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gawilson2000

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Home Wireless Internet Review

My home PC and device system consists of an ADSL modem with wireless router, 2 old PCs, 2 older laptops, 2 android tablets, 2 old ipods and 3 android phones.

I'd like to ensure that the PCs (at least) are receiving the maximum internet speed that they can.

I think that the ADSL speed to the house is the best I can get in this location.  The modem is brand new and good quality.

On the other end of the scale - one of the old laptops wouldn't connect to the network without me reducing the security on the modem/router.  When I did this the modem-router said that I was reducing my max wireless speed to 54mbps - out of a potential 300 mbps.

I suspect that all of the PCs were already using 54Mbps - but I was surprised at the mention of 300Mbps.

So I'd like someone to talk me through looking at device connection speeds and what the possibilities are - and maybe I need to buy new network cards (?) and maybe my old laptop can receive it's connection from a PC rather than having to slow down the router.

Any ideas?
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Dave Baldwin
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gawilson2000

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So you are talking about the speed coming into the house?  How do I check that?
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This speed test seems to only give me current speeds for each device.

Isn't the first thing I'm after the speed potential coming into my house?
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You should be getting the same results from all devices and it should be the speed of your DSL connection.  What did you get?
...unless the devices are 802.11b, for example.  Then it's fair to say your DSL service could be faster than the wireless link, and that not all devices would be the same. :-)
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Well, the true max throughput is only ever in a lab, and in theory.  It's always less than half. Usually at best it's half, then subtract 10% - so around 24Mbps at 802.11a.  802.11g is around 22Mbps in practice.

The 802.11n specification actually requires AES, but it is largely considered that WPA2 is a prerequisite for AES encryption (it actually isn't though).  If you tell someone you can achieve  802.11n data-rates using WPA2 there is always the possibility of configuring TKIP encryption, and that won't give you 802.11n data-rates.
I think I've missed most of what you are trying to tell me.  :)

I think my next step is to research what speed my service provider is supposed to be providing me, the specs of my modem-router - and use what you have told me to check the speeds on my PCs.

Then I'll tell you the results.
My apologies in my delay in progressing this.  I was hoping to get back to this next week.
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I've requested that this question be deleted for the following reason:

Not enough information to confirm an answer.
Does that mean that none of the above answers are valid?