Now I'm wondering if the Park and other users are the only causes of slow Wifi.

[TCW]

First I will say that I am by no means an expert on Wifi or the internet. We had a few days of rain, so I did some playing with my wifi capture equipment. I did a series of three speed tests (speedtest.net) using different configurations of my computer, Nanostation M2, and WFR Go2.

 

I currently have access to Comcast internet, There were no other devices/users on the system at the time of the tests. An ethernet connection to my computer gave averages of Ping 15, Down 93.3, Up 12.15 before the tests and Ping 16, Down 94.0, Up 12.14 After the other tests were completed.

 

The numbers for my Toshiba L555 computer running Windows 10 connected by Wifi to the Comcast router were: Ping 15.3, Down 34.2, Up 12.19.

 

Connecting by Wifi using the Nanostation connected directly to the computer by ethernet was: Ping 15.3, Down 88.09, Up 12.12.

 

Using the Nanostation/WFR Go2 combination (the Nanostation was in the exact same location as when connected to the computer) connected to the comcast router by Wifi : Ping 17.3, Down 23.11, Up 12.13. These results are consistent with many previous experiences where using the Go2 or Go2/Nanostation combination is slower than the computer if the computer can capture the signal at good strength.

 

The results of the Nanostation connected directly to the computer really surprised me. This may be worth trying in challenging situations before I give up entirely on a Park's wifi system.

 

I'm curious if others have seen similar results with the types of equipment they are using.

[LFDR3116]

The park we were at last winter had starting using cable internet and it was lousy. They previously had AT&T and it always worked and was usually pretty fast. The cable internet service was not as advertised and everyone had trouble logging on, staying on, and even having internet. It varied from day to day. Owner of campground was discussing what he could do since they were not supplying the service/ speed advertised but charging him for the faster better service (ha) anyway. He had added repeaters thru the park - bigger and better they said - made no difference. It was a lousy set up and the owner wanted to improve over what he previously had. He is now looking a fiber optic when it becomes available in the area. Great guy who want to provide the best he can to his campers.

[Mark and Dale Bruss]

We can connect WiFi as WAN with our Pepwave SOHO and CPE connect with an Ubiquiti Bullet to Park WiFi. Connecting is not the problem. And the WiFi is usually not bad at 4:00 AM. But most of the day and surely the evening, we find the only way we can surf the web is by Verizon. The effects of people who think the Internet is a way to avoid paying for satellite TV.

[TCW]

My point was not to extol the virtue of cable internet or dismiss the impact of other users, but simply to share my observations of the impact that choice of equipment had in at least this one situation. When starting with a marginal system speed, I would think that any additional speed loss would only make things less tolerable. Equipment like repeaters/wifi hotspot routers (Pepwave SOHO, WFR, Etc.) can reduce speed up to 50%. Half of slow is slooower.

 

As I said in the original post, what surprised me most was the increased speed when using the Nanostation as an external wifi adapter compared to using the radio in the computer.

[Mark and Dale Bruss]

Actually to a single end user yes. But if everyone was receiving data slower, the data pipe to the Park would not be overloaded.

 

If you understand a ping, which is a very short control Internet messages, if a ping can't through, then the data pipe in overburdened. That is from the amount of traffic, not the number of repeaters.

[TCW]

...If you understand a ping, which is a very short control Internet messages, if a ping can't through, then the data pipe in overburdened. That is from the amount of traffic, not the number of repeaters...

I don't claim to be an expert, but a single radio repeater (which many are) can not receive and transmit at the same time. If you have been at places that use a string of repeaters, you can see pretty easily how the speed declines with each hop. I have had numerous occasions where using the Nanostation to connect to APs closer to the original source resulted in faster speeds even though the signal strength was considerably weaker than that of closer APs that were farther down the chain.

 

But here again, I think your missing my point. The only difference in what I described that I observed was in how I used my equipment.

[Jack Mayer]

My point was not to extol the virtue of cable internet or dismiss the impact of other users, but simply to share my observations of the impact that choice of equipment had in at least this one situation. When starting with a marginal system speed, I would think that any additional speed loss would only make things less tolerable. Equipment like repeaters/wifi hotspot routers can reduce speed up to 50%. Half of slow is slooower.

 

As I said in the original post, what surprised me most was the increased speed when using the Nanostation as an external wifi adapter compared to using the radio in the computer.

When using the Nanostation that way you are only going through one device. In effect it is the same as your laptop directly connected to the park access point with a GOOD connection. The NS is simply acting as your internal (laptop) radio would. SO there is no extra device in the connection stream. And the NS is a better radio than what is in a typical laptop, so it may preform better than your laptop radio, even if that (laptop) radio has the best signal it can get.

 

Every extra radio or Ethernet adaptor you insert into the data stream is going to slow it down. There are "some" things you can do to mitigate that (slowing) effect, but in general it is going to slow things down. The purpose of the Go2 and rooftop radio is to provide a connection when otherwise one would not be available. But it may be slower than what would be possible if it was not used AND you were close to the signal source. It is ALWAYS best to use the least equipment possible to capture the signal, assuming the equipment is capable of properly getting and managing said signal.

 

From a pragmatic perspective, I always test with just the laptop first on a suspect connection. If that is satisfactory then I do not introduce wifi capture devices into the stream. In situations where you need the extra router on your end then you may introduce some slowness, but the function of the router, if it is important to you, negates that in practice - eg. you have a NAS or some other function requiring the routers presence.

[Jack Mayer]

BTW, even using a multi radio repeater - which I always do - does result in speed reduction. At least outside the lab. It is just not as much. The results of loading on the radio set is as important, in practice, as many of the other factors. Start streaming a couple of movies across an AP (multi radio) and see what happens. Even using advanced features like TDMA does not really help much in practice with overloaded streams. It does help a more random interaction between clients and normal Internet traffic, but streaming can easily flood a connection. Not ONE stream, of course, but lots of them. And if you allow streaming there WILL be lots of them. I've let streaming go in a 135 site park, where 98 sites are on a 100 mbps fiber connection with state of the art equipment properly configured. Believe me, it does not work. Given no controls, those 98 sites will have about 250-300 active connections at some points in the day, and there will be at least 15 streams attempting to go at once. You can imagine the chaos. Just smart phones alone - left to their own devices - can glom up the system pretty bad. Everyone has them, and almost everyone sets them to the wifi. If nothing else was happening it would not be an issue.