Wi-Fi performance is reduced on the latest device.
Wi-Fi performance is reduced on the latest device.
I've just changed to a new phone (Samsung Galaxy A51) and have noticed the Wi-Fi is slower. I'm using a TP-LINK TL-WR1043ND router with a 100Mbps connection from my ISP. The speed shown on my new phone is only 65Mbps, while in real life it's around 25Mbps. On my old phone (Samsung Galaxy Note 4), the speed was 130Mbps and reached about 55-60Mbps. The tests were done on speedtest.net with phones just a few centimeters away from the router. My questions are: 1. Why is there such a big difference? It doesn't seem logical that my connection would drop so much on a newer phone. 2. Are there ways to improve my speed? My main issue is that on my new phone, I can barely watch 1080p60 videos smoothly in my room without buffering, even when no other devices are connected. This never happened on my old phone. From about 10 meters away from the router (outside my room), I could easily play 480p videos without any problems on my old phone or 720p on a good day, but now on my new phone it only plays 360p with buffering.
The distinction remains unclear. It seems a 2019 model shouldn't support 1080p60 streaming.
Router issues, phone problems, interference on your Wi-Fi frequency—your network is active on channel 720p even when using another device at 10 meters. This suggests a network malfunction.
Interference is definitely involved due to the many 2.4Ghz signals in your building. You can check if the old router works by testing its performance and seeing if speeds drop. Upgrading to a lower-end router that supports 5Ghz might help improve connectivity.
Use a Wi-Fi scanner on your phone to check channel activity, then manually move to the least busy channel initially. Capture a screen snapshot to visualize the situation. 5GHz could be beneficial if the network isn't too congested; the scanner will confirm this clearly.
Which only has a 2.4GHz antenna... Well, there you go! There's likely a ton of interference. You might have gotten a newer phone, but this could have coincided with more people using WiFi in your apartment. The unfortunate thing is that many home users don't set their WiFi up with consideration for other users on the area, so everyone end up suffering. As @Kilrah mentioned, use WiFi Analyzer (from the Microsoft Store or Google Play Store). Post screenshots of the Analyze and Networks pages. Do this for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz for comparison. Don't cheap out. Adding 5GHz will definitely help, but set a budget and we can help you find something that will perform decently for the money.
Based on this review: none. Your setup would interfere with other 2.4GHz signals regardless of channel selection. Make sure to disable auto-channel assignment when configuring your router. Use WiFi Analyzer to check available channels and test them. Remember, larger channels like 80MHz and 160MHz provide more bandwidth but may cause overlap issues with nearby broadcasts. For best performance, choose either 40MHz or 80MHz channels.