**************************************Behold the glory : four refurbished Chromebooks, each with an additional Linksys WUSB 38207557 Wi-Fi adapter for out-of-band control and communications. Jim Salter************************** After our review of Google’s Nest Wi-Fi kit last fall, we received an unexpected request: Ars reader GerbilMagnus hopped into the comments andaskedfor an explainer about how we test Wi-Fi.************** Machination minutiae hadn’t necessarily struck us as something of interest, but ask and you shall receive dear readers. Today, we’re taking GerbilMagnus’ lead and taking readers behind the scenes of our Wi-Fi testing process — we’ll also toss in a little theory and practice along the way. If you want to try our methods at home, know up front that you don’t necessarily have to replicate our entire test setup to start seeing useful results for yourself. But if you wantto put the latest and greatest mesh gear through the gauntlet, we’ll absolutely cover everything from top to bottom before we’re done. Why we run complex tests
Most professional Wi-Fi tests are nothing more than simple Internet speed tests — set up a router or mesh kit, plop a laptop down feet away, and let ‘er rip. The idea here is that the highest top speed at close range will also translate into the best performance everywhere else.
Unfortunately, things don’t generally work that way. All you’ve really measured is how fast one single download from one single device at optimal range and with no obstructions can go — which is usually not the thing that’s frustrating real-world users. When you’re mad at your Wi-Fi, it’s rarely because a download isn’t going fast enough — far more frequently, the problem is it’s acting “flaky,” and clicking a link results in a blank browser screen for long enough that you wonder if you should hit refresh, or close the browser and try again, or what.
ping out of or more, not the lowest or even the median. Since fetching webpages means simultaneously asking for tens or hundreds of resources, and we bind on the slowest one to return, it does not matter how quick nine of them are if the tenth is slow as molasses — that (bad) ping is the one holding us up.But so far, we’re still just talking about a single device talking to a Wi-Fi access point in an empty house, with no competition. And that’s not very realistic, either. In the real world, there are likely to be dozens of devices on the same network — and there may be dozens more within “earshot” on the same channel, in neighbor’s houses or apartments. And any time one of them speaks, all the rest of them have to shut up and wait their turn.
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