[Make-wifi-fast] Major Bufferbloat

[marty]

On 03/27/2017 09:41 AM, Jaap Buurman wrote:
> Thank you very much for your explanation. The test with the earlier 
> mentioned Archer C7 V2 was indeed done on an internet connection with 
> far less upload bandwidth. So the bottleneck was probably on the WAN 
> link instead of wifi link, masking the wifi bufferbloat of the client.
>
> Unfortunately, I cannot reposition the antenna, since the router and 
> laptop client both have internal antennas. The 2.4ghz wifi performance 
> of the Mediatek platform is pretty poor in itself, but this is 
> probably an inherent property of the Mediatek platform unfortunately. 
> 2.4ghz performance was definitely way better on the Ath9k platform.
>
In case it is helpful, related braindump follows, maybe it will be helpful:
When I worked deploying outdoor nodes in campgrounds and such we moved 
from using long coax antenna cables to putting the AP and clients with 
external ants mounted up on the poles with a single POE cable for data 
and power (for non WAN repeaters, just power).  The run from the router 
to the ant was just a  ~6" pigtail and gave us several dB advantage of 
the long coax.  With an RF transparent enclosure (I suppose you could 
get away with tupperware + rtv at the low end; with more frequent 
inspections) you could put any router up high/outside similarly. Put 
tiny weep holes (too small for nest building flying insects) in the 
lower corners to drain any condensate and paint the enclosure with a 
non-metallic base bright white to reflect UV and heat better if it will 
be in direct sunlight.  Non-metallic box and paint because your antennas 
are in there and need to "see". We used metal boxes with external 
antenna connections so I'm winging it on the tupperware/paint thing but 
most plastics are mostly transparent at 2.4Ghz+.  If you go too high in 
populated areas you pick up a lot of noise from the surrounding area APs 
and clients on same or near channels and other RF noise sources in the 
band.  Go up just high enough to maximize LOS and minimize longer 
distance noise from other APs. If you can mount under an eave out of 
direct sunlight then probably better for both UV issues and heat issues 
for the router.  For ventilation, if required (lm-sensors package is 
your friend for determining this; or just climb up and check how it 
feels on hot days), use normal downward facing vent type slits along the 
top edge of vertical face (to keep rain out) and put window screen 
behind slits to prevent insect nesting.
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