I would like to measure what speeds I am getting from my home WiFi network. I’m not talking about things like speedtest.net and the like, because they measure the speed of the broadband line. I’m talking about only measuring the throughput between my wireless router and the devices which are connected to it.
I have no idea how to go about this, and all my Google searches point towards online broadband speed tests (annoyingly, even articles that specifically refer to "wifi speed tests). The only joy I found was this article - which is exactly what I want, but only works if you have Google WiFi, which I don’t.
I figure that any solution will probably involve streaming data between two devices and measuring the latency. Are there apps for this? The WiFi router is Virgin Media Superhub 3. I have an array of Android and iOS devices at my disposal, as well as a Windows 10 laptop and a Mac, so I should be able to accomodate any solutions that are out there.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but I don’t understand why you can’t use Speedtest or Speedsmart? (or use their app on your phone?). They’re only be measuring your “broadband speed” if you are directly connected to the internet via ethernet.
The signal into your wifi router is your “broadband speed” after that it’s all your wifi. Unless you’re ethernet connected you’re then measuring the speed your wifi is transmitting through the air. I used Speedtest app when I set my home wifi up to look for slow/dead zones where the signal and speed dropped off due to distance & walls etc.
We have 1Gbs fiberoptic as our “broadband speed”, (the tech verified it with his equipment when he set it up) BUT my router maxes out at 450Mbs broadcast speed. My wifi only drops off from that max as I move around the house and it goes though walls etc.
As a baseline, if I stand next to my router, my speed is ~450mbs (with no one else using the network), but in my home office, two rooms and several cement walls away (in a direct line), it is ~20mbs.
That only works if you have really fast internet (like several hundred megabits or gigabit). Most American internet is like 20-100 Mbps, which is less than the typical wifi maximum speed for all but the shittiest routers.
No, those speedtests measure the speed between that device and the internet. This includes the speed between that device and the wifi router (likely the slowest link) as well as the speed between your wifi router and the internet. Since network speeds over a series of links are going to be limited to the speed of the slowest link, these should actually give you decent measurement of the speed between device and router.
On the other hand, if you are you asking about testing the speed between two devices (e.g. a tablet and a laptop) that are connected to the wifi router, than you’re doing a “LAN speed test” and searching for that phrase yielded some guides and tools for testing the speed of your local network. Most of these tools are going to work by measuring how long it takes to transfer various types of data.
It really depends on where you are. A lot of European and Asian countries have gigabit or similarly fast ethernet, but large parts of the US still don’t have anything faster than 10-25 Mbps or so (see one map here: Maps - FCC GIS). Faster internet is really only in the metropolitan areas.
Most routers sold recently are capable of several hundred Mbps of speed, so it’s unlikely they will be the slowest link vs your ISP’s broadband speed limits.
If the OP is setting up a media server or other home network, then it is important to know the speed at which all of the devices can communicate. The OP doesn’t seem to be interested in the speed at which they can connect to the internet, but rather, the speed at which they connect to each other.
I use an app called Wi-Fi Sweetspots to measure the wireless speed between my phone and access points. It reports the actual LAN link speed in a continuous graph, so it’s great for finding dead spots. If you have a multi-band setup, with 2.4GHz and 5GHz under the same SSID, then it’s also a good way to tell based on the speed which frequency your device has been assigned. It’s for iOS and Android.
For Mac, make sure the wi-fi status is shown in the menubar, then option-click the status menu and it will show the link speed (Tx Rate) as well as the protocol and other things. Network Utility is unreliable as it seems to incorrectly show 54mpbs on newer computers. In Windows 10, open Network and Sharing Center, then click on your wi-fi connection to view the properties.
I guess we need to OP to clarify what they’re looking for.
In the OP they say:
It seems to me that that doesn’t suggest they are going for the speed between two devices.
Regarding a media server, which I don’t have, so I’m asking this part for personal clarification:
Media Server in Room A
Router Room B
Me & my Tablet in Room C
Does the media server send a direct wireless signal to me in Room C or does it go through my router in Room B first?
It seems to me that if the Media server *does not *broadcast directly to me in Room C, then it would follow the same speed (or less depending on network traffic at a particular moment in time) as my router broadcasts from Room B to Room C. How could it be different?
I think it’s pretty clear what the OP is looking for. He wants the internal/LAN speed of his wireless network. “Home wi-fi network…and the devices which are connected to it” is not peer-to-peer communication like A->C that’s A->B->C. His router, like most, is also a switch, and thus devices can talk to each other through the router without going over the internet. The internal network doesn’t go down if the internet service does. It’s no different than testing the speed of a wired network that’s also connected to the internet. Sites like speedtest.net aren’t any help in determining if there’s a weak wifi signal (or in a wired setup, a below-spec Ethernet cable) unless his internet service faster than the internal network, which is unlikely.
I just got a new router myself. My internet speed is 200mbit but the router can broadcast wi-fi up to 1,300mbit. So compatible devices can talk to each other, through the router, at that 1,300mbit speed (or perhaps half that, which is still 650mbit), or at gigabit speeds over wired Ethernet. However, the best speedtest.net will ever show is 200mbit. Now, if it’s lower than that, then I know something’s really wrong with the internal network, but it can’t tell me if I’m getting only 400mbit speed to the router without one of the tools I mentioned upthread.
Your media server or other networked drives will communicate to each other through the router. This speed is dependant on the devices, the router and the signal strength, but it will have nothing to do with internet speed.