Wi-Fi Performance samples

 Wi-Fi Performance, broadly

Number 2 in a series on Wi-Fi performance. This time, Wi-Fi (and networking in general) is compared in difference places is compared. Sneak preview: Bluetooth PAN is the slowest :-)

I ran a simple speed test and gathered latency information (round-trip UDP times) in a variety of places and network. No surprise, Ethernet is the fastest and Bluetooth is the slowest. Airport Wi-Fi had generally high throughput (it's higher throughput than my house Wi-Fi network, although note that I have fiber with a low bandwidth cap) but with medium latency.

PAN? Bluetooth Personal Area Network? What's that?

Bluetooth PAN (Personal Area Network) is a technology that lets you share an internet connection from one laptop to another using Bluetooth instead of Wi-Fi. I'm not quite sure why people would do this, but it's still supported in Windows. It's got a non-winning combination of low speed and high latency. 

To actually share a network connection using PAN:

1. On the "host" laptop, open the Mobile Hotspot settings, and share your Wi-Fi (or Ethernet) connection with Bluetooth. 

2. On the "using" laptop, you need to get to the PAN settings page. AFAICT, there's only one way to do this: 

• right-click on the Bluetooth icon and click "Join a Personal Area Network"
• in the resulting Vista-era "Devices and Printers", select the "host" computer whose network you want to join. You might need to first pair with the "host" computer.
• click connect using and select direct connection.

Wi-Fi: Is it faster on AC? Is it slower on Battery?

 Wi-Fi Performance: AC versus DC

One of a series of comparisons to learn what makes a difference in Wi-Fi performance.

TL/DR: they aren't difference, at least on my setup.

In the screenshot, I've done several latency, download, and upload tests against one specific server.

Test methodology: With the laptop plugged in, run all the speed tests twice with "AC" as the note. Then remove the docking station (the part that is plugged in) and run the same tests against the same server and mark them "DC".

Data Analysis: 

• Download mean throughput increased from 16.2 Mbps to 18.4 Mbps going from DC to AC. This isn't a large difference.
• Upload mean throughput decreased from 31.3 Mbps to 31.28 Mbps going from DC to AC. This is almost certainly not a real difference.
• Mean Latency decreased from 12 msec to 10.3 msec. My stats program tells me this is probably a real difference. The DC had a little bit less jitter, but not by a real amount.

Conclusion: Wi-Fi is about the same speed on DC as it is on AC.