Meraki MR44 Wireless speed 'capped' at 200Mb

[stewart323]

Morning.

I have run into a frustrating issue at a client site, where my wireless speeds appear to be capping out at 200mb.

The WAN is 800 up/down, and i am seeing these results, on the wired clients (client -> ms210 -> mx68).

22 MR44 AP's throughout the property (19 wired, 3 repeaters, surveyed with Ekahau, 5ghz channels manually modified etc). Firmware 29.5.1.

Something on the Meraki side is shaping this traffic irrespective of what settings I configure. Any suggestions welcome. 

[alemabrahao]

The first thing you have to check is whether the devices support that speed.

Everything will depend on the type of antenna of the client. Also remember that it has the theoretical and real speed of each of the 802.11 standards.

Of course, there are other variables, such as the distance between the client and the antenna, the number of clients connected to the access point, how channels are being used, etc.

[alemabrahao]

One more thing, the max stateful Firewall Throughput for the MX68 is 600 Mbps.

[stewart323]

Hi Alemabrahao, 

Whilst i appreciate a response, it isn't a client issue, antennae issue, channel saturation or any environmental issue for that matter. I understand that this was my first post, but i am a competent network engineer.

Thankyou for the info regarding the MX, i am aware of this. As mentioned, wired speeds are >600, I assume there is some tolerance.

I'm almost certain this is some traffic shaping happening on the meraki sirde, as my speed test are consistently 197/198/199 but never more. All slider are set to unlimited. I have created new SSID with standard profiles etc to no avail.

Wondering if it is a firmware issue, as have a similar setup with the only difference being the MR's on 29.4.1

[alemabrahao]

I this case just open a support case.

[KarstenI]

Did you also check the shaping on the MX?

[pjc]

Are you using 20MHz channel width on the wifi ?  I think this will limit bandwidth to approx 200mbit/s if using single 20MHz channels

[TBHPTL]

Not quite... it all dependent upon the client radio chains and actual PHY rate used the rates are as shown below.

Granted I am giving the upper PHY rate and best case  connection scenarios your milage may very well vary...

• a 2x2:2 ax client radio @ 2.4 or 5 GHz wide 20MHz wide channel tops out at MCS rate 11 @286.8Mbps so max throughput would be around 14OishMbps

• If ac 2x2:2  it tops out at MCS8 at 173.3mbps which about 80Mbps

• a 2x2:2 ax client radio @ 2.4 or 5 GHz wide 20MHz wide channel tops out at MCS rate 11 @286.8Mbps so max throughput would be around 14OishMbps

• If n 2x2:2  it tops out at MCS7 at 144Mbps which about 72Mbps

[TBHPTL]

Whilst you may be a competent engineer you didn't tell us anything about your  actual client's capabilities that you are using for testing.

What is your actual PHY rate and channel width? Are you connecting to ROOT AP or a Repeater? 

What are you using to ascertain the speed of your wired client?

What are you using to ascertain the the speed of your wireless client?

Windows, MAC Intel or MAX Mx, ioS or Android?

Chipset of your wireless client? 

I can go on forever about what could be causing the issue.

[GIdenJoe]

Check your client what kind of PHY rate you have (x amount of Mbps according to the GUI) and take about 60% of that and that should be your realistic goodput.  However if you're on busy channels your goodput will be way lower.

Other stuff that usually lowers your goodput are like client or AP having an issue where there are large periods where block ack's are no longer used but individual frames are being ack'ed.  Usually you want to see at least 20 frames or more before any ack if you want high speed download.