see here's the question is Wi-Fi six as
good as they say it is is it worth
investing in a Wi-Fi six router so to
help answer that question I've got a new
Netgear router here this is an ax 8
router the supports of Wi-Fi 6 so let's
see if this actually performs as well as
vendors say it does now having a router
by itself doesn't really help you you
need clients so I've got a range of
iPhones here iPhone 7 iPhone X iPhone XS
Mac's iPhone 11 the only phone that
supports of Wi-Fi 6 is the iPhone 11 so
let's see if this actually makes a
difference to also do another test I've
got a Wi-Fi 6 enabled card here which
I'll install in a computer and we'll
test if this actually makes a difference
as well so does Wi-Fi 6 live up to the
hype is it worthy you buying a Wi-Fi 6
router
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a please note no one sponsored me for
this video I purchased the router myself
I've purchased the iPhones myself so
this is a totally unbiased review of the
Netgear router and my Wi-Fi six Tests
unlike perhaps some of the other youtube
videos that you'll find out there now
there is one issue here and that is that
my home internet connectivity isn't that
great in other words I don't have a
fibre to home internet connection it's
actually running quite slow here it
typically runs at about 63 megabits per
second this is not a good way to test
how fast the Wi-Fi is so unlike other
people I'm not gonna try and use an
application on the phone that connects
to the Internet to test internet speeds
or Wi-Fi speeds that doesn't really help
what I'm gonna use is iperf so I'm gonna
run I both on the phones
I'm the run iperf on a PC in other words
on this Mac here and I'm going to
connect via the Wi-Fi to that I perv
device and I'm going to test the actual
throughput I'll also do that using this
network card
so I'll test the throughput with one PC
using this and another PC connected to
the physical network now before going
any further let me give you the spoiler
because some of you are not gonna watch
the entire video is it worth getting
Wi-Fi 6 enabled devices we'll have a
look at these speeds on my iPhone 11 I
think it's well worth it what about
these speeds on a PC with a network
interface card that supports Wi-Fi 6 I
noticed that the difference in speed
between a wired connection and a
wireless connection using sort of a
controlled environment isn't that great
so the Wi-Fi connection was approaching
the speeds of the physical Ethernet
connection in my PC speed differences on
phones vary a lot you need to have a
modern device like an iPhone 11 or
samsung galaxy 10 that supports Wi-Fi 6
a lot of new devices now will be
supporting Wi-Fi sex you can only get
the true benefits of Wi-Fi sex and all
the enhancements with regards to speed
and so forth if you have a client that's
capable of Wi-Fi six different phones
here not all of them support Wi-Fi six
so you'll notice a difference in the
speeds that they attain using the Wi-Fi
network is it worth buying a Wi-Fi six
enabled device well I think it is in my
tests I found that the iPhone 11
outperformed the other phones I also
found that a PC with a Wi-Fi six enabled
network card reached amazing speeds a
very close to physical Ethernet now
there's obviously a lot of variables how
far away are you from the access point
what are you sending your traffic
through if you're trying to go through a
solid brick wall you're not necessarily
going to get the same throughput as I
did in my experiments where the device
was very very close to the access point
all in this case the Wi-Fi enabled
router but is it worth it I think it is
but you need client devices that support
Wi-Fi six to justify the cost of
purchasing a Wi-Fi six enabled router
okay so without further ado let's get
started and I'm going to show you in
detail now how I set up the snakeir
router how I set up the PC with that
network card how I tested the speeds on
the iPhones using iperf okay so the
first thing I need to do is unbox my new
home router this is the Netgear router
once again
hopefully it's going to improve the
performance from my previous Wi-Fi
connections which we're using these
Apple devices so these airports
hopefully this will be a lot better than
the Apple airports and other devices
this is a modern Netgear router I've got
a very old one here which I'll use for
explaining some concepts later this
router only supports 2.4 gigahertz 802
dot 11 it says supports G networks
108 megabits per second according to
this so that old router doesn't have the
performance of a modern router this
router supposedly supports 2 gigabits
per second wide connectivity for faster
internet now that's a problem
with Wi-Fi 6 the physical network that I
have here at home only supports 1
gigabits per second so this switch is an
example is 1 gigabits per second now
that's just a small switch that I put on
my desk for demonstration purposes I do
have other switches in the house
but they support 1 gigabits per second
that means I need to upgrade my network
to fully support Wi-Fi 6 it's an issue
that's are going to be affecting a lot
of networks in the real world because
Wi-Fi 6 devices can connect at greater
speeds than 1 gigabits per second
according to this 4.8 gigabits per
second so in other words in theory a
device connecting to this will be able
to transmit at higher speeds than my
physical network ok enough talking let's
get this device out of here now it comes
with a QuickStart guide we've got the
router itself nicely packaged got power
supply I'm based in the UK so we've got
a UK power supply
I've got Ethernet cable and if I was
based in Europe I'd use that but I'm not
use the UK plug
okay so we told unwrap it as follows
take the plastic off now on the rod I've
got a default network key so I can use
my phone to connect to that as an
example if I connect to the wireless
network
it's got LED options on and off it's got
USB ports two of them it's got five
Ethernet ports two of which can be used
in aggregate so do either channeling or
some kind of channeling I've got an
internet connection on and off enough
obviously got a power port as well so
I'll power this on and then I'll connect
to the network I won't bore you with the
basic settings big thing is the tester
does it perform as they say it should at
Wi-Fi six speeds okay so I've got it
plugged in and powered up initially when
it starts up it makes quite a bit of
noise but then quite ins down you don't
typically have your Wi-Fi devices
however so close to your end devices so
this will go upstairs in the roof but
it's okay where it is for the moment now
I want to connect to that so and I'm
going to select join net gear 75 don't
want to join it yes I do
okay so my initial tests I found that it
didn't work as well as I expected I had
to make some changes one of the changes
that I had to make is make sure that the
devices are connecting via five
gigahertz and not 2.5 gigahertz so I've
got my three phones connected via the
wireless network I've got my macbook
connected to the physical router so
rather than having it connected to the
switch I've connected it directly to the
broader in this example I've got in a
bunted PC running within VMware on my
Mac ifconfig shows me that this is the
IP address
and what I'll do is start iperf on this
server using this port number
now the rod is making a bit of noise but
hopefully you don't hear it what I'll do
is on the first phone connect to the
Ubuntu server port 5 2 0 1 let's see
what kind of speed we get and that's
what I'd expect 518 megabits per second
in a 10 second period 521 megabits per
second that's good on this phone 543
megabits per second varying a little bit
I've only got a gig connection to the
server but 545 megabits per second is
good on this one 700 and something 800
that's kind of the speed that I would
expect for Wi-Fi 6 much better
performance than the other phones this
is obviously not very scientific got the
device right next to me 3 IP phones but
kind of shows you what happens this is
kind of what I was getting in previous
tests said when I do that again we still
getting 700 and something so 726
megabits per second minimum 649 max 774
on this phone 581 megabits per second
not too bad so minimum 489 maximum 585
on this phone varying a bit once again
so iPhone 11 726 definitely made a
difference in performance having Wi-Fi 6
on this phone 555 on this one 511 so as
I went through the generations of iPhone
the throughput got better the new iPhone
supports 80 2.11 ax which is Wi-Fi 6
previous generation supported attitude
at 11 AC Wi-Fi 5 and the same is true
for the iPhone 10
so definitely had an increase in
performance I'll run the phone right
next to the access point I typically you
don't want to run it so close still
getting good performance though maybe a
bit a lesson what we had before 670 over
here getting better performance a little
bit further away from the access point
it was too close to the access points so
getting a bit of a better speed I'll
hold it right here next to the camera
still getting decent speed seven hundred
and something so not too bad
it varies when I move the phone around
but there you go I've demonstrated that
Wi-Fi six gives us better performance
through that device I'm getting great
performance here on my devices compared
to what I would have previously got
using my older or Wi-Fi devices so let's
see if this network card is as good as
they say it is and let's see if Wi-Fi
six is close to a physical network
connection now to help me do that I'm
gonna run iperf on this computer as well
as that computer and I'm going to test
it using a physical Ethernet cable so I
physically cabled that computer to my
Netgear router and what we'll do is
we'll try it using a physical connection
and then I'll try it using a wireless
connection okay so first thing hopefully
you can see this I've got a wired
connection and a wireless connection so
what I'll do is turn off the wireless
connection IP address shows me that the
IP address on this device is 1000 12 so
that's the current IP address on the PC
it's not clear that and what I'll do is
start the iperf server so iperf is now
running on that PC and what I'll do is
start to the client on this PC and as
you can see it's transmitting over 900
megabits per second so that's excellent
we're not getting gig speeds
only supports 1 gigabits per second but
there you go that is a physical
connection so I'll do that again
physically we are getting over 900
megabits per second okay but now let's
do the real test so what I'll do is turn
on the wireless and I'll disconnect the
Ethernet cable on the router so on the
server you can see we only have a
connection to wireless now the IP
address of the PC now is 1000 4 so over
here 1000 4 so I'll start iperf again
and on this side
let's send traffic to 1000 4 okay so we
still getting over 900 megabits per
second I'm really happy with that
performance physically we were getting
941 939 now I'm getting 916 914 so
sending traffic again we're getting over
900 megabits per second through the
wireless connection so 921 920 I would
say I'm really happy with that
performance notice once again Ethernet
cable is disconnected so there's no
Ethernet cable on that PC I'm getting
920 918 megabits per second so really
happy with that performance now once
again on the PC IP address shows me that
this is the IP address the Ethernet
connection is disconnected I only have a
wireless connection enabled so start
that server again
run iperf getting over 900 megabits per
second I'll connect to the router and as
you can see this IP address is connected
via wireless I only have three devices
connected I've gotten a boon to server
which is this one IP address shows me
that this virtual machine running on my
Mac has an IP address of 1000 6 this is
my Mac and this is the Ubuntu PC running
over there behind me so again I'll clear
the screen connect to that a boon to PC
using wireless or Wi-Fi 6 you could see
that we're getting over 900 megabits per
second again I'm limited physically to a
1 gig connection to this PC over here so
one gig ok so I'm really happy with that
performance really happy with this
network card getting close to 1 gigabits
per second of throughput using this
Wi-Fi 6 adapter I could probably make it
even better if I had 2 Wi-Fi devices
I found however that a phone to that PC
doesn't do as well I can do one more
test so here is my iPhone I'll start
iperf go to the server 1000 4 and start
downloading
got to make sure I'm on the right Wi-Fi
network start we are not getting the
kind of performance that I would have
expected getting over a hundred megabits
per second but not what I would want to
get try a blood that's better still not
great 400 megabits per second much nicer
to see over 900 so stop that again 400
megabits per second not too bad but
again when I'm doing it from PC to PC
I'm getting over 900 megabits per second
so that's a lot better okay so that was
a demonstration of Wi-Fi 6 I've
demonstrated Wi-Fi 6 from iPhones to a
boon to server connected to the physical
network I've also shown you PC on
Ethernet physical Ethernet to Wi-Fi 6
also phone to Wi-Fi 6 I'm very happy
with the speeds that I'm getting now
obviously I've got the router right next
to me typically you wouldn't do that you
wouldn't have your devices right next to
the router
now Netgear do you have another type of
device that has a 5 gig Ethernet port so
perhaps if anyone's interested I might
buy one of those and then get a 10 gig
switch and see if I can run it even
higher speeds see if I can get a higher
throughput on Wi-Fi 6
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