# has anyone else notice wifi router faking speeds in the last year?



## dogwitch (Aug 2, 2022)

i recently look at some wif router and notice. them lying about speeds.
some how a 1 gb port can do whopping 2.6 gb speeds. or another one by netgear claims 1.7g gb speeds. again  using a 1gb source  port.....
more i went down said rabbit hole. more lies i notice with  new models.


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## Steevo (Aug 2, 2022)

Not much different than switches and routers of yesterday, a lot of companies wouldn’t list the backplane bandwidth, so sure it has 20 Gb ports, but can only handle 1Gb of total data.

Same BS as modern Wi-Fi, sure one device can have 1300Mbps…… if the stars ad moon align, if neighbors turn off their networks too so it can run without overlaps in channels


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## dirtyferret (Aug 2, 2022)

dogwitch said:


> i recently look at some wif router and notice. them lying about speeds.
> some how a 1 gb port can do whopping 2.6 gb speeds. or another one by netgear claims 1.7g gb speeds. again  using a 1gb source  port.....
> more i went down said rabbit hole. more lies i notice with  new models.



I assume you are talking about 1700 and 2600 class routers?  Those are not all at once speeds but rather a "total" of all possible stream link rates across radio signals.  It's not new (been around for a long time) and yes it's pretty much total marketing BS.


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## Bill_Bright (Aug 2, 2022)

They are not faking speeds. It is as df noted, it is "marketing BS" and clever manipulation of the data.  I am 100% sure that under ideal, tightly controlled conditions - such as in a professional laboratory/testing facility, with cherry-picked components from endpoint to endpoint, those speeds can be obtained. And so therefore, they are not lying or faking.

It is similar to how Ford, Chevy, RAM, Toyota, etc. all claim their pickup trucks are #1. They are not lying or faking it. One is best in towing, one in hauling, one in fuel economy, one in horsepower, etc. etc.

Also, I suspect it you look at the published specs carefully, there will be two tiny 2-letter words put there by their lawyers (the same lawyers that work for our ISPs). And they are, "up" and "to" - speeds "_up to_" 3 times the speed of light can be obtained.


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## dogwitch (Aug 6, 2022)

Bill_Bright said:


> They are not faking speeds. It is as df noted, it is "marketing BS" and clever manipulation of the data.  I am 100% sure that under ideal, tightly controlled conditions - such as in a professional laboratory/testing facility, with cherry-picked components from endpoint to endpoint, those speeds can be obtained. And so therefore, they are not lying or faking.
> 
> It is similar to how Ford, Chevy, RAM, Toyota, etc. all claim their pickup trucks are #1. They are not lying or faking it. One is best in towing, one in hauling, one in fuel economy, one in horsepower, etc. etc.
> 
> Also, I suspect it you look at the published specs carefully, there will be two tiny 2-letter words put there by their lawyers (the same lawyers that work for our ISPs). And they are, "up" and "to" - speeds "_up to_" 3 times the speed of light can be obtained.


some now dont even have that.


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## Regeneration (Aug 7, 2022)

WiFi fake speeds has been around forever.

Manufacturers measure speeds in a isolated lab with a distance of 1.5 meter (5 feet) between devices. Even then they add 20-30 percent on top of that.

I have AC2100 router and i'm getting max of 15MB/s (120mbps) with AC1900.





But hey, it is at least faster than 100Mbit cable.


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## Bill_Bright (Aug 7, 2022)

dogwitch said:


> some now dont even have that.


Not sure what you mean by "now".

Years ago, back in the beginning of "broadband to the home" most ISP service agreements initially did not say "up to". However, because there are so many variables beyond the control of the ISPs, and because so many users started to complain they were not getting the _advertised_ speeds, ISP shysters... err... lawyers put "up to" (or something to that effect) in those agreements - typically in the very fine print. 

They may not use those specific words, but "IF" there is a guaranteed speed, it likely is lower than the "advertised" or "marketed" speeds.


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## dogwitch (Aug 8, 2022)

Bill_Bright said:


> Not sure what you mean by "now".
> 
> Years ago, back in the beginning of "broadband to the home" most ISP service agreements initially did not say "up to". However, because there are so many variables beyond the control of the ISPs, and because so many users started to complain they were not getting the _advertised_ speeds, ISP shysters... err... lawyers put "up to" (or something to that effect) in those agreements - typically in the very fine print.
> 
> They may not use those specific words, but "IF" there is a guaranteed speed, it likely is lower than the "advertised" or "marketed" speeds.


some packages for router dont even say up to anymore.


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## dirtyferret (Aug 8, 2022)

dogwitch said:


> some packages for router dont even say up to anymore.


because it is a positioning tier class for marketing purposes.  The general public wants a simple way to compare products and goes by the "bigger number equals better performance" so that is how the brands position products to them.  Everyone is complicit (buyers, sellers, vendors) and you can't blame them.


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## Mussels (Aug 8, 2022)

The problem is the dodgy standards, look at this contradiction:





400 + 866 = 1266
Woops no its 400 + 866 + 866 so 2133
Oh wait no I meant 2200.

Because there's a second 5Ghz 866Mb network used to allow two devices that speed at the same time. 
That final 66.6Mb is an FBI secret, don't ask.


I am also annoyed by this, but they're advertising the maximum speed of all connected devices on multiple networks (which with band steering and mesh can truly be one network), and NOT the advertised maximum speeds for a single device - which is clearly limited by the up/downlink of the WAN port of the router


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## dirtyferret (Aug 8, 2022)

Mussels said:


> The problem is the dodgy standards, look at this contradiction:
> 
> View attachment 257350
> 
> ...



so um like my daughter can't upload her tik toks and she's screaming at me our wifi sucks and I'm ruining her life and my wife is pissed at me because shes been telling me to call the cable company and have them send someone to fix the wifi but they say everything is working fine on their end and I should pay an extra $50 per month to go up a tier in performance which I did but it didn't fix anything.  I see this 1700AC router is like $120 but this 2200AC router is $110 so it's cheaper and better right?  Like all i want to do is go home and get back to watching golf. 

I'm sure best buy billy whose been at the job for three weeks is going to take the time to explain everything properly and isn't getting to say "yeah bigger is better just buy it so I can look up your daughters tik toks to see if shes hot".


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## Bill_Bright (Aug 8, 2022)

dogwitch said:


> some packages for router dont even say up to anymore.


Well, I've seen lots of ISP service agreements from lots of different providers for ADSL, cable, satellite, cell, and fiber service and all claim speeds "up to" a certain amount or maybe a minimum that is ridiculously low. As I noted, they may use a different term than "up to" but none are going to get themselves roped into a high speed service they cannot ensure is available 24/7/365. 

Even tier packages are this way - at least in my experience. 

Now, I live in the US. Maybe you live somewhere else that does promise a specific high speed. If so, I sure would like to see a link. But again, I bet if you look deep in to the fine print, there's an "up to" in there someplace.


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## dogwitch (Aug 8, 2022)

Bill_Bright said:


> Well, I've seen lots of ISP service agreements from lots of different providers for ADSL, cable, satellite, cell, and fiber service and all claim speeds "up to" a certain amount or maybe a minimum that is ridiculously low. As I noted, they may use a different term than "up to" but none are going to get themselves roped into a high speed service they cannot ensure is available 24/7/365.
> 
> Even tier packages are this way - at least in my experience.
> 
> Now, I live in the US. Maybe you live somewhere else that does promise a specific high speed. If so, I sure would like to see a link. But again, I bet if you look deep in to the fine print, there's an "up to" in there someplace.


tbh now. i think some sraight up put it on the online guide.... that they will give you a link. i hate those even more.


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## Psychoholic (Aug 8, 2022)

I think the newer ones are mainly counting their wifi speeds (still shady, i know)
Funny part is, since i moved over to wifi 6, my gigabit nic in my nas is my bottleneck.


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## LabRat 891 (Aug 8, 2022)

Had to learn how to explain this to customers when I worked Retail 'Tech' Sales and Support.

Basically (as already well described in other replies):

 They take the absolute peak Rx and Tx transfer speeds of every 802.11 radio, add them all together, and usually 'round up' to a 'market-attractive' number. 
There is an absolute 0 chance of ever getting any where near the advertised speeds, even with mixed LAN, wLAN and WAN transfers all added together.

Never mind that the FCC would not approve (or allow, once discovered) a router that is capable of 100% loading on all radios, receiving and transmitting at full power. 
In other words, *actually* technically facilitating the 'specs on the box', is effectively illegal. 
(Don't even get me started on spread spectrum being used to 'moderate' and obscure 'peak power output' in mW)

IMO, these vastly inflated and misleading advertising numbers are *worse* than marketing Air Compressors off the (ambient atmospheric pressure) CFM flowrate *at the input* of the compressor.


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## dogwitch (Aug 9, 2022)

Psychoholic said:


> I think the newer ones are mainly counting their wifi speeds (still shady, i know)
> Funny part is, since i moved over to wifi 6, my gigabit nic in my nas is my bottleneck.
> 
> View attachment 257385


tbh. some of windows intel 1gb driver have been dog crap.
on nic driver. those are lock down for updates. i had to much trouble before with a basic update. fully disabling a nic device.


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## Mussels (Aug 9, 2022)

dirtyferret said:


> so um like my daughter can't upload her tik toks and she's screaming at me our wifi sucks and I'm ruining her life and my wife is pissed at me because shes been telling me to call the cable company and have them send someone to fix the wifi but they say everything is working fine on their end and I should pay an extra $50 per month to go up a tier in performance which I did but it didn't fix anything.  I see this 1700AC router is like $120 but this 2200AC router is $110 so it's cheaper and better right?  Like all i want to do is go home and get back to watching golf.
> 
> I'm sure best buy billy whose been at the job for three weeks is going to take the time to explain everything properly and isn't getting to say "yeah bigger is better just buy it so I can look up your daughters tik toks to see if shes hot".


The most important thing is the simplest
Wifi and internet are not the same. Argue with anyone who says that, because misunderstanding the problem makes it worse.

Even google themselves, area arguing with me on this one and its depressing AF - these wifi speeds can be used with zero internet connection, just like a LAN cable for local network access, file transfers and so on.


You need to disable wifi, have one ethernet device. Test uploads and downloads. Tada, thats your internet. 
If you turn wifi on with a new password and it goes to shit with just the one device connected, you have a wifi issue - you need a new router, or have a very local source of interference.

You  probably need a router which has the ability to see usage in real time, so you can spot the device hogging all the bandwidth - uploading is slower than downloading and can stall the entire connection, and someone whos recorded 50GB of selfie videos that are auto updating to the cloud will ALWAYS see wifi issues, until they're finished. I've seen this happen with someone who saved videos from tiktok etc, and then had them auto upload to icloud the second they got home...


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## bug (Aug 9, 2022)

dogwitch said:


> i recently look at some wif router and notice. them lying about speeds.
> *some how a 1 gb port can do whopping 2.6 gb speeds. or another one by netgear claims 1.7g gb speeds*. again  using a 1gb source  port.....
> more i went down said rabbit hole. more lies i notice with  new models.


Where do you see that advertised?


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## Mussels (Aug 9, 2022)

bug said:


> Where do you see that advertised?


He's seeing the wifi speeds, AC3200 advertised as 3.2Gb/s (combined wifi speeds) and thought they meant single device speeds


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## boomheadshot8 (Aug 9, 2022)

I'd rather buy a 30m cable and do some holes in the wall instead of paying 200$++ for a wifi router. Even if you can't there is still a way
In france i've got 1000/500, my wifi 5 does 500 megabits/sec Isp deliver some quality "box" and management too


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## dirtyferret (Aug 9, 2022)

boomheadshot8 said:


> I'd rather buy a 30m cable and do some holes in the wall instead of paying 200$++ for a wifi router. Even if you can't there is still a way
> In france i've got 1000/500, my wifi 5 does 500 megabits/sec Isp deliver some quality "box" and management too


I'm always amazed how many blow $300 on gaming router and then place their console and PC four feet from it.  They think you are making stuff up when you say an $8 Ethernet cable would give you better performance.


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## boomheadshot8 (Aug 9, 2022)

El famoso "gaming router" : "give you 1ms ping everywhere " => that's impossible


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## dirtyferret (Aug 9, 2022)

Mussels said:


> If you turn wifi on with a new password and it goes to shit with just the one device connected, you have a wifi issue



I try to avoid "fixing" peoples wifi issue just like I try to avoid fixing people's computers (oh you think your PC has a virus that's making it slow but that eight year old celeron processor, enough startup apps to fill out a F1 starting grid and more malware on your browser than barnacles on an abandoned fishing boat has no impact?).  That said when people tell me their "wifi sucks", I would say 90% of them (at least) really mean the range on their router sucks.  In fact I've sean people using N150 draft routers that barely covered two rooms in their house while paying $50-80 for internet because their phone network is good enough and we only use the internet for their computer (see above) to pay bills.  I'm like "you realize you are paying the cable company $50-80 each month for the right to pay your cable company that bill....


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## Mussels (Aug 11, 2022)

dirtyferret said:


> I'm always amazed how many blow $300 on gaming router and then place their console and PC four feet from it.  They think you are making stuff up when you say an $8 Ethernet cable would give you better performance.


QoS is a world changer.

Even on gigabit, that doesnt mean a thing when your internet speed cant keep up - a decent router with enough RAM to buffer to prevent buffer underrun, and a CPU fast enough to do QoS to make sure the right packets get sent first is the difference between a shitty connection and a stable one.


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