On Sat, 30 Jul 2016 16:18:02 -0000 (UTC), Aardvarks
wrote:
In your experience with *both* Android & iOS mobile devices, have you also
found the iOS devices severely lacking in WiFi sensitivity (resulting in
dropped connections when Android devices are still working fine)?
Nope. About the same range. At least the same range within some
reasonable tolerance range, such as +/- 10% or so. Note that I
consider "range" to be somewhat equivalent to your "sensitivity" where
"sensitivity" is limited to receive only and does not involve the
antenna or environmental situations. Also note that anecdotal
evidence of a problem is not definitive as measurements such as
"range" and "sensitivity" tend to follow a bell curve.
This is a question borne out of experience setting up WiFi for dozens of
local neighbors, some of whom use Apple ipads & iPhones, and others who use
Android mobile equipment.
I'll resist the temptation to offer my opinion of Apple engineering
and RF design. Well, maybe not totally. This is my play on the
iPhone 4 antenna grip problem in 2010:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/cellular/cell-test.htm
Steve Jobs was right that all phones have the antenna grip problem. He
just didn't mention that the iPhone 4 had it 10 times worse than the
others.
Almost always, in my own personal experience in my own large home with
multiple iPads and Android phones, and in the large homes of my neighbors,
the Apple iPads and iPhones almost always have *far worse* WiFi reception
than do the Android phones.
How far worse? How did you measure "reception"? What were you
measuring? Using wi-fi receive signal strength from an app or
counting "bars" isn't worth much. These vary substantially between
devices and is affected by temperature.
Has this been your experience also?
If so, why do you think this is the case?
Yes of course. Since I don't like Apple, every Apple is by definition
far worse than Android. Or course, for a nominal bribe, I can reverse
the situation.
NOTE: Jeff is honest to a fault, so, his opinion matters greatly.
Jeff lives on a fault. Being honest improves my karma, and prevents
earthquakes from ruining my day.
In the past, I've offered you various ways of running a controlled
range (performance) test. The next time you get your hands on a test
device, try it. It's quite easy.
1. You will need a reasonably fast computah running iperf ver 2,
iperf3, or jperf. This turn the compoutah into an iperf server by
running just:
iperf -s
The computah should be connected via an ethernet cable to the users
router. Gigabit ethernet is nice for measuring maximum speeds, but
that's not what we're doing here.
2. Next, you'll need a iperf client on the phone or tablet. There
are iperf clients for most OS's. Note that iperf2 and iperf3 are
quite different and not really compatible. If the version is not
specified, it's probably iperf2.
Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.he.networktools&hl=en
http://networktools.he.net/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.magicandroidapps.iperf&hl=en
IOS:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/he.net-network-tools/id858241710?mt=8
http://networktools.he.net/
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iperf-network-bandwidth-measurement/id951598770?mt=8
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iperf3-network-bandwidth-performance/id986846572?mt=8
PC, OS/X, Linux, etc:
https://iperf.fr/iperf-download.php
Note that most Linux mutations ship with iperf2 and that iperf3 must
be installed. You can have both iperf and iperf3 installed at the
same time:
https://iperf.fr/iperf-download.php#more-recent
JAVA (runs on anything that groks Java and does pretty graphs):
https://www.rarst.net/software/jperf/
https://sourceforge.net/projects/iperf/files/
JPerf is iperf2 not 3. Version 3 is for higher speed wireless. Don't
mix versions.
Tutorials on iperf and jperf:
http://openmaniak.com/iperf.php
https://www.jamescoyle.net/how-to/574-testing-network-speed-with-iperf
https://www.jamescoyle.net/cheat-sheets/581-iperf-cheat-sheet
I recommend the HE (Hurricane Electric) versions which will test
either IPv4 and IPv6.
YouTube video of a typical test:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qdKgHBO_Gc
Some notes I made from a talk on iperf and jperf:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/FLUG-talk-2015-03-28/iperf3%20talk.htm
3. Connect your test phone or tablet via wi-fi and just run a test to
see if it works. If you're running Jperf, you should see something
like this:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/FLUG-talk-2015-02-28/802.11gn%20direct.jpg
Note that the max speed is about 60 Mbits/sec.
If you insert a wireless repeater in between the wireless router and
the client, you get this mess:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/FLUG-talk-2015-02-28/802.11gn%20through%20Netgear%20repeater.jpg
Note the drastic drop in maximum speed. I'll save my rant against
mesh networks for another day.
4. Now comes the big trick. Temporarily change the speed of your
wireless router from "automatic" to a fixed speed and/or protocol. For
802.11g, that would be 54 Mbits/sec. For faster protocols, it can be
faster. If you have an 802.11ac wireless router, leave both 2.4 and
5GHz on. However, if you're testing with a lesser protocol, enable
only one frequency band at a time, so that you know which one you're
testing. I would initially do the test using 802.11g and 54Mbit/sec
because higher speeds and protocols allow for fallback, which will
produce odd results.
By fixing the speed and protocol, you're eliminating the ability of
the wireless router to slow down the wireless connection speed and
thus improve the range. As you walk away from the wireless router,
instead of a general slowdown, you'll see an abrupt drop in speed,
possibly followed by a disconnect. The typical 2.4GHz 802.11g system
will go about 10 meters before the speed drops abruptly. Measure and
record this distance along with the test conditions (devices,
frequency, protocol, fixed speed, etc).
You'll find indoor testing to vary substantially, mostly depending on
reflections and wireless router antenna positions. Outdoors works
better, but only if you don't have any interference. Try to pick an
empty channel (good luck with that).
5. If you're lazy and don't want to deal with servers and iperf, you
do something similar with just ping. You still have to set a fixed
speed and protocol, but you don't get the pretty graphs and data. Just
continuously ping the wireless router. At some point, the latency
will drastically increase, followed by 100% packet loss, and possibly
a disconnect. This is not as precise as iperf because you're not
saturating the pipe with traffic, but probably good enough.
6. That's all there is. The "range" of a device, which is a
measurement of the overall radio design, antenna, internal noise,
packaging, orientation sensitivity, etc quality, should give you a
clue as to relative quality of the various test devices. If
everything you test craps out at approximately the same range (using
the same speeds and protocols), then as far as I'm concerned, they're
all the same. However, if you see substantial variations, then you
can legitimately claim that Apple and Android devices are different.
7. Incidentally, you can also try it pointing iperf to a public
server instead of your own iperf server. Note that you'll be
measuring the speed of your internet connection, not the speed of the
wireless. I wouldn't do that for the range test.
Iperf public servers:
https://iperf.fr/iperf-servers.php
Also, if you want to be sick, try running iperf over a cellular data
connection.
Just do it. I didn't spend an hour writing all this so that you lean
back in your chair and deliver your "impressions" or "feelings". Such
things as range can and should be tested. If you need help, you know
where you can try to pry me out of my hole.
Good luck...
--
Jeff Liebermann
150 Felker St #D http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060
http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS 831-336-2558