# Wireless performance/speed increase?



## Mr0wyx (Mar 18, 2010)

Hello!

Are there any ways of improving wireless performance/speed? Now I get 3MB/s from my router/NAS box working on FreeBSD 8.0. Could someone give my advice in which direction to look for?

Thank you!


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## DutchDaemon (Mar 18, 2010)

3 Mega_bits_/sec or 3 Mega_bytes_/sec (= ~ 24 Mbit/sec)?


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## SirDice (Mar 18, 2010)

And what speed wireless network? 802.11a, b, g or n?


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## Mr0wyx (Mar 18, 2010)

*DutchDaemon:*

3 Megabytes/s.

*SirDice:*

802.11g. 


Wireless card is:

```
[B]dmesg | grep ath0[/B]
ath0: <Atheros 5212> mem 0x50100000-0x5010ffff irq 21 at device 0.0 on pci4
ath0: [ITHREAD]
ath0: AR2413 mac 7.9 RF2413 phy 4.5

[B]ifconfig ath0[/B]
ath0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 2290
        ether XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
        media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g <hostap>
        status: running

[B]ifconfig wlan0[/B]
wlan0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        ether XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
        inet 192.168.1.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
        media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11g <hostap>
        status: running
        ssid XXXXXX channel 1 (2412 Mhz 11g) bssid XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX
        regdomain ETSI indoor ecm authmode WPA privacy MIXED deftxkey 2
        TKIP 2:128-bit TKIP 3:128-bit txpower 20 scanvalid 60 protmode CTS wme
        burst dtimperiod 1 -dfs

[B]ee /etc/rc.conf[/B]
wlans_ath0="wlan0"
create_args_wlan0="wlanmode hostap"
ifconfig_wlan0="inet 192.168.1.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 ssid XXXXXX mode 11g"
```

I have tried dturbo mode, but interface wont go up with this option in rc.conf.


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## phoenix (Mar 18, 2010)

802.11g has a theoretical max throughput of 56 Mbits/sec, or about 7 MBytes/sec.  Actual throughput depends on several factors:  distance from access point, strength of the signal, radio interference, number of clients connected to access point, etc.

If you are getting a solid, consistent 3 MBytes/sec, then you have a good, clean connection to the access point, and I wouldn't be complaining.  

There's really only 1 way to get faster throughput on wireless:  buy a faster access point (Atheros SuperG 108 Mbps 802.11g or 802.11n) and a matching wireless adapter.  SuperG bonds multiple 802.11g channels together to achieve a theoretical max of 108 Mbites/sec, but requires SuperG-capable radios on both ends.  802.11n has a theoretical max throughput of ~480 Mbits/sec.


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## Mr0wyx (Mar 19, 2010)

I have Atheros SuperG card on my router box, but I use at home only laptops so it means that I have to change all wireless cards on them. It is really painful! I'm thinking about switching all adapters to 802.11n, but little bit later. So that's why I am asking advice for any software based tweaks to improve wireless performance. I thought maybe someone done something like that.


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## richardpl (Mar 20, 2010)

Software based tweaks could be something like compression but that is just theory.


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