[reelmagik]

I have had the new airport extreme base station for 4 days now, and I have yet to see speeds over 1mbps. I have tried almost every channel on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz, using b/g compatible and n-only. Both my Mac Pro and Macbook Pro(just got that too) are 802.11n-enabled. They are on the same network with one airport base station, and I get a transmit rate of around 114-160, and an RSSI rate of -59 to -69 on almost every channel. When transferring a file from one mac to another, the transfer rate starts out at about 1mbps, and then fluctuates from .5-1mbps, with an occasional very short burst of maybe 2mbps and then eventually slows to a halt and almost never finishes.

I have a cordless phone that operates at 5.8GHz, so I am using 2.4GHz on the airport. I don't know what else to do...this is not operating according to specs at all. I am reading that people are getting up to 16mbps...and I have not gotten anywhere near that. I tried unplugging the cordless phone, turning off the modem and base station and re-starting them, but had no improvement. I live in lancaster in the country, so there is nothing around me that could be interfering. Can anyone help? What could be wrong?

[turtle777]

Sorry, I can't be of any help. But I'm somewhat not surprised. I have been suspicious of the claims of fast file transfer rates on WLAN anyways. This just confirms that if I want fast transfer speeds w/o the need of using Ethernet cables, I'd need to go the ethernet over powerline route.

-t

[Simon]

At home I use an n-type AEBS with several Macs in a g/n mixed 2.4 GHz network. I also have a cordless phone sitting right next to one of my Macs. My transmission and RSSI rates on that Mac are very similar to yours. But I see transfer rates of up to 7 MBps. This corresponds to the theoretical max of 802.11g. Previously on 802.11g I never saw anything in excess of 1.5 MBps so obviously n is doing something.

Are you actually getting just 2Mbps or do you mean 2MBps? The latter is a lot faster although it's still too low for an 802.11n network.

[reelmagik]

I meant to write 2MBps...but it is still rare to ever see even that. On my old AEBSg, I only saw .5MBps. I just don't understand why files larger than 100MB seem to time out and never finish...it's like the AEBS gets overwhelmed with large files and can't handle them.

I'm really disappointed with this new AEBS...after reading how much faster they were, I was expecting more than a 1.5MBps increase in speed. I just wonder if it has anything to do with the macbook pro...I've heard of many problems with internet access with recent models. Mine has been fine connecting to airport, but maybe it has something to do with the slow speeds?

[Simon]

Originally Posted by reelmagik 

I just don't understand why files larger than 100MB seem to time out and never finish...it's like the AEBS gets overwhelmed with large files and can't handle them.

That should definitely not happen. Does that only occur for Finder copies? Have you tried a terminal cp and checked if the behavior is the same?

I'm really disappointed with this new AEBS...after reading how much faster they were, I was expecting more than a 1.5MBps increase in speed. I just wonder if it has anything to do with the macbook pro...I've heard of many problems with internet access with recent models. Mine has been fine connecting to airport, but maybe it has something to do with the slow speeds?

What you're reporting is definitely sub-par. The AEBS should be able to push way more than 1.5 MBps. I also use a MBP with the AEBS and I haven't seen the issues you report. There should be a way to sort it out.

Have you checked Activity Monitor > Network to try and see what happens when your copies time out?

And have you set the channel manually in AirPort Utility or have you set it to automatic selection? A friend of mine set his up to use channel 6 because he read that that should work well. His transfer rates were crap. Eventually he let AP Utility set the channel automatically. It then set it to 13 and the rates were much better. It turned out half his neighborhood was on 6 and nobody was on 13.

[turtle777]

2 MBps ?

What a joke. I will probably go with this:

Powerline HD Network Kit

According to Cnet, they got up to 52.7MBps throughput.

I know this is NOT a solution for laptops, but many people will get AEBS to connect desktops (iMac, mini, Mac Pro) with each other. For that, the Powerline adapters are much better suited.

-t

[analogika]

I see 3 MBYTE per second via g network at home right now.

a big problem with the "n" standard is that there's too much interference at 2.4 GHz - if you have a cordless phone, move the base station and the phone's receiver as far away from each other as possible: They're notorious for ruining wlan reception.

From what I've read, n networking's full potential is only really realized once you switch it to the 5 GHz band.

[turtle777]

So, can anyone post the throughput they get with n and the 5 GHz band ?

Here are some benchmarks from macintouch.com

Review: AirPort Extreme 802.11n

They're getting decent rates.

-t

[reelmagik]

I have tried setting channels manually & automatically with no improvements. As of now, I have only tried sending copies via dragging & dropping through the finder...not sure how to do it via Terminal. I haven't checked Activity Monitor either becuase I don't really know what to look for. Any suggestions?

Oh, and I didn't mention that when using the 5GHz n-only setting, the connection becomes unstable and I tend to lose my internet connection as well.

[turtle777]

Read the link above, it mentions a software they used to measure the throughput.

-t

[mduell]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

2 MBps ?

What a joke. I will probably go with this:

Powerline HD Network Kit

According to Cnet, they got up to 52.7MBps throughput.

No, they got 52.7Mbps or 6.6MBps. Better than your 2MBps over wifi, but not by much.

[reelmagik]

I downloaded the AJA KONA system test, and tested the read/write speeds over Airport. After some extensive testing, I got a max average of 2.1MBps Write speed, and 2.0MBps Read speed with 5GHz & 2.4GHz n-only channels. I got a max average of 1.2MBps Write speed, and 1.5MBps Read speed with 2.4GHz b/g compatible channels.

With the 5GHz n-only, I observed a 4.5MBps peak in the activity monitor when transferring a file through the finder, but the average speed was around 1MBps.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by mduell 

No, they got 52.7Mbps or 6.6MBps. Better than your 2MBps over wifi, but not by much.

You are right.

It's "only" 3 times as fast. I still take that.

-t

[dampeoples]

Could be other things interfering, such as Bluetooth.