Dual band wireless adapter

[MasterBlaster76]

I've recently switched from Sky BB to BT Broadband - the BT Sport offer was too good to pass up. BT of course has the BT HomeHub, which is a dual band router - a far cry from the crappy Sky router.

What I'm trying to find out is whether I'd see much of a speed/performance increase if I buy a dual band wireless adapter to complement the HH4's dual band ability? The router is downstairs, but my room is the first room off the landing and the wireless adapter is currently positioned next to the door, so the signal only has to go through one wall. I have heard that 5ghz range isn't as good as 2.4ghz - going by that setup, would I notice any significant improvements with a dual band adapter?

I'm looking at this one; it got 4.5 stars across almost 1,000 reviews at Amazon:

TP-Link TL-WN822N 300MBPS High Gain Wireless N USB Adapter

What about those external dual antennae - do they make a difference?

 

[zeustrojanstark]

It should work just about well.Dont expect it to be as perfect as if the router is nearer but this should work well enough for you.

 

[MasterBlaster76]

To clarify, my internet's working OK on 2.4ghz - no dropouts etc; I'm trying to figure out whether I'd see any significant improvement with a dual band adapter.

My current numbers are:

Connection Speed: 5.85mb
Download Speed: 5.09mb
Upload Speed: 0.81mb

Incidentally, why is Upload always so far behind Download?

 

[zeustrojanstark]

The upload speed is way behind download speed because most high-speed Internet connections, including cable modems and DSL, are Asymmetric ? they are designed to provide much better speed for downloading than uploading. Since most users spend much more time downloading than they do uploading, high speed Internet providers have designed their systems to give priority to downloading.Another factor to be aware of is that providers advertise their speeds in kilobits, whereas Fetch reports speeds in kilobytes. 8 bits equal 1 byte, so the numbers you see in Fetch will appear to be smaller than the numbers advertised for your connection. You must multiply the number you see in Fetch by 8 for an accurate comparison.

Coming to your current numbers,i dont really know what to comment,all i can say is you will find some improvement for sure.

 

[MasterBlaster76]

Cheers; I'll go ahead with the purchase in that case. Thanks for your help.

 

[zeustrojanstark]

No issues MB

 

[MasterBlaster76]

The new adapter arrived today, and upon plugging it in my internet speed increased from 54mbps to 130-150mbps, so the adapter's clearly much more powerful. The trouble is my BT HomeHub still isn't registering anything under the 5ghz band - surely with a dual band adapter, it should now be recognised under the 5ghz band?

 

[zeustrojanstark]

Congrats on your new adapter.I told you that there will be a difference in the speed but did not know it will have such a big difference. 2.5GHz and 5GHz are different flavours of Wi-Fi. 5GHz has a shorter range and can't penetrate walls!

 

[MasterBlaster76]

Congrats on your new adapter.I told you that there will be a difference in the speed but did not know it will have such a big difference. 2.5GHz and 5GHz are different flavours of Wi-Fi. 5GHz has a shorter range and can't penetrate walls!

Oh right - so 5ghz is only of real use if the router is basically in the same room as the PC? I won't bother then.

 

[Chewie]

I think it's more if there are interferences in the 2.4GHz frequency, you can switch to the 5GHz one? It should be able to go through walls cos it would be rather pointless otherwise.

In terms of speed, you should see how much you get while plugged into ethernet to know the capabilty of your connection

 

[MasterBlaster76]

I think it's more if there are interferences in the 2.4GHz frequency, you can switch to the 5GHz one? It should be able to go through walls cos it would be rather pointless otherwise.

In terms of speed, you should see how much you get while plugged into ethernet to know the capabilty of your connection

Either way, I can't get my devices on the 5ghz network for some reason. I thought the router would recognise the adapter as dual band and that would be that.

 

[zeustrojanstark]

Oh right - so 5ghz is only of real use if the router is basically in the same room as the PC? I won't bother then.

Yeah.They should be in the same room.I doesnt make much sense for me but this is it.

 

[MasterBlaster76]

Yeah.They should be in the same room.I doesnt make much sense for me but this is it.

OK; this is odd. Yesterday I was getting a pretty solid 130+ mbps; this morning I'm getting fluctuations from 7mbps to 28mbps, to around 58mbps but it isn't going any higher than that.

I just changed the direction of the antennae and now I'm getting a pretty solid 144mpbs. I'm going to monitor it over a few days and see if I can actually notice a real world internet performance increase or not; a number on its own isn't much use. The Speedtest numbers aren't really any higher.