Optimising UniFi AP WiFi.

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Paul1977

5047 posts

Uber Geek

#288214 14-Jun-2021 13:22

I have 3 UniFi APs (1x UAP-AC-LR, 2x UAP-AC-Lite).

Speed in them is OK, but probably not as good as I would have expected - so just trying to figure out is there's anything obvious I can do it improve them.

I do speed tests on wifi using the speedtest.net app on iPhone 12 and iPad Air (4th Gen). I get about 300Mbps connected to the UAP-AC-LR, and about 250Mbps one of the UAP-AC-Lite (without any obstructions between me and the AP).

I'm on Unplan Fibre Max which tests at about 900Mbps over ethernet using speedteset.net website.

I have 2.4Ghz manually set to channels 1, 6, 11 on the three APs with 20MHz channel width. 5GHz manually set to 36, 44, 149 with a 40Mhz width. When set to auto channel selection it would often stick multiple APs on the same channel, and would also often use a DFS channel for 5GHz - my understanding was neither of these were ideal hence why I've got them manually set now.

Band steering and airtime fairness are both enabled. LAN to WLAN multicast is disabled except where required (which is actually quite a few devices that require it to work).

Controller version and firmware are all up to date.

This is a home deployment, so not a large corporate network or anything like that.

Thanks

tanivula

991 posts

Ultimate Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#2728517 14-Jun-2021 13:58

Interesting. Out of curiosity (no Apple iOS devices to play with here) can you see your connection rate on the device itself?

Have a USG / 60w PoE Switch / 2x AC lites here. Just trialled a speedtest test on my S21 in the same room as one of the APs and it hit 590mbit down and 270up. Phone shows 780mbps network speed.

Any reason you haven't gone VT80 for the 5ghz band?

Paul1977

5047 posts

Uber Geek

#2728529 14-Jun-2021 14:19

tanivula:

Interesting. Out of curiosity (no Apple iOS devices to play with here) can you see your connection rate on the device itself?

Have a USG / 60w PoE Switch / 2x AC lites here. Just trialled a speedtest test on my S21 in the same room as one of the APs and it hit 590mbit down and 270up. Phone shows 780mbps network speed.

Any reason you haven't gone VT80 for the 5ghz band?

I think only in so far as the reported throughput in the speedtest app.

Main reason was so I could have all 3 APs on different channels with no overlap (and not use any DFS channels). I also seem to recall testing with VT80 and not seeing any improvement (but I have rebuilt my network since then, so might be worth another try). But then what do you do about overlapping channels?

Mehrts

1063 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#2728609 14-Jun-2021 17:22

DFS channels are fine to use, especially if you're nowhere near airports/weather radar stations.

If there is a conflict with DFS & whatever Radar is being detected, then you'll get a controller notification saying that it has moved to another channel.

This will free up the 5GHz spectrum to be able to use the 80MHz channel widths.

richms

28189 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#2728612 14-Jun-2021 17:25

Not all devices support DFS channels so they can really only be used in a high density deployment where there is great coverage from the standard channel APs available thruout the area. Mainly android phones and streaming boxes will not use them.

Richard rich.ms