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  • Hacker News
  • The wifi bottleneck is such a tragedy. We'd otherwise have 10G home broadband probably.
    by fulafel
  • 6Ghz for me causes random latency increases every 10 seconds or so, just had to stop using it because it drives me crazy
    by hhh
  • Mac? https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/23/apple_airdrop_awdl_la...

    It's been a problem for _years_. Basically the wifi card switches to another channel to see if anyone wants to do airdrop every so often. It's a bit of a joke to be honest that Apple still haven't fixed this.

    by martinald
  • Just checked mine...getting exactly gigabit speeds. Weird because everything should be on 2.5.

    Guess I need to do some debugging of my own

    by Havoc
  • I had a similar issue but on unifi gateway lite after upgrading to 1gig fibre, I couldn't get above about 250-300mbps, even wired. Everything looked good in the unifi app. Turns out in the unifi web UI there was a "use hardware acceleration" checkbox for the gateway that was unticked and not even visible in the app. Ticked that and now I am getting 900+mbps

    I also sometimes have alerts saying more than one device is using the same IP address (DHCP issues) but it won't tell me which ones! At least give me the MAC addresses!

    Unifi's stuff is great, but the software is sometimes infuriating.

    by mattlondon
  • Other trap is some of the unifi features, IIRC their IDS is one of them, will cut throughput if you are running it.
    by scrps
  • the 2.5Gbit USB network adapters using Realtek driver are actually bugged on macOS and only max out at 1.9Gbit/sec or so. Sadly the solution has been to use non-realtek 2.5Gbit adapters or simply get the 5Gbit Realtek ones that sell for almost the same price.
    by SG-
  • Are you sure? I just bought the Ugreen 2.5Gbps yesterday for this, and it uses a Realtek RTL8156BG chip. That’s the one I used to get way above 2Gbps straight to the UDR.
    by tymscar
  • > Running iperf server on the router itself creates CPU contention between the WiFi scheduling and the iperf process. The router’s TCP stack isn’t tuned for this either. Classic mistake.

    Can you elaborate on this? I don't know much about WiFi so I'm curious what CPU work the router needs to do and what wouldn't be offloaded to hardware somehow (like most routing/forwarding/QoS duties can be).

    by tripdout
  • It has nothing to do with WiFi even; when running a test you need a server that emits the test data - this could be a standard HTTP server on the internet (in case of public speed tests) or a binary like iperf that synthesizes the test data on the fly.

    You need to ensure the server is able to send the test data quickly enough so that the network link becomes the bottleneck.

    In his case he was running the test server on the router, and the router’s CPU was unable to churn out the data quickly enough to actually saturate the network link (most network equipment does the network switching/routing/NAT in hardware and so doesn’t actually come equipped with a CPU that is capable of line-rate TCP because it’s not actually needed in normal operation).

    by Nextgrid
  • (TLDR: if you want to use bleeding edge technology you must use bleeding edge drivers and firmware blobs)

    We have tested WiFi-7 gear in our lab: from the cheapest TP Omada EAP783 to the latest most expensive Cisco AP+Controller.

    Our findings:

    - Driver quality from the modems is still below average on Linux. If you want to test Wifi-7 go with the Intel BE200 card - most stuff works there. Warning: this card does not work with AMD CPUs.

    - We have seen quite a bit of problems from Qualcomm and Mediatek cards. Either latency issues, weirdo bugs on 6GHz (not showing all SSIDs) or throughput problems

    - Always go with the latest kernel with the freshest firmware blobs

    - MLO is difficult to get running properly. Very buggy from all sides. Also needs the latest version of wpa_supplicant - otherwise it will not come up. And be aware: there are several MLO modes and not all of them offer "two links for twice the bandwidth".

    Also expect to hit problems from AP side. If you read the TP Omada firmware changelogs you see that they are still struggling with a lot of basic functionality. So keep them updated to the latest beta versions too.

    I use a Qualcomm QCNCM865 in my privat setup with an AMD CPU. Feels like the latest firmware blobs and kernel drivers brought stability into their components.

    by NoiseBert69
  • As I have been trying to tell the world and keep repeating. The best version and implementation of WiFI 6E is WiFi 7. So if anyone want decent WiFi 7 they will have to wait till WiFi 8.
    by ksec
  • What do you do that makes testing, the equipment, and labor worthwhile?
    by mmooss
  • > Warning: this card does not work with AMD CPUs.

    what causes that? (I have no idea how wifi cards work)

    by NooneAtAll3
  • > I recently upgraded from a UniFi Dream Machine to a UniFi Dream Router 7

    What do these devices do that can't be accomplished by an OpenWrt One + an external AP for less money and fully FOSS?

    Another option would be a mini-PC running Linux, but it's perhaps overkill for a domestic router.

    Edit: Actually the OpenWrt One does have built-in WiFi, so you don't even need the external AP.

    by drnick1
  • > What do these devices do that can't be accomplished by an OpenWrt One + an external AP for less money and fully FOSS?

    Nice UI (as the company is best known for https://ui.com)

    by riobard
  • Good band steering and roaming. I would not use openwrt if I had to use multiple APs to cover the area.
    by ishanjain28
  • It's wasted effort in the US, since the 2025 budget bill directs the FCC to sell off much of the 6GHz band on which WiFi 7 depends.

    https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/07/trump-and-congre...

    by throwworhtthrow
  • 6GHz is blocked by almost all walls, so this would only be an issue if your network was outside.
    by astrange
  • Germany also wants to sell the 6Ghz frequencies to MNOs
    by Phelinofist
  • I guess we're going to let AT&T, Verizon and everyone else just squat the entire spectrum. "5G" and the pillaging and theft of spectrum that seems to just sit idle anyways has been such a scam. If they wanted innovation there should be more ISM bands and less dependence being encouraged on wireless providers for "Internet access" as opposed to just biting the bullet and running more fiber and copper. But that would be bad for Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T's bottom line so obviously we can't do that.
    by rpcope1
  • How would that work… will they have to force manufacturers to recall or issue mandatory updates to routers which already support it?

    FCC enforcement for interference can work for occasional troublemakers but there’s no way they can go after every single consumer who (most likely not even realizing it) bought a 6Ghz-capable router that is encroaching on the now-privatized frequency band.

    by Nextgrid
  • I'm lazy so I just fire off the occasional speed tests using Ookla.

    It doesn't _really_ seem to matter what channel width or frequency I use, I tend to get around 600Gbps from my iPhone (17, pro).

    When you make it a point to ensure you're on the correct AP, line of sight from a few feet away, sometimes I break 1Gbps. I was surprised, watching TV the other day, to randomly get a 1.2Gbps speedtest which is one of the faster ones I've seen on WiFi.

    (10gbps internet, UDM Pro, UDM enterprise 2.5Gbps switch for clients, PoE WiFi 7 APs on 6ghz).

    Honestly, I'd say overall 6ghz has been more trouble than it's worth. Flipping the switch to WPA2/3 as required by 6ghz broke _all_ of my clients last year, so I had to revert and now I just have a separate SSID for clients I have the energy to manually retype the password into. 6Ghz pretty much only works line of sight and from a handful of feet away. There were bugs last year in Apple's "Disable 6e" setting so it kept re-enabling itself. MLO was bad, so it would stick to 6ghz even when there was basically no usable signal.

    Over the course of the past year, it's gotten pretty tolerable, but sometimes I still wonder why I bother-- I'm pretty sure my real world performance would be better if I just turned 6ghz off again.

    by rconti
  • I get consistently ~1.3-1.6gbps on fast.com with similar setup (10g fiber, UDM Pro, E7, etc). I think where I live there are very few / zero folks on 6ghz...so, win.
    by ukd1
  • Optimizing for top speeds is the wrong way of looking at this.

    Even the shittiest consumer WiFi will generally give a satisfactory speed test result with decent speeds, despite being completely unusable for anything real-time like video conferencing, Remote Desktop or gaming. Your random high-speed result may very well be down to luck and doesn’t represent how stable and usable the connection will be.

    In fact what the author does here (crank up the channel width, etc) might do for a good speed test result but will start dropping out with terrible latency spikes and jitter the second he turns away from his WiFi AP.

    Smaller channel widths are generally preferable as they provide a smaller top speed but said speed will be much more stable.

    by Nextgrid
  • Interesting, I consistently get around 1.3 - 1.7 Gbps in all of my devices that support 6E and 7 (base iPhone 17, MacBook Air M3, base Samsung Galaxy S24) wherever I am in my apartment. This is with the default router and settings provided by my ISP. My router is even hidden in a sort of a cupboard with the electric switch board.
    by fossilwater
  • My MSM560 that's approximately 15 years old can do >700Mbps with a 13 Pro. If you're getting less on newer hardware something is terribly wrong.
    by Avamander
  • I just tested 1700mbits/s from my iPhone 17 PM in the next room over from my Ubiquiti E7 and I don’t even have MLO enabled. Something’s very wrong if you’re only getting 600mbit.
    by TexanFeller
  • >> get around 600Gbps from my iPhone 17

    !

    What kind of magic iPhone you have? I don't think there is any device to achieve anything close to that today[1]

    ---

    [1] The recently(2024) record is claimed to be at 938 Gbps but it is only to a 12cm distance[2]

    [2] https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10196331/1/938nbspGb_s...

    by manquer
  • Huh, I have a random 2.5G Wi-Fi 6 router with 2.5G provider connection.

    I just tested 1.3Gbps through some reinforced concrete on Wi-Fi 6, no line of sight.

    Is all that tinkering really needed?

    by ashirviskas