frequency’s by channels. Example channel 1 is actually 2.410 Mhz. There are over 14 channels in 2.4 Ghz band, the channel 14 is banned in most countries. The channels 12,13 can be used in lower power in the United States, however in Japan channel 14 is allowed.
In Maldives, we are free to use whatever the hell the channel we want or the transmission power to disrupt or cause interferences.
If you are wondering what happens if you set your WiFi (WLAN in 2.4 Ghz band) AP on channel 14? The microwaves also operate in this frequency and if someone is using it then consider it to cause a lot of service interruption, apart from that it might also be used for several other purposes which I do not know, but its best to avoid this baseless frequency channel as its not intended to be used for home users.
We can use 20Mhz and 40Mhz bandwidth when using a frequency in the 2.4 Ghz band, which means it will increase the wave length.
In the first image it is the 20Mhz wave, this is the best bandwidth you should be using in crowded areas where you have to share frequency between multiple access points. If you are alone, feel free to use the 40 Mhz bandwidth but this is not recommended in my country due to multiple access points in the neighborhood due to high density of population. So if someone set your WLAN in the 40 Mhz bandwidth thinking the higher the number solves the issue, they are only making it worse.
This is my experience with 2.4 Ghz where I have to share frequency with a lot of neighboring access points. The time = should be lower, suggests the connection is pretty good and stable. This should actually be 1–2 ms when you are connected in LAN, but on WiFi it might sometimes be 1–5 ms but anything above this is undesirable.
The router configuration page does not show “Maldives” in the regulatory domain for any of the GPON routers I have used. These settings allow to take the configuration which is allowed in a country so that it does not disrupt or cause interferences to others.
Communication Authority of Maldives needs to research on this and come up with optimum settings which are required for operating WLAN in the Maldives. Otherwise, regardless of how much internet bandwidth is provided to end users, the experience still would be bitter as these are subjective to the configurations..
WLAN ENCRYPTION AND SPEED CONSIDERATIONS
If you have set your WiFi to be configured with TKIP encryption, then the maximum speed you will experience is 54 Mbps.
If you have a 100 Mbps connection and TKIP has been set as encryption then you will only get 54 Mbps.
Please just stop using TKIP and stick to AES regardless of whatever your GPON Router is recommending you as this is more secure than using TKIP and it gives better speed as well.
WLAN Standards 802.11b/g/n/ac/ax etc…
802.11b/g are pretty useless, b is pretty old and offers maximum 11 mbps and 802.11g is a maximum of 54 mbps. 802.11n standard supports better speeds so its best to always use 802.11n or in mixed mode of 802.11b/g/n as thats what the default ONT router provided by my ISP supports.
But, coming to the new standard…
WLAN 802.11ac is SWEET!
802.11ac uses the 5GHz band while 802.11n uses 5GHz and 2.4GHz. Higher bands are faster but lower bands travel further.
OK, 2.4 GHz sounds more fun to use… But as we already know there are only 3 non-overlapping channels on this band. Whereas we get almost 24 non-overlapping channels in the 5 GHz band.
The DFS channels are reserved for radars in 5Ghz, if the device detects there are no radars using these channels, it will broadcast your SSID on these channels. Anyways, due to more frequencies being available in 5GHz and bigger bandwidth for better speed, 5Ghz band is more desirable for high performance bandwidth activities. Also you may want to use 2.4GHz band if you are further away from the access point and if you are near its always best to use the 5GHz band.
802.11ac is only supported in the 5GHz band.
Ideally, you should use the 2.4GHz band to connect devices for low bandwidth activities like browsing the Internet. On the other hand, 5GHz is the best suited for high-bandwidth devices or activities like gaming and streaming HDTV.
2.4 Ghz covers a wide area, but 5Ghz does not…
Pinging my router IP before on 2.4Ghz showed it was highly unstable with time= pretty high. However when using 5Ghz, my latency has dropped to 1–2ms when pinging the ONT router.
Open cmd.exe
ping <router IP here>
The upper data-speed limit of 802.11ac devices is 1.3 Gbps, compared to the 450 mbps limit of 802.11n, which is the latest Wi-Fi standard before ac.
WLAN De-AUTH Attacks
This is quite annoying and frustrating….. Anyone can actually de-authenticate you from the Access Point making it unusable in Wi-Fi 5 and below(802.11n)
Video shows WiFi attacks with Dstike Deauth Watch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zA6AB7qYe8
So basically anyone can make your service unusable, and possibly kick you out. Capture the 4-way handshake to crack the hash offline to retrieve the password. I am highlighting this because it makes life difficult…..
Birth of 802.11ax — WIFI 6
WiFi 6 is capable of a maximum throughput speed of 9.6 Gbps, compared to 3.5 Gbps on WiFi 5 (802.11ac) and 600Mbps on WiFi 4 (802.11n). These speeds are theoretical maximums, however, and it’s unlikely to ever reach those speeds in real-world WiFi use.
If you don’t want someone to deauth then switch to WiFi 6 (802.11ax) and enjoy a better speed with WPA3.
Most of the users are actually still just enjoying the 4th generation of WiFi which is 802.11n. Please do note, its not bad if you are still using the 5Ghz which has less interference’s due to more non-overlapping channels even with 802.11n .
BAND STEERING in 5Ghz Configuration
Band Steering is a feature that encourages dual-band capable wireless clients to connect to the faster 5GHz Wi-Fi, and leave the 2.4GHz Wi-Fi less-crowded for those clients who support 2.4GHz only; therefore to improve Wi-Fi performance for all the clients.
This actually improves your overall Wi-Fi experience as there are still devices which do not support the 5GHz band.
MESH Networks
When you want to cover a wide area, then go for a mesh network instead of using one access point with high power which will cause interferences and might get you connectivity but the speed might be undesirable.
https://www.amazon.com/Introducing-eero-mesh-WiFi-system-3-pack-/dp/B07WMLPSRL
Upgrading your internet connection without considering these requirements will only make it a poor experience.
FOR REGULATORS!
Refer: https://metis.fi/en/2017/10/txpower/
Refer: https://w.wol.ph/2015/08/28/maximum-wifi-transmission-power-country/
