Getting faster than 72Mbps Wi-Fi speed on mobile

[Yogesh Sarkar]

I have been trying out various settings on my TP-Link TL-WR841N 300Mbps Wireless N Router. However, no matter what I do, I cannot get faster than 72Mbps link speed on mobile phones (Redmi Note 3 and Mi4i). This roughly translates into a maximum download speed of 48-49Mbps and similar upload speed.

I can easily hit 90Mbps on my desktop, which is connected via LAN. And I am wondering whether this is a limitation of my phones, router or wireless N standard and whether or not this can be improved?

Ps. there are only 3 Wi-Fi devices on the network, with ChromeCast being switched off most of the time.

 

[michalrz]

Only thing I can think of is disabling encryption for a quick test. That'd show hardware limitations of the AP/Phones.

 

[faugusztin]

802.11n single antenna device with 20MHz channel width can do only 72MBps on physical layer, and there is nothing you can do. Your PC probably does 2-3 antenna MIMO, or 40Mhz channels

 

[Yogesh Sarkar]

Only thing I can think of is disabling encryption for a quick test. That'd show hardware limitations of the AP/Phones.

Just tried that, no change in link speed whatsoever.

802.11n single antenna device with 20MHz channel width can do only 72MBps on physical layer, and there is nothing you can do. Your PC probably does 2-3 antenna MIMO, or 40Mhz channels

After taking the above screenshot, I had set the AP to 40MHz, no difference in link speed. PC is connected through Cat6 cable.

 

[faugusztin]

The question is, can you actually achieve 40MHz channel or not - that depends on how "polluted" your wifi spectrum is.

And when talking about 72MBps being maximum, i meant https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11n-2009#Data_rates
Note how with 1 spatial stream, 64-QAM, 5/6 coding rate, 20MHz channel with 400ns GI, best you can do is 72.2MBps. For >100Mbps you either need 40MHz channel, or 2 spatial streams. And phones usually have just one.

When it comes to 40MHz channels, it pretty much requires two unused channels next to each other, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11n-2009#40.C2.A0MHz_channels_in_2.4.C2.A0GHz . Question is, if it is actually doable in your case, often you can enable 40MHz, but it will not work faster than 20MHz due other networks on same channels.

 

[ND40oz]

The BCM4339 in the Note 3 is 802.11ac and provides backwards compatibility to N, it's also 1x1:1 MIMO. If you wanted faster speeds, you should have bought an 802.11ac router.