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A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

arstechnica.com

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Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#41

Post by Pxtl »

willidiots wrote: post #9

I build public Wi-Fi networks, you've probably used one of them. AMA if you have Wi-Fi questions. To say it "sucks" is a bit harsh. It's delivering multiple hundreds of Mbps to you via an unlicensed contention-based medium. The air interface is like sending packets over a noisy Ethernet hub; it's impressive it works as well as it does. That said, this article's a good primer on some of the protocol's fundamental chal…

Once you're connected wifi is great. It's the long connection negotiation and the slow reconnection process if it gets interrupted or you switch networks that's infuriating. I get upwards of a minute of downtime when I switch from my router to my AP at home.

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#42

Post by Klathmon »

willidiots wrote: post #29
grk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does roaming devices between APs actually work? I reading through ubiquiti forums and it looks like they used to support it, but backed out of it. My specific usecase is moving around the office while being on google hangouts on my phone.

Yes it absolutely does, but it is dependent on the station (the client) doing so. One of my gripes about Wi-Fi is that it delegates too much to the station - your experience is thus dictated by whoever wrote your phone/computer's Wi-Fi chipset driver, and how they interpret the standard. Any Wi-Fi network supports roaming on the network side, you just need all of your access points to use the same SSID, and to dump u…

So on that note, do you have any brands/manufacturers/chipsets that you see as particularly good in terms of being a client?

Its always a gamble when I get a new phone/laptop/device if it will work with the multi-AP setup I have in my house, and I'm really tired of getting something and bringing it home only to find it hangs on to the furthest AP for dear life.

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#43

Post by ericabiz »

koolba wrote: post #14
willidiots wrote: post #9

I build public Wi-Fi networks, you've probably used one of them. AMA if you have Wi-Fi questions. To say it "sucks" is a bit harsh. It's delivering multiple hundreds of Mbps to you via an unlicensed contention-based medium. The air interface is like sending packets over a noisy Ethernet hub; it's impressive it works as well as it does. That said, this article's a good primer on some of the protocol's fundamental chal…

Which router do you recommend? Is the 5G band consistently worse than the default (i.e. constant connection drops) or is that just my experience?

Not OP, but we run retail stores that do cell phone and computer repair, so we needed reliable routers that could routinely support at least 10-15 clients grabbing data at any given time. We've been using the Linksys WRT1900AC (now ACS) and they've been great.

I have one here at home as well. I'm on a Gigabit connection provided by AT&T at home, and the router sits two rooms away with 2 walls between me and it. Also, my daughter is watching YouTube videos using it right now. With all that, I just ran a speed test using fast.com on my iPhone 6 and it showed 150Mbps. Really solid router.

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#44

Post by Klathmon »

emodendroket wrote: post #12
bsenftner wrote: post #10

My day to day happiness quotient shot up the day I ditched my wireless wifi and ran Ethernet cables through my spaces. I'd realized I was constantly noticing wifi issues, and an apple mbp I use for email seems to drop wifi every half hour. But no longer, with them all wired up! Realizing there are USB3 to Ethernet gadgets really hits home how our modern technology is market-driven-dumb and anti-consumer: all modern l…

I splurged on one of the expensive tri-band routers and honestly now the wireless is good enough that I don't care.

I used to live about 1/4 mile away from any other houses, and I never got why people always complained about wifi.

In my experience it always worked well, was fairly fullproof, and had fast enough speeds that it was never an issue.

2 years ago I moved into a condo that has 25 wifi APs within range of me right now. Now I get it.

Getting one of the high-end tri-band routers as you said did help, but it's still a difficult experience.

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#45

Post by XorNot »

emodendroket wrote: post #15
VeejayRampay wrote: post #8

Wifi sucks because Ethernet is still better in all aspects but mobility to this day.

Wow, it's better "in all aspects but mobility"? You're kidding. You may as well complain that batteries suck because the only advantage they have over just plugging something in is portability.

In a practical sense I use most wifi about 2m from an AP, and usually on a laptop which is already plugged in.

Realistically hi power USB3 is what I should put as ports around my house and just deliver Ethernet that way.

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#46

Post by znewman »

davidgerard wrote: post #38

My loved one went for a junior sysadmin job. They'd decided to remove all the wiring and use wifi for everything because of just the sorta hype mentioned here. Loved one pulled out a Palm Tungsten C and proceeded to crack all their WEP passwords there in the interview. Got the job too ... and the task of putting quite a bit of wiring back.

WEP passwords? What year is it again?

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#47

Post by employee8000 »

If it's a mess then as a consumer they're doing a great job hiding it from me. I have 20 devices connected to my wifi and everything is running particularly smoothly. I did get frustrated at my 802.11n 4 years ago and dropped $250 for the best ac wifi router on the market and have had no complaints since then. Sure it could be more efficient from a technical standpoint but that's not something I'm interested in and I'm happy at how seamless things are for me right now.

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#48

Post by h4waii »

davidgerard wrote: post #38

My loved one went for a junior sysadmin job. They'd decided to remove all the wiring and use wifi for everything because of just the sorta hype mentioned here. Loved one pulled out a Palm Tungsten C and proceeded to crack all their WEP passwords there in the interview. Got the job too ... and the task of putting quite a bit of wiring back.

The Tungsten doesn't support RFMON, thus it can't do packet injection, not sure how this was achieved. The most Palm OS could do was run NetStumbler, which does discovery by active beacon probing.

Maybe with a Zaurus, Libretto, or other small pocket-sized Linux machine of that era, sure.

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#49

Post by extra88 »

grk wrote: post #33
willidiots wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it absolutely does, but it is dependent on the station (the client) doing so. One of my gripes about Wi-Fi is that it delegates too much to the station - your experience is thus dictated by whoever wrote your phone/computer's Wi-Fi chipset driver, and how they interpret the standard. Any Wi-Fi network supports roaming on the network side, you just need all of your access points to use the same SSID, and to dump u…

Should I set channels on the APs in some specific way? We're using mostly apple hardware + ubiquiti APs, and to be honest I expected everything to "just work" with the defaults...

I've heard that Apple hardware in particular sticks with an AP longer than other devices, the Apple device is not continually looking for the best connection, it sticks with what it started with until the signal gets very weak. Don't take this literally but it's like Apple waits until you're down to one bar while some others wait until you're down to two bars before looking for a stronger connection from another AP.

Re: A deep dive into why Wi-Fi kind of sucks

#50

Post by hashkb »

willidiots wrote: post #9

I build public Wi-Fi networks, you've probably used one of them. AMA if you have Wi-Fi questions. To say it "sucks" is a bit harsh. It's delivering multiple hundreds of Mbps to you via an unlicensed contention-based medium. The air interface is like sending packets over a noisy Ethernet hub; it's impressive it works as well as it does. That said, this article's a good primer on some of the protocol's fundamental chal…

How do you feel about the way WiFi is marketed to the public?

I think that's the main thing OP is saying "sucks".

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