Wifi home network file transfer speeds from PC to PC?

[#1]

I am considering leaving Vodafone for Plusnet, mainly because the Vodafone router is incredibly poor, and Vodafone won't tell me the password I'd need to connect to the internet with my own router - they're forcing me to use their own inferior hardware, a restriction which, by the way, is not mentioned anywhere in the contract!

One of the reasons why their router is poor is that, if I connect two Windows PC to the router via wifi, share a folder and try to copy files from one to the other, the transfer speed is about 0.5 MB / sec. I tried connecting an old 802.11n router (the Vodafone one is supposed to be 802.11ac) and the speed was around 3.5 MB / sec, ie 7 times faster!

Has anyone tried to do the same with the Plusnet router? What speeds have you achieved? Note that this has nothing to do with internet speeds, because the data goies from one pc to the router, and from there to the other PC - it never leaves my home network and it never transits on the internet.

Have you ever felt the need to use your own router to improve file transfer speeds?

Thanks!

PS Note I have quoted MB (Megabytes), not Mb (Megabits)

[#2]

I transfer files between a laptop and desktop PC via wireless and the speed is ok.. around 3mb a second. I have a USB HDD connected to the Hub One and can acheive about the same but its limited by the USB cable speed. It could be faster but its sufficient for what I use it for.

There is always the option of getting yourself a much better router though as you use the username and password that you used to set up and account with Plusnet so can choose some better hardware and away you go. Would you be transferring large files within your network quite a lot? There is a really good thread on the Kitz forum which is updated regularly: http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,14436.0.html

That's really bad that Vodafone wont let you use your own hardware and limiting you to their own router.

[#3]

Thanks. I assume you mean 3 MB/sec, not Mb (ie Megabytes, not Megabits), right? If that's the case, it's better than the terrible Vodafone router, but still disappointing, because the Plusnet router is meant to be 802.11ac, whereas I can achieve this speed ( 3 MB/sec) with an old TpLink 802.11n router.

PS Yes, Vodafone not disclosing they'll be forcing you to use their inferior hardware is awful!

[#4]

The lack of speed is probably due to the hardware on the laptop not being great and also the choke point of USB speeds of the HDD connected to the router. Would be great if I had a clone of my high end desktop PC with N wireless to test this all on. Those speeds are off the top of my head, I will give it a go by transferring a large file across the network and report back.

My advice would be to take the free Hub One router (+ P&P) when you sign up and see if it measures up to your needs. It works great for me and others have got it to cope with more advanced stuff so it might just be fine. It all depends on your needs really. My wife also wont let me drop £150 on a shiny new ASUS router but so far the Hub One has works great for something that didn't cost me anything.

Edit: Megabytes

[#5]

Thanks - much appreciated!

Ah, yes, the uber-important WAF (wife acceptance factor) !

[#6]

Just did a quick test and getting just  ~200 Mb/s using a cheap TP Link USB adaptor (it normally does better)

The 2 smaller tests were DSL speedtests.

The speeds below the graph were the throughput speeds at the time of the screenshot.

For comparison here's the same folder copied over ethernet

[#7]

Thanks!
To be clear, is 200 Mbit/sec the actual file transfer speed, or is that figure doubled because of the half-duplex effect? In other words, if one PC sends at 100 Mbit/sec and the other receives at 100 Mbit/sec, would your test (Networx, right?) show 100 or 200 Mbit/sec?

[#8]

That's the actual transfer speed.