I know, this is a topic that we see a lot here. Since I couldn't find any other option to improve my 5Ghz performance, I decided to open this one.
I'm using a TP-Link RE450 V3, with OpenWrt 21.02.1 r16325-88151b8303, 5Ghz wifi using 80Mhz, and I cannot get any more of 300mbps from my Internet on this AP. I have another AP from Ubiquiti and I can reach the 500Mbps while using it.
VMM is enabled and offloading settings under firewall also. I've tested multiple configurations and couldn't make it perform any better. With the stock firmware, the vendor announce max of 1300Mbps. Is this any OpenWRT limitation? What am I missing here? Please let me know what configuration details should I share.
Also, 1300 Mbps is the link speed of both wireless radios combined, then rounded. Marketing guys typically get there by adding 866 Mbps (802.11ac 5 GHz) with 450 Mbps (2,4 GHz). Needless to say you will never see those 'speeds' materialise as it's a smokescreen to sell bigger numbers (and alas, it works...).
Add overhead and the fact wireless is a half-duplex medium, and you might top out at anything around 400 Mbps best case on your 5 GHz link. But rarely more. So I'd be surprised if you saw 500 Mbps unless your Ubiquiti has more streams and you got a powerful client (three antennae?). Typical clients are 1 or 2 streams (smartphones, laptops, ...).
Yeah, I understand the marketing thing, but my expectations is reach the internet max connection speed (500Mbps). My Ubiquiti AP is also using 80Mhz and I can get 500Mbps on my mobile device and using my laptop, within a short range. I imagine that we have 3 antennas on it, but so this TP-Link device.
Those are link speeds. Not actual transmission speeds. See part 2 of my explanation above.
I see your 5 GHz radio is three-stream, so 433 x3 does indeed equal 1300 Mbps, but that's link speed. Are you sure your laptop uses three streams? Very few do, if any. Most only have two antennae.
Speeds might be higher with OEM firmware, but it will never come anywhere close to the link speeds. That's not how link speeds work.
I've same device with OpenWrt, even this being a 3x3 device your final speed will be mainly driven by your link speed. You are reporting 780 link speed, attainable real speed usually is 40-60% of speed link, so around 300-450 Mbps, usually landing on the low side of it. I will say your speedtest is correct.
Just one note, I have my transmission power set to 15dbm to avoid signal overlap with the other ap. I've tested with maximum power and I'm not seeing any influence.
I've been doing some more tests and I notice that there's a cap of 300Mbps. I've tried using 40Mhz or 80Mhz and I always reach the same limit. It doesn't seem hardware limitation, otherwise we wouldn't have 1200Mbps with the stock firmware. Can it be some configuration or firmware limitation?
Maybe a bit on the low side but I don't expect much more from this little toy. Might be the case that changing from ath10k-ct to the former ath10k things improve? Don't know.
Thanks for the suggestion. You are using yours as a client, right? It's a good idea, I will try with the previous ath10k build. I don't have much experience with this, but I imagine that is only a matter of finding the last firmware using that driver and install it via GUI, right?
You can swap them out, you don't need to replace the whole firmware. Just the matching packages (kmod & firmware for your kernel). You can go back and forth like that.
Sure you can. I build mine using ImageBuilder and then I upgrade the system (or downgrade) on LuCI using the sysupgrade image. It already worked a half dozen of times with no issues.
