hi,

so I have been struggling these few days to setup my mikrotik rb951ui-2nd (hap).
I'm not a pro network admin, just a veteran IT programmer with some random knowledge for networking.

the problem is, I just get an internet provider that provide me with up to 100mbps internet speed.
they used zte as the modem to convert fiber to lan/wan, with pppoe.
so, I connect my mikrotik through lan cable to zte.
then if I tried with another cable to ether 2-4 to my laptop, tried 3 times, I could get stable speed about 97 mbps download upload on speedtest.net
I've tried to connect the ether 3 to my ps4 with some random up and downs so if I speed test from my ps4 3 times :
- download 87 mbps, upload 13 mbps
- download 42mbps, upload 20 mbps
- download 87 mbps, upload 87 mbps

so yeah, on ps4 it's ups and downs, but it can still get to 87 mbps.. so still no biggie here.

the problem is, for the wlan.
I tried connecting through wlan with my handphone, pc, and tablet, and no matter what setting I used, still cannot get more than 50mbps.
here's some average of the results :
hp xiaomi mi a1 : download 12 mbps, upload 10 mbps
pc with wifi adapter : download 49 mbps, upload 40 mbps
surface pro 2017 : download 39mbps, upload 30 mbps

my pc wifi adapter used to be able to get to 60-70 mbps with my older older provider internet and their router that's lent to me
and surface pro should be capable for more I think ?

just another info, if I used wlan from zte, my hp xiaomi mi a1, could get results to more than 20mbps download upload, but with mikrotik it's about 10-12 mbps only always (and no, now the wlan on zte is off because it's actually forbidden for me to use the wlan from zte by my provider, I just tried it to know the difference), though through the pc max speed from zte wlan just about the same

so, as u can see, the mikrotik from lan cable and again through another lan cable could produce speed about 87-97 mbps.
so I expected the wlan to do the same (isn't the wlan support wireless N that's capable to 300mbps speed ?)
and nope, the result speed above tested when only 1 device connected to wlan with all other device disconnected (except on the cable connected to the tv decoder, and the idle ps4, and there's no downloading happened on the ps4, and I switched off the tv decoder from remote), so there should be no bandwith hogger from other device used.

I bridged the wlan with ether 1-5 because I need the ps4 to be on the same subnet with the wlan (for remote play game purposes)
I have tried to change it to channel 1 (2412) from auto (this upped the speed to the speed I told u above, before when it's auto channel, it couldnt get past 35mbps)
I have tried to enable fasttrack rule (no effect at all)
change the setting to wireless 2ghz-n only with 20 mhz only (have tried to pick b/g/n and 20/40 ce or ec, and quick try speedtest doesnt seem to change at all)
and again, zte wifi is off (so there should be no problem fighting bandwith with my mikrotik).

though up to 50mbps is not bad, but I want to max my speed to what the provider gave me.
dont know what other setting to mess with.

can anyone help ?
thx

This RB only supports 2G radio (as you know). Bandwidth depends on a ot of factors, the way I would solve it (besides all the steps you have done already) is by using 5G radio. Does the ZTE suport 5G? What speeds do you get with this modem/router? Why do you use the RB as well?

the zte didnt support 5g, and anyway the zte now only used to direct the fiber optic signal to lan cable. so no wireless used anymore like I have explained in my post.
and lots of my devices dont support 5g anyway, so I would like to use 2.4 G.
is it not possible for 2.4g to be 100 mbps ? like I said I'm not network expert but I thought wireless N on 2.4 G could get to 300 mbps ?

as for why I get the rb951ui mikrotik router, well I didnt have much experience with mikrotik and that was what my collegues recommended to me when I said I want to try vpn with mikrotik. well, it turns out that I couldnt use the vpn because my old Provider wouldnt open the ports needed, and now I just wanted to use this router for my new provider so I didnt have to buy another router.

There is always a big difference between Wlan speeds as advertised in sales brochures and the actually measured download and upload speeds on a client.
This is because the way they are defined is different. What is advertised is the maximal raw speed on the radio channel in one direction, and what you are actually using is a protocol where the access point and the client alternately transmit on the same radio channel.
So the rate is immediately cut in half, and then more is lost for changeover times and for the protocol on the radio channel, which includes re-transmissions when the original transmission is lost due to interference.
In a typical home environment there can be a lot of interference...
And when the AP cannot get its info through due to interference, it temporarily lowers the raw radio rate, to attempt to get things through in one try.

All this leads to much lower upload/download rates than the mythical speed advertised in the sales brochure.
Besides that, there is also a limit in what the CPU in the AP can do. This is quite a low-end device and it may be limited to that 87Mbps figure just due to CPU loading, especially when the configuration is not optimal.

hmm thought I only understand maybe half of it, but I think rb951ui-2nd could get speed more than 50 mbps with the right configuration ?
I read on some forum that people can get at least 72mbps : viewtopic.php?t=101098

Again, the speed you see in such an indication is the raw radio speed, not the download speed you get when you actually use it for data.
Look in the web interface what is indicated for the up and down speed of the clients.
When you see 72Mbit there (as those other thread indicates) your results of about 39Mbps when actually measuring it are what is to be expected.
In case of interference it will be lower.

on the web interface, do u mean webfig ? the status on interface on ether1?
it shows exactly the same with the result from speedtest.net about 40-50 mbps when connected to pc when I did speedtest.net (though I didnt see the webfig when I speedtest other devices), and if u talked about maybe my wifi speed on pc only able to get 50mbps, I have already said on my 1st post, it used to be able to get 60-70 mbps on my previous internet provider and different router that is lent to me by them.

I think on that link he said about the speedtest ?

Look at the wireless connections in the web interface, each of them shows the current raw radio rate up and down.
You may be able to achieve about half of those figures when actually using it, possibly less.
These speeds also vary over time due to activity from neighbors etc.

and like I told u, the speed is about the same with what the speedtest (maybe just a little bit more than speedtest)
here's the interface when it's on top speed (speed vary of course) :
here's the actual result of speedtest.net :

This is not the correct table.
Select the menu "Wireless" and then the tab "Registrations".
There is the actual wireless speed.

like this ?




why is there 3 speed for the wlan ?

oic.. that's because I got 3 devices connected
and my pc is the top one..
so like u said, it actually got 78 mbps ?
but it translated to actual speed only half ?

is there no way to get the same speed ? maybe if I change to a router that supported 5G and wireless ac ?
or it would still be the same and I would only got half of the speed ?

Hi

is that not the 3 devices connected to the wifi network and there relative network speeds.

yup. that's because 3 devices connected
figured it out right away after I click the submit post button :p

anyway.. thx for mr pe1chi, I understood now.

well, I will try buying new router with wireless ac, hopefully I could better the speed
or if ac still worked just like this (half speed), well then.. at least I learned another something

Your actual throughput will always be much lower than radio throughput due to the overhead on wireless.

You can achieve higher speeds in 2.4GHz if your client supports it, BUT it is not recommended in crowded WiFi areas as it is more susceptible to the interference, so use this at your own peril

Use 40MHz channel (2 x 20MHz channels), on a RB2011 I get radio throughput of 150Mbps and actual throughput of 100 - 110 Mbps when about 3 meters from device.

NB: Running it this way, it also makes the device running at higher temperatures when downloading for long periods of time as the WiFi chips has to work much harder

Well I bought some of the cheaper wireless ac router (not mikrotik). Set it up in 10 minutes and then now I got 90mbps on my surface pro 2017, 80 mbps on my samsung s7 edge and similar increases on my other devices that support wireless ac.

So yes, wireless ac helps alot

With this, the case is closed
Thx so much for all the helps and comments

You are right, the 3 devices shown are 3 different devices connected to your AP.
And an AC type WiFi will have higher speed.
Again you will never get the speed that is printed on the box, but only a fraction of that.
But as the advertised speed is higher, so will be your finally achieved speed.

ok, I just want to ask 1 more thing to deepen my knowledge.
so, lets see, my new router have wireless ac 400 mbps, sure, but it only have original ethernet port (not gigabit, only 10/100 mbps).
so from zte it will have mostly up to 100 mbps (and the lan cable only able to get max 100 mbps anyway),
lets says like before, I get about 70-90 mbps from the internet/zte/lan cable, then when the router converts it into wlan, dont u say it would be half ? because the access point and the client alternately transmit on the same radio channel ?
but it's not the case here it seems because I got the full speed too on wlan with wireless ac on 5 GHz. maybe because 5Ghz network no need to alternately transmit ?

and just now I got 77mbps download upload on speedtest.net from my pc (which use wireless adapter n (not support wireless ac)). so, what happened here ? why my pc could get 77mbps download/upload on speedtest ? well I couldnt see the real throughput on the ether port because this router not mikrotik, but from what u said before the speed should be half, and from what we know, the max speed from the internet provider and the lan cable only 100mbps, so shouldnt I could only get 50mbps max on my wireless n 2.4 GHz ?

ps : for more info, this new router of mine can do wlan n on 2.4ghz and ac on 5ghz at the same time. so my old devices could connect to the wireless n, while my newest devices could connect to the wireless ac from the same router.
oh yeah and the 5Ghz network is on 20mhz (not 40mhz, there's no setting for 5Ghz 40mhz on my new router), in case the info is needed

this is just the prove of my wireless n and my speedtest (that I redo and still got 70mbps more)

ok, I just want to ask 1 more thing to deepen my knowledge.
so, lets see, my new router have wireless ac 400 mbps, sure, but it only have original ethernet port (not gigabit, only 10/100 mbps).
so from zte it will have mostly up to 100 mbps (and the lan cable only able to get max 100 mbps anyway),
lets says like before, I get about 70-90 mbps from the internet/zte/lan cable, then when the router converts it into wlan, dont u say it would be half ? because the access point and the client alternately transmit on the same radio channel ?

Not half of the 100 Mbit cable speed but half of the 400 Mbps advertised speed of the Wlan.
It explains as well why you can buy devices with 400 Mbps radio speed but only 100 Mbps LAN port.
The manufacturers of course know that the radio speed never can be actually achieved for downloading, so 100 Mbps ethernet is usable (it is a little limiting, but not much).

Also remember that speedtesting like this is only causing you frustration, during actual use you will never note the difference between 75 and 100 Mbps.