Wireless speeds

[#1]

@Marksfish 

USB3 to Ethernet

[#2]

I hadn't considered that, thanks.

[#3]

@Marksfish 

I think that might have been what @Dan_the_Van was hinting at.

[#4]

@RobPN 

Indeed it was my hint.

With netsh command result showing "Signal: 100% and Rssi: -40" the laptop must be very close to the hub.

[#5]

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@Marksfish wrote:

That's an interesting command. All looks good my end. May consider getting a usb dongle, need to do some rearch though.

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Just a little warning about the above! Same command on my Win 8.1 machine leads to similar output. e.g.

Name : WiFi
Description : TP-Link Wireless USB Adaptor

Radio type : 802.11n
Authentication : WPA2-Personal
Cipher : CCMP
Connection mode : Profile
Channel : 36
Receive rate (Mbps) : 867
Transmit rate (Mbps) : 867
Signal : 100%

 However, I know that 867 Mbps reported link 'speed' to be the device's capabilities, not the actual current operating link speed. Weirdly, it may be different on 2.4 GHz. Microsoft, don't you just love 'em. 😊

There are other MS net adapter commands on my system - however they return weird strings of two digit seemingly decimal numbers - and the only way I know of establishing the current working link speed of the adaptor (apart from using specialised network software) is to look in the Hub 2 router's log file.

[#6]

@pvmb 

The reasoning for using the netsh command is to find which band the NIC is connecting with the need of login into the Hub.

So provided you filter out the unnecessary lines this is really all that's required

PS C:\> netsh wlan show interfaces | Select-String "Description","Band","Channel"

    Description            : Intel(R) Wireless-AC 9461
    Band                   : 5 GHz
    Channel                : 48

For a speedtest without the need to open a browser use this PowerShell command (from gemini AI)

irm asheroto.com/speedtest | iex

What it does: irm (Invoke-RestMethod) safely grabs a clean wrapper script that temporarily downloads and executes the official, native Ookla Speedtest CLI executable, outputting your precise ping, download speed, and upload speed directly to your console.

[#7]

@Dan_the_Van 

"For a speedtest without the need to open a browser use this PowerShell command (from gemini AI)"

irm asheroto.com/speedtest | iex

"What it does: irm (Invoke-RestMethod) safely grabs a clean wrapper script that temporarily downloads and executes the official, native Ookla Speedtest CLI executable, outputting your precise ping, download speed, and upload speed directly to your console."

But isn't it the actual operating link speed of the device Wi-Fi NIC to the router that is the issue here? "Wireless speeds"

[#8]

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@Marksfish wrote:

It will show it, but it is a ball ache to have to keep logging into the router to see where the laptop is currently connected. 

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 @pvmb 

I was helping with this.

I have read the thread thank you.

[#9]

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@Marksfish wrote:

I have refrained asking for ages, to stop me looking too much of a techno pleb, but curiosity has finally got the better of me.

My laptop installs a Realtek 8821CE Wireless LAN 802.11ac PCI-E NIC wireless adaptor. I am on the 300MB speed product, which to be fair is more than adequate. My laptop wireless speeds hardly ever increase above 150mb.

Obviously my Android phone adaptor has a different protocol to my both my laptops, just wondering if buying a plug in usb adaptor could improve things? 

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Quick answer: Yes it would.

I assume any reasonably 'new' one would do the job - possibly bear in mind any future intention to contract at a higher  FF speed.

I am on 150 Mbps FF, which is more than enough for my modest requirements. Several years ago, when I was still on 40/10 Mbps FTTC, in anticipation of my one day being on FF and then needing to use Wi-Fi, as my PC didn't have built in Wi-Fi I purchased and tried out a TP-Link Archer T3U mini wireless USB dongle - which is what I still use.

Wi-Fi specs are:

867 Mbps on 5 GHz

400 Mbps on 2.4 GHz (Long story! See here - Fixed: Re: Wi-Fi Adaptor query - Plusnet Community)

This works on 5 GHz with typical connection speeds of 4X my contracted 150Mbps FF. It would not though suffice for somebody on say 900Mbps FF. So I am not 'recommending' it, I'm sure more modern devices are available now: plus ones with Bluetooth. But it does me just fine on 5GHz Wi-Fi.

[#10]

@Marksfish 

Not mentioned previously.

Along with many other router the Hub two uses a bandwidth of 20 MHz for 2.4GHz and 80 Mhz for 5 GHz, typically you will see:

20Mhz will have speed up to 72Mbps

80MHz will have speed up to 500Mbps

Link speeds are not the same as achieved speeds as you need to consider overheads.

So what ever the network card being used is you will be limited to the bandwidth of the band of the WiFi connection.

[#11]

Thanks everyone for your input, it has been very enlightening.

I don't consider myself to be a newbie at this, but all these commands and things are astonishing. I have never had to use (what I call) DOS based commands as I wasn't an early adopter (Win 3.1) , as I thought computers would never be a big thing and didn't want one🙄

Mark