On Sun, 31 Jul 2016 02:59:24 -0000 (UTC), Aardvarks
wrote:
I have had the two iPads tested at the Apple Genius bar, and they passed
"that" test, even though they both fail miserably at having the same WiFi
reception as all four of my Android devices have.
I don't have a proper 802.11 tester, but can make some fairly good BER
(bit error rate) and signal level tests on my messy workbench. Yeah,
it's all antiques but it's probably better than what you'll find at
the Genius Bar:
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/pics/home/slides/test-equip-mess.html
Mostly, I find that RFI/EMI from the computah section of a smart gizmo
causes most of the loss of wi-fi reception problems. For example, my
Droid X and X2 would show reduced sensitivity when the display
backlighting was on full compared to when it was dim. My guess(tm) is
that most of the wi-fi radios are quite good, but in proximity of the
computah noise generator, don't do as well. How Apple or Android
compare, I don't know.
In all cases in "my" house, I had my Android devices on a flat surface
within a foot of the iOS devices when the Android devices would easily
connect home broadband router at the far fringes of the home, while the iOS
devices failed to make any connection.
Well, that's a fairly good side by side comparison. However, it might
not be the radios. One of my customers is all Apple. They must have
one of everything, although wisely, they never buy the latest devices.
I had problems with range at their house. My Chrombook, Nexus 7
tablet, and Moto G phone were also having range problem. I eventually
found a neighbor with Roku 2 and 3 boxes streaming away furiously
24x7, with both located near facing windows. I convinced the neighbor
to let me connect the Roku boxes with ethernet cable (3ft and 6ft
away), which eliminated the problem. Range was then dramatically
improved.
I had to solve the problem by setting up a spare WRT54G router as a wired
extension (crawling under the house and cursing Apple the entire time), so,
the fact that the WiFi reception of the iOS devices sucks compared to that
of the Android devices caused me considerable effort.
You'll get no sympathy from me. I do that all the time. However, my
days of crawling under houses are largely over thanks to health
issues. I was pulling wires and installing wall jacks last week for
about a day, and still haven't recovered. Maybe I'll learn to like
power line connected wireless repeaters instead.
In addition, as you know, I assist my small WISP in setting up customers
and troubleshooting when they have WiFi problems. Almost invariably, the
Apple-based customers are highly non technical, so, they call up with
problems that aren't really the WISP's prerogative, such as the fact they
can't connect to either his or their routers (he insists everyone have a
router so he gives them one if they don't have their own).
Ok, the first step to solving a problem is to blame someone. In this
case Apple. I tend to allow other options, such as junk routers and
interference. I carry a WiSpy 2.4Ghz spectrum analyzer, that isn't
limited to seeing wi-fi devices. Amazing what I find out there.
http://www.metageek.com
http://www.metageek.com/products/wi-spy/index-3.html
However, I did have problems with the older Apple Airport wireless
routers. Even the Apple products would not stay connected. Almost
anything could connect, but didn't stay connected. Streaming was the
big problem, where it would disconnect abruptly and without much
provocation. I usually solved it by temporarily replacing the router
with a Linksys equivalent. Current favorite is a Linksys EA2700.
Range is not so good because it's a lower power device than most. I
don't care because if a customer want's to go through walls, I just
sell them another EA2700 router.
Almost always, if not always, I put their iDevices next to my Android
device to test WiFi connectivity and signal strength at the distance that
the customer complains.
Even though the tools available to sniff WiFi issues on iOS devices are
downright primitive, you "can" easily see that the Android devices
"connect" to the router at distance while the iOS devices are oblivious of
the router at the same distances.
You're being generous. I use my Android phone and tablet as if they
were test and diagnostic equipment. I don't know what Apple allows,
but as I recall from using an iPhone 3G for a while, it's not much. I
had to jailbreak my 3G to install something useful. Here's the latest
version:
https://www.adriangranados.com/apps/ios-wifi-explorer
Looks like iPerf is available on iOS & Android & Windows & Linux!
https://iperf.fr/iperf-download.php
If you recall, I offered exactly the same song and dance to you about
2 years ago. There were versions for just about every OS available at
the time, but I must admit, were somewhat crude. So, this time,
please run the tests, and you can thank me later.
I don't have any fast computers - but just basic laptops.
Sorry. You'll need a fairly fast computah if you're going to do tests
with gigabit ethernet or 802.11ac. The idea is to make sure that
everything involved is faster than the wi-fi link. You'll also need
to use iperf3 to get accurate numbers for the higher speeds. However,
we're not interested in how fast you can go. We're looking for when
the data no longer is flowing smoothly or when it drops out. You can
get away with almost anything that looks like a computah and will run
iperf. I have an microSD card that I use on a Raspberry Pi 2 box as a
quick an dirty iperf server. It won't do gigabit, but I usually don't
need such test speeds.
This is good that we an lay two mobile devices on a desk and run the same
iPerf utility to check performance.
Yep, but always have a reference machine handy that you know for sure
that runs fast and well. When everything you test runs badly, and you
don't know if the problem is with everything you're testing, or with
the server, router, network, interference, etc, it's always nice to
have a tie breaker.
I'd just pick one. Probably iPerf2 for compatibility.
Try jperf for starters. It's the easiest to use and includes the
iperf2 binaries in the package buried in a subdirectory. If you want
to do speed testing, switch to iperf3.
With iPerf, not only Android but even the primitive iOS phones can be
turned into powerful network-troubleshooting tools!
Yep.
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/FLUG-talk-2015-02-28/802.11gn%20direct.jpg
Are the three graphs (purple, green, and blue) different access points?
Or are they different ports on the computer (1840, 1872, & 1860)?
It was 3 separate runs of the program. The numbers are NOT port
numbers. I was doing some fiddling with the setup and wanted to see
what produced the best throughput.
That's a PERFECT test!
My hypothesis is that the iOS devices will drop in half the distance that
the Android devices will drop - but that remains to be seen in the test.
We shall soon see.
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