Two devices connected at the same time: what speed do you get?

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Quick question for all of you great technical persons out there. I have 150MBPS Internet speed running on the XB6 and I can only get 150MBPS on one device. The other device can only get about 35MBPS and either of the 5G or 2.4G networks. Caan some of you guys/gals run a test at home for me and see what you get. My main device is a brand new Surface Pro and I use my high end Samsung Tablet for comparison. Individually, they can get the 150MBPS but not together. Shaw is aware of this and is elevating the problem. Everything has been checked out in the house and no solution.

Thanks

[#2]

The 150 is split between all the users, much like the water coming into your home.

You can have as many taps connected to your water system as you want and people can use as much or little as they want, but if everybody has all of the 'taps' full open, then you will start seeing water pressure (download speed) issues.

As for your two tablets, is this when they are both trying to do a speedtest at the same time?  Or when they are both online but one is idle?

You have 150 mbps coming into your place, you won't be able to exceed that when everything is combined.

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Hi kevinds:

well if that is the case, I had better overall speed with the 75MBPS and the Hitron modem! I could get at least 75 MBPS on the Tablet as well as my Surface Pro with the 75 option. Can NOT do that now. I get 150 on the Surface Pro and no more than 35 on the tablet or any other device.

I have a major problem with what's coming into the house. 

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One other thing, the Shaw installer did everything, including only testing the speeds with one hooked up at a time. We actually shutdown all of my security devices and Alexa and still could NOT get a better speed.

[mjducharme]

Keep in mind that there are two possibilities for where the bottleneck is occurring:

1. On the Internet connection

2. Internally, on wireless

You can determine which is the case if you connect up with a physical network cable and do the speed test (as the only connected device, pick a device that has 1Gbps ethernet port and not just 100Mbps port). If you get the full 150Mbps with one device connected wired then the issue is with the internal wireless.

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Hi mj: Not sure if I am reading you correctly. Are you saying that I should take my Surface Pro and hook it up directly to the router via an Ethernet cable? I can currently get the 150MBPS on the Surface Pro with no problems via the Wi-Fi connection.

Previously with the Hitron and 75 MBPS speed, I could get that speed on 2 devices connected through Wi-Fi with no problems.

The issue is that on the 5.2, I can NOT get greater than about 30MBPS on a second device even though it is the only connected device. Anyway, I contacted Shaw yesterday and they are sending out another Tech next Friday to "maybe" replace this current XB6. I wonder if Bell/MTS's Fibre has any of these issues? Being an "older" retired "techie" myself, firbre optic cables are the future.

[mjducharme]

OK, so it is an internal Wi-Fi issue, and not a problem with your Internet connection, you are getting your 150Mbps. The problem is the second device that you are only getting 30Mbps on that one device. Connect both to the 5GHz network if possible. Do you have a model # for device 2 where I can see precisely what WiFi chipset the device has and whether it is single, dual or triple-chain?

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I don't think that it is an internal Wi-Fi issue. First, the Surface Pro has a Intel Dual Band AC 7265 which will do almost a 1000MBPS. The other device is a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 which had no problems on the 5.2 network when I had the Hitron with 75MBPS speed. Anyway, let me know what you think.

[mjducharme]

Hello,

First, to explain my reasoning regarding that it is an Internal Wi-Fi issue, I want to clarify that I do not mean to say that the problem is not with the Arris, because the Arris is part of your internal Wi-Fi network. The Arris and Hitron and all other modems that Shaw currently offers are actually two devices in one - a combination of a modem and a Wi-Fi router. The modem 'portion' of the unit provides the connection to the Internet and the Wi-Fi router 'portion' connects your two computers together and to the modem. You could have a Wi-Fi issue caused by the Arris router or a device (this would be a problem with the "Wi-Fi router" portion) which would make the Internet slow on one device or on wireless only, or a problem with the Arris modem 'portion' (or with the line) that would make the Internet slow regardless of whether you were connected with a cable or wireless. The Arris can be to blame either way, and either way would make the Internet slow, but in order to diagnose and fix the issue, a technician first needs to be able to tell whether the problem is internal (i.e. with the Wi-Fi router portion of the Arris or a device) or with the Internet service itself (i.e. a problem with either the Arris modem or with the line).

The information you provided indicates that the Surface Pro can get the full 150Mbps, and based upon that, it is certainly not a problem with either the modem portion of the Arris or with your physical line. If even one device can get the 150Mbps then that indicates that the modem portion of the Arris and the physical line are both fine.

So, that means that the issue has to be on the internal Wi-Fi network managed by the router 'portion' of the Arris. The Wi-Fi router provides an internal private network that allows your two devices to communicate with each other, and with the Internet. You say that the Galaxy Tab 4 is only getting about 35 Mbps to the Internet. Since we have confirmed that the Surface can get 150Mbps, we know that the 35Mbps limit is not actually the limit to the Internet but the limit between the Galaxy Tab 4 and the Arris Wi-Fi router. If you were to use a speed test tool that you could run on your Surface and Galaxy Tab 4 to test the speed that you can send data from the Tab 4 to the Surface (without going over the Internet) you would find that same 35Mbps limitation.

Also note that you do not have much elbow room on the Galaxy Tab 4 when it comes to data rate. It is important to understand with data rate that the actual maximum throughput is much lower than the data rate. When you say that your Intel card in the Surface can do almost 1000Mbps (actually 866.66Mbps), that is the theoretical data rate, not the actual transfer speed. The actual maximum speed is approx. one-third of the listed theoretical data rate, and so that means the Intel AC dual band (and dual chain) in the Surface supports an actual maximum speed of around 300Mbps. The Galaxy Tab 4 is in a much worse position, with wireless N support and no AC support, its maximum rate is *much* lower. With dual chain wireless N, the theoretical maximum data rate is 300Mbps, which means 100Mbps is the highest actual speed that you could get out of the Galaxy Tab 4. I could find no specification anywhere online that indicated the number of chains on the Tab 4. If it is a single chain device, the highest actual speed that you could get would only be 50Mbps (half of a dual chain device), or triple chain highest actual speed would be 150Mbps, but triple chain wireless in a tablet would be almost unheard of, especially in an older model like that one (most laptops only have dual chain). I'm going to assume that it is *not* a single chain device only due to you stating that you previously got 75Mbps with a speed test on the device with the Hitron, and a single chain device could only get 50Mbps, and since triple chain is much more rare, it is probably not that and is probably a dual chain (100Mbps highest actual speed).

Anyway, the point of that last paragraph is that your Galaxy Tab 4 will only do 100Mbps maximum so it is impossible for it to use the full speed of the 150Mbps service, but you should be able to get 100Mbps. So now to figure out the reason for the 35Mbps limitation for transfer to the Galaxy tab, there are several, and they include:

• Signal strength too low (or perhaps even too high)
• Interference
• Channel size too small
• Compatibility issue (on either the Arris or the Galaxy side)

Just to run you through all four possibilities:

1. Signal strength too low: Assuming the Arris is in the exact same place in your home as the Hitron used to be, and you are speed testing the Galaxy Tab 4 while sitting/standing in the same place as when you did the speed test on your old service that gave you the 75Mbps, then the wireless on the Arris may be slightly weaker than on the Hitron and, if that is the case, you might need to bring the device closer to the Arris to get the full rate or find a better place for the Arris. Distance between the Arris and the Galaxy Tab 4, as well as obstructions (walls, furniture) that separate them will decrease the signal, thereby decreasing the modulation and maximum data rate. Again, given the relatively low maximum data rate of the Galaxy Tab 4 (100Mbps actual is the highest that you could get), you do not have very much wiggle room when it comes to getting a fast rate and a few obstructions in the way could make all the difference between getting 35Mbps and getting 100Mbps. If you can have line of sight between the tablet and the router, that will result in optimal signal.

If, on the other hand, you are putting the tablet too close to the Arris to do the test (only a foot or two), the signal could actually be too strong, which introduces errors and will reduce the speed greatly.

2. Interference: The Arris may be on a different wireless channel than the Hitron (for 2.4 and 5GHz) and that channel may have more interference. It has gotten to the point where 2.4GHz is almost unusable because there are only 3 usable channels (1, 6, and 11) that all routers are using, so avoid 2.4GHz if at all possible. 5GHz has more channels and less possibility of interference, but the device could still have picked the same channel that one of your neighbors is using. Rebooting the Arris in this case would probably get it to select a new 5GHz channel and you may get a better rate on that channel.

3. Channel size too small: The 5GHz Wi-Fi on the Arris will need to use at least a 40MHz channel size in order for you to get 100Mbps on the Galaxy Tab 4 device. With a 20MHz channel size you would only be able to get about 45Mbps actual maximum on the Galaxy Tab 4.

4. Compatibility issue: I have seen some bugs where either the router vendor or the device vendor does not properly implement part of the Wi-Fi specification, causing the speed negotiation to incorrectly select a data rate that is lower than either the AP or the device supports, even if the signal is excellent and there is no interference. There is a complicated scheme for a device to negotiate data rate with an AP, and if there was even the slightest error in the implementation of either, you have a problem that would only appear with some makes and models of devices connecting to some makes and models of APs. These compatibility issues can be hard for vendors to spot because they may not happen to test a particular make or model of device that could have a compatibility issue. This could in fact be a problem with the Tab 4 itself and not the Arris (you should update the software/firmware of the device just in case). If it is an issue with the Arris, it could be a compatibility problem only with the particular wireless chipset used in the Tab 4, and they may not have tested the Arris device specifically with that chipset, so a bug could have gone undiscovered. Arris may have a fix if this is a compatibility issue between the wireless chipset on the Tab 4 and the modem, and Shaw may have access to that. If this is an Arris compatibility issue and they have not discovered it yet, Shaw will need to report it to them to get a fix. If Arris were to determine that such a compatibility issue was actually a problem on Samsung's end and it was up for Samsung to fix, then it would be a matter of reaching out to Samsung (or Arris or Shaw reaching out to Samsung) to alert them to the problem.

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Thank you very much for your thoughtful knowledge. When I read #3, that could definitely be an issue. With the HItron, I was getting greater than 75 MBPS, always on the 5.2 side. I can't remember what I got on the 2.4 side with the Galaxy.

Not sure where this will be going. The Shaw person is coming out this Friday to check things out again and maybe replace the XB6. I am going to print your comments to make sure the tech tries everything. Concerning the distance from the XB6, we have tried all distances. Just a note, the Surface Pro is only about 3 feet from the XB6 and I also tried an Ethernet connection with it and I got the same great speed. When I had the Ethernet connection, I tried the Galaxy and got the usual about 30MBPS.

Thank you very much and I will update after the Shaw person comes out.