Wifi question

[Mog]

Can any techies help explain my wifi speeds? When I test my internet speed through the Linksys app on my phone, it shows 700-800 mbps. When I do a speed test on my phone or laptop in wifi, it never shows more than 200 mbps. Nothing fancy connected at my house, just basic couple of smart phones and netflix. Just upgraded to Cox Gigabit and also bought the latest arris router, hoping to figure out what's not allowing higher speeds.

[Green Bullet]

likely the wifi chips in your devices

[HuntHarder]

Maybe your phone and laptop are not 5ghz compatable so they are running on the 2.4ghz wireless band.  I know my computer only picks up 2.4, but my phone picks up 5ghz.  Speeds are vastly different.

[eddielasvegas]

Not much info to go on,  but start here to get accurate speed tests (for all clients) if you have not already:

https://www.cox.com/residential/support/internet/speedtest.html

Since your router is new, I'll assume (I know, I know) it's not the problem.

What about your clients?  Are they all 802.11 ac capable?

Where are your clients when you are testing the speeds?  Multiple layers of walls, etc. that might affect speed?

There might be much to this troubleshooting but this is a start.

 

Eddie

 

[Mog]

Clarification, I have a new arris modem and my router is 6 months old. Router and phones are 802.11ac, all tests performed in same room as router unobstructed. Also know phones are on 5 ghz (I believe the laptop is on 2.4 ghz).

103.4 mbps download on the link above, 34.7 mbps upload.

[eddielasvegas]

I do not know that router or its tools, but it should be able to display how clients are connecting.

Also, plug a CAT5 network cable into your laptop and the other end into a port on your router and disable the wireless on the laptop and then test the speed again.

It should get to the 1 Gb you are paying for. Also, did you power cycle your cable modem if you recently were upgraded from a slower speed connection?

Good luck,

Eddie

[Elkhunter1]

You are testing a Linksys router, what model and what is it's baseline speeds? Some routers are only 300mbps.  When you test the router through the app. you are testing the speed to the router, and when you run a test on your phone or laptop utilizing wifi you are testing through the router. This type of test has several variables, the freq. used 2.4 or 5.  the distance and signal strength. The results will also vary depending on what speed test you use, (each test will use different servers).  One test we use when working on the network is... Googlefiber.net and the other is to one of our servers. One clear way to tell is right before you run the test it should tell you the server and its location, try to find one that is close to your location. Running a test to a server in Utah will lower your results. Most internet searches will ping the closest server to find what you are looking for. 

Another speed test that is popular is speedtest.net. by oukla. This one you can change the server easier.

[NewlyMinted]

One of the nest tests you can do is to plug the laptop into the router with an ethernet cable. Shut off the wifi and do the speedtest.net mentioned above.

If wired speed is the same-ish as your wifi speed it's the router, if the wired speed is giga-fast then it's your computer.

Word of warning because Cox are not the best advocates for fair billing. The faster your speed is, generally means that you can have 3-4 devices pulling full speed downloads without issues so you reach that terabyte cap really quickly. I've got a couple of high-schoolers and almost every 3 months I get a notification from cox saying they've helpfully added $10 to my bill because I went over.