In this video, I'm going to test wifi six.
Is it as good as they say it is?
Now please note this video is more for informational purposes.
If you are studying for your CNA and you are short on time, then feel free to skip this video.
In this video, I'm actually not using a Cisco device.
I'm using a Netgear router.
It's a device that I've added to my home network and I'm testing the throughput between various iPhones
and a server as well as a PC with a Wi-Fi six enabled network card and a server.
I want to test whether Wi-Fi six is as good as they say it is.
So I'm going to test various IP phones.
iPhone seven, iPhone ten, iPhone ten x max, iPhone 11.
I want to see all wi fi six claims as good as they say it is.
Do we get good throughput with a wi fi six device?
I think it's important that you see a practical example of wi fi six and see the throughput that it
gives you.
But if you short on time, then feel free to skip this video and go to the next video.
Otherwise, continue watching.
So here's the question is wifi six as good as they say it is?
Is it worth investing in a Wi-Fi six router?
So to help answer that question, I've got a new netgear router here.
This is an ax eight router.
The supports wifi six.
So let's see if this actually performs as well as vendors say it does.
Now, having a router by itself doesn't really help you.
You need clients.
So I've got a range of iPhones here.
iPhone seven, iPhone X, iPhone Xs Max.
iPhone 11.
The only phone that supports WiFi six is the iPhone 11.
So let's see if this actually makes a difference.
To also do another test.
I've got a wi fi six enabled codger which I'll install in a computer and we'll test if this actually
makes a difference as well.
So does Wi-Fi six live up to the hype?
Is it worth you buying a wi fi six router?
Everything.
Now there is one issue here.
And that is that my home Internet connectivity isn't that great.
In other words, I don't have a fiber to home Internet connection.
It's actually running quite slow here.
It typically runs at about 63 megabits per second.
This is not a good way to test how fast the wi fi is.
So unlike other people, I'm not going to try and use an application on the phone that connects to the
internet to test internet speeds or wi fi speeds.
That doesn't really help.
What I'm going to use is I perf I'm going to run, I perf on the phones, I'm going to run, I perf
on a PC.
In other words, on this Mac here and I'm going to connect a via the wi fi to that ippv device and I'm
going to test the actual throughput.
I'll also do that using this network card.
So test the throughput with one PC using this and another PC connected to the physical network.
Now, before going any further, let me give you the spoiler, because some of you are not going to
watch the entire video.
Is it worth getting Wi-Fi six enabled devices?
We'll have a look at these speeds on my iPhone 11.
I think it's well worth it.
What about these speeds on a PC with a network interface card that supports Wi-Fi six?
I noticed that the difference in speed between a wired connection and a wireless connection using sort
of a controlled environment isn't that great?
So the wi fi connection was approaching the speeds of the physical Ethernet connection in my PC.
Speed differences on phones vary a lot.
You need to have a modern device like an iPhone 11 or Samsung Galaxy ten that supports Wi-Fi six.
A lot of new devices now will be supporting wi fi six.
You can only get the true benefits of wi fi six and all the enhancements with regards to speed and so
forth.
If you have a client that's capable of wi fi, six different phones here, not all of them support wi
fi six.
So you'll notice a difference in the speeds that they attain using the wi fi network.
Is it worth buying a wi fi six enabled device?
Well, I think it is.
In my tests, I found that the iPhone 11 outperformed the other phones.
I also found that a PC with a wi fi six enabled network card reached amazing speeds very close to physical
Ethernet.
Now, there's obviously a lot of variables.
How far away are you from the access point?
What are you sending your traffic through?
If you're trying to go through a solid brick wall, you're not necessarily going to get the same throughput
as I did in my experiments where the device was very, very close to the access point or in this case,
the wi fi enabled router.
But is it worth it?
I think it is.
But you need client devices that support Wi-Fi six to justify the cost of purchasing a wi fi six enabled
router.
Okay.
So without further ado, let's get started.
And I'm going to show you in detail now how I set up this netgear router, how I set up the pc with
that network cord, how I tested the speeds on the iPhones using IP.
Okay, so the first thing I need to do is unbox my new home router.
This is a netgear router once again.
Hopefully it's going to improve the performance from my previous wi fi connections which were using
these Apple devices.
So these airports, hopefully this will be a lot better than the Apple AirPods and other devices.
This is a modern Netgear router.
I've got a very old one here which I'll use for explaining some concepts later.
This router only supports 2.4 gigahertz.
82.11 it says supports g networks 108 megabits per second according to this.
So that old router doesn't have the performance of a modern router.
This route is supposedly supports two gigabits per second wide connectivity for faster internet.
Now that's a problem with WiFi six.
The physical network that I have here at home only supports one gigabits per second.
So this switch is an example is one gigabit per second.
Now that's just a small switch that I've put on my desk for demonstration purposes.
I do have other switches in the house, but they support one gigabits per second.
That means I need to upgrade my network to fully support WiFi six.
It's an issue that's going to be affecting a lot of networks in the real world because Wi-Fi six devices
can connect at greater speeds than one gigabits per second.
According to this 4.8 gigabits per second.
So in other words, in theory, a device connecting to this will be able to transmit at higher speeds
than my physical network.
Okay.
Enough talking.
Let's get this device out of here.
Now it comes with a quick start guide.
We've got the router itself.
Nicely packaged.
Got power supply.
I'm based in the UK, so we've got a UK power supply.
We've got Ethernet cable.
And if I was based in Europe, I'd use that.
But I'm not.
If you use the UK plug.
Okay.
So we told.
To unwrap it as follows.
Take the plastic off.
Now on the right, I've got a default network key.
So I can use my phone to connect to that as an example.
If I connect to the wireless network.
It's got LED options on and off.
It's got USB ports, two of them.
It's got five Ethernet ports, two of which.
Can be used in aggregate.
So do either channeling or some kind of channeling.
I've got an internet connection on an orphan.
Obviously got a power port as well.
So power the sun and then I'll connect to the network.
I won't bore you with the basic settings.
Big thing is the test.
Does it perform as they say it should at wifi six speeds?
Okay.
So I've got it plugged in and powered up initially.
When it starts up it makes quite a bit of noise but then tightens down.
You don't typically have your wi fi devices, however, so close to your end devices.
So this will go upstairs in the roof.
But it's okay where it is for the moment.
Now I want to connect to that.
So.
And I'm going to select join Netgear 75.
Don't want to join it.
Yes, I do.
Okay.
So in my initial tests, I found that it didn't work as well as I expected.
I had to make some changes.
One of the changes that I had to make is make sure that the devices are connecting via five gigahertz
and not 2.5 gigahertz.
So I've got my three phones connected via the wireless network.
I've got my MacBook connected to the physical router.
So rather than having it connect to the switch of connected directly to the border.
In this example, I've got an Ubuntu PC running within VMware on my mac.
I have config.
Shows me that this is the IP address.
And what I'll do is start.
I perf on the server using this port number.
Now the rod is making a bit of noise, but hopefully you don't hear it.
What I'll do is on the first phone connect to the Ubuntu server port 5 to 0 one.
Let's see what kind of speed we get.
And that's what I'd expect.
518 megabits per second in a 10/2 period.
521 megabits per second.
That's good on this phone.
543 megabits per second.
Varying a little bit.
I've only got a gig connection to the server, but 545 megabits per second is good.
On this one 700 and something 800.
That's kind of the speeds that I would expect for wifi six.
Much better performance than the other phones.
This is obviously not very scientific.
Got the device right next to me.
Three IP phones, but kind of shows you what happens.
This is kind of what I was getting in previous tests.
So when I do that again, we're still getting 700 and something.
So 726 megabits per second minimum, 649 max, 774 on this phone.
581 megabits per second.
Not too bad.
So minimum 489, maximum 585 on this phone.
Varying a but once again.
So iPhone 11 726 definitely made a difference in performance having WiFi six on this phone 555 on this
one 511 So as I went through the generations of iPhone, the throughput got better.
The new iPhone supports eight or 2.11 x, which is wi fi six previous generation supported 82.11 ac
wi fi five and the same is true for the iPhone ten.
So definitely had an increase in performance.
I'll run the phone right next to the access point.
I typically don't want to run it so close.
Still getting good performance, though, maybe a bit less than what we had before.
670 over here, getting better performance a little bit further away from the access point.
It was too close to the access point.
So getting a bit of a better speed.
I'll hold it right here next to the camera.
Still getting decent speeds, 700 and something.
So not too bad.
It varies when I move the phone around.
But there you go.
I've demonstrated that wi fi six gives us better performance through that device.
I'm getting great performance here on my devices compared to what I would have previously got using
my older wi fi devices.
So let's see if this network card is as good as they say it is, and let's see if wi fi six is close
to a physical network connection.
Now to help me do that, I'm going to run it perf on this computer as well as that computer, and I'm
going to test it using a physical ethernet cable.
So I've physically cabled that computer to my Netgear router and what we'll do is we'll try it using
a physical connection and then I'll try it using a wireless connection.
Okay.
So first thing, hopefully you can see this.
I've got a wired connection and a wireless connection.
So what I'll do is turn off the wireless connection.
IP address shows me that the IP address on this device is ten zero zero 12.
So that's the current IP address on the PC.
So clear that.
And what I'll do is start the IP server.
So I perf is now running on that PC and what I'll do is start the client on this PC.
And as you can see, it's transmitting over 900 megabits per second.
So that's excellent.
We're not getting gig speeds.
This only supports one gigabit per second.
But there you go.
That is a physical connection.
So I'll do that again.
Physically, we are getting over 900 megabits per second.
Okay.
But now let's do the real test.
So what I'll do is.
Turn on the wireless.
And.
I'll disconnect the Ethernet cable on the router.
So on the server you can see we only have a connection to wireless.
Now the IP address of the PC now is ten 004.
So.
Over here.
Ten 004.
So I'll start perf again.
And on this side, let's send traffic to ten 004.
Okay, so we still getting over 900 megabits per second.
I'm really happy with that performance.
Physically, we were getting 941 939.
Now I'm getting 916 914.
So sending traffic again, we're getting over 900 megabits per second through the wireless connection.
So 921 920.
I would say I'm really happy with that performance.
Notice once again, Ethernet cable is disconnected, so there's no Ethernet cable on that PC.
I'm getting 920 918 megabits per second.
So really happy with that performance.
Now once again on the PC IP address shows me that this is the IP address.
The Ethernet connection is disconnected.
I only have a wireless connection enabled, so start that server again.
Ron IP getting over 900 megabits per second.
I'll connect to the router.
And as you can see, this IP address is connected via wireless.
I only have three devices connected.
I've got an ubuntu server which is this one.
IP address shows me that this virtual machine running on my mac has an IP address of ten 006.
This is my Mac and this is the Ubuntu PC running over there behind me.
So again, I'll clear the screen.
Connect to that to PC using wireless or wifi six.
You can see that we're getting over 900 megabits per second.
Again, I'm limited physically to a one gig connection to this PC over here.
So one gig.
So I'm really happy with that performance, really happy with this network card getting close to one
gigabits per second of throughput using this WiFi six adapter.
I could probably make it even better if I had two wifi devices.
I found, however, that a phone to that PC doesn't do as well.
I can do one more test.
So here is my iPhone.
I'll start, I.
Go to the server.
Ten 004.
And start downloading.
I've got to make sure I'm on the right wi fi network.
Start.
You are not getting the kind of performance that I would have expected, getting over 100 megabits per
second, but not what I would want to get.
Try upload.
That's better.
Still not great.
400 megabits per second.
Much nicer to see over 900.
So start that again.
400 megabits per second.
Not too bad.
But again, when I'm doing it from PC to PC, I'm getting over 900 megabits per second.
So that's a lot better.
Okay.
So that was a demonstration of wi fi six.
I've demonstrated wi fi six from iPhones to a Ubuntu server connected to the physical network.
I've also shown you PC on ethernet physical ethernet to wi fi six.
Also phone to wi fi six.
I'm very happy with the speeds that I'm getting now.
Obviously I've got the router right next to me.
Typically you wouldn't do that.
You wouldn't have your devices right next to the Ryder.
Now Netgear, do you have another type of device that has a five gig Ethernet port?
So perhaps if anyone's interested, I might buy one of those and then get a ten gig switch and see if
I can run it even higher speeds.
See if I can get a higher throughput on wi fi six.