WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.960 I can guarantee you that whatever Wi-Fi speed you're getting at home is slower than what 00:00:04.960 --> 00:00:09.520 it says on your router's box, even if you're sitting right next to the antennas. 00:00:09.520 --> 00:00:15.040 But why? And how can the router companies get away with putting these speeds on their marketing 00:00:15.040 --> 00:00:20.560 if it doesn't reflect reality? It's like the feeling you get when you compare the burger in the picture to the one you actually 00:00:20.560 --> 00:00:25.400 get. Well, those speeds on your router are theoretically possible. 00:00:25.400 --> 00:00:29.440 In other words, what you'd be getting under optimal conditions. 00:00:29.440 --> 00:00:33.520 But the bad news is those optimal conditions don't really exist. 00:00:33.520 --> 00:00:40.880 One big reason why is interference. This can come from many sources, other Wi-Fi networks, wireless controllers, drones, and 00:00:40.880 --> 00:00:45.200 even microwave ovens, among other things. These can all mess with your signal. 00:00:45.200 --> 00:00:51.300 But what if you live in the middle of nowhere? You have no gadgets in your house besides a router and a laptop, and you only ever use 00:00:51.300 --> 00:00:56.520 a toaster oven. You'll still be fighting against obstructions like walls and furniture, and even if you have 00:00:56.520 --> 00:01:00.680 a clear line of sight between you and the router, you still have to think about signal 00:01:00.680 --> 00:01:06.600 attenuation. Just as a radio station gets more static-y, the farther away you drive from it, the radio 00:01:06.600 --> 00:01:11.500 waves that make up Wi-Fi signals invariably get weaker over distance. 00:01:11.500 --> 00:01:16.720 This is especially true with higher frequency signals on the 5 and 6GHz Wi-Fi bands. 00:01:16.720 --> 00:01:20.560 The higher the frequency, the more data they can carry and the faster they'll be, but 00:01:20.560 --> 00:01:24.600 the laws of physics also dictate that they'll be shorter range. 00:01:24.600 --> 00:01:29.520 Having more power to boost the signal often isn't an option, as there are legal limits 00:01:29.520 --> 00:01:34.240 on how much power a wireless router can put out in order to stop it from interfering with 00:01:34.240 --> 00:01:39.480 other electronics. This means if you get too far away, or there's just too much interference to where the router 00:01:39.480 --> 00:01:44.200 and client can't reliably hear each other, they have to negotiate a slower speed, as 00:01:44.200 --> 00:01:49.080 sending less data over a certain frequency is a good way to stabilize the connection. 00:01:49.080 --> 00:01:53.160 So it might end up working just fine, but you won't see anything close to the speed 00:01:53.160 --> 00:01:59.000 on the box. But did you know that even if you could reach those unicorn-like optimal conditions, like 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:03.240 in our country house with just a laptop right beside the router, that number on the box 00:02:03.240 --> 00:02:06.360 is still probably exaggerated. 00:02:06.360 --> 00:02:13.140 Like grossly exaggerated. Even under the best conditions possible, you'll still need to make sure your devices support 00:02:13.140 --> 00:02:18.400 the same revision of Wi-Fi as the router, and have the same number of spatial streams 00:02:18.400 --> 00:02:25.800 to take advantage of the full bandwidth. The vast majority of client devices, phones, laptops, etc., don't support more than two 00:02:25.800 --> 00:02:32.320 spatial streams. So even if your router supports more, that speed on your box won't reflect what you 00:02:32.320 --> 00:02:39.320 actually get on one device. But it can help in terms of performance when multiple devices are doing something bandwidth-heavy, 00:02:39.320 --> 00:02:45.800 like streaming video. But this Wi-Fi 6 router is a great example of something even more egregious. 00:02:45.800 --> 00:02:49.840 It promises you 1800 megabits per second of speed. 00:02:49.840 --> 00:02:55.040 Wow! In all likelihood, that's way faster than your home internet connection. 00:02:55.040 --> 00:03:00.300 But upon closer inspection, that number is derived from adding the 5 GHz and the 2.4 00:03:00.300 --> 00:03:05.200 GHz speeds together. And Wi-Fi 6 just doesn't work that way. 00:03:05.200 --> 00:03:10.040 You have to pick one band or the other, so while the 1800 is technically correct in 00:03:10.040 --> 00:03:15.240 that it's the right theoretical total bandwidth, it's very misleading in terms of what people 00:03:15.240 --> 00:03:18.280 think of when they hear speed. 00:03:18.280 --> 00:03:21.520 And we also have to say a quick word about channel width. 00:03:21.520 --> 00:03:27.080 If we're talking about Wi-Fi 6, you can have channels up to 160 MHz wide, meaning lots 00:03:27.080 --> 00:03:34.960 of space to move data. But not only are some devices unable to receive a 160 MHz signal, you open yourself up to 00:03:34.960 --> 00:03:40.080 a lot more potential interference and signal attenuation, meaning many folks have found 00:03:40.080 --> 00:03:43.480 160 MHz channels to be fairly unreliable. 00:03:43.480 --> 00:03:48.440 And although Wi-Fi 7 is on its way soon, which will support broadcasting on multiple 00:03:48.440 --> 00:03:53.960 bands at once and better performance with wide channels, this doesn't mean we should 00:03:53.960 --> 00:04:00.640 let manufacturers off the hook for their borderline dishonest claims about their products or expect 00:04:00.640 --> 00:04:04.360 that they'll label their wares in a more realistic way going forward. 00:04:04.480 --> 00:04:09.720 But of course, we're not trying to say it's as egregious as something like the Hawaii chair. 00:04:09.720 --> 00:04:13.480 That was crazy. So thanks for watching guys, if you liked this video, hit like, hit subscribe, and hit 00:04:13.480 --> 00:04:17.480 us up in the comments section with your suggestions for topics that we should cover in the future.