Why is my wireless internet slow? Because of WPA2 encryption.
Ever since my girlfriend got her new mini I took the opportunity to beef up our wireless protocol. Bye bye WEP.
I decided to go with the strongest encryption that my router (Linksys WRT54GC) allowed, WPA2.
I noticed a couple days later that my internet speeds were crap and suspected the usual suspect – my isp Comcast.
After a couple days I suspected wireless was my issue so I ran some bandwidth tests. WPA2 performance was deplorable. I jacked in a lan cable and speeds soared. Upon further research I found that WPA2 encryption is just too much for consumer devices. To which I post the question, “Why even package a feature into your product that’s going to cause shit performance?”.
Bandwidth Test Results
WPA2
LAN
WPA
So I’ve switched to WPA and things seem to be speedy again. Wonder when I’ll officially break down and get an Airport Extreme. Maybe I’ll wait till 802.11z comes around.
I have an Airport Extreme and it has been working very well for me. Haven’t had any issues with 2 laptops wireless and 2 computers on LAN as well as a 360.
left this nugget of wisdom January 10th, 2008 at 8:26 am
Yeah, that’s crazy. I switched from WEP to WPA and saw an increase in my download and upload speed. I’d say it increase 100%, which is nuts. I have Charter here. My service isn’t quite as good as yours. Maybe I should call and see what else they have. I’m definitely not pleased with 4124kbps down and 488kbps up. Verizon, can we have FiOS now?!?!?!
left this nugget of wisdom January 10th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
FIOS arrives 1/23/08 for me – but I had a similar problem with WPA2 and my 360 – so I switched back to WPA
left this nugget of wisdom January 12th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
When I “upgraded” from Motorola Wireless-G with WEP to Linksys-N with WPA2 (WRT310N Wireless-N Gigabit Router and WMP300N Wireless-N PCI Adapter) my DOWNLOAD throughput dropped from a mean of 8.34 Mbps to a mean of 0.75 Mbps [This drastic rate loss is constant and NOT a typo!] and UPLOAD dropped from mean 0.92 Mbps to 0.91 Mbps. I can no longer watch steaming video. I will be switching back to Linksys Wireless-N WPA over Christmas holiday break.
left this nugget of wisdom December 18th, 2008 at 1:19 am
If I could type accurately, everyone would be better off. SORRY! Corrected message follows: When I “upgraded†from Motorola Wireless-G with WEP to Linksys-N with WPA2 (WRT310N Wireless-N Gigabit Router and WMP300N Wireless-N PCI Adapter) my DOWNLOAD throughput dropped from a mean of 8.34 Mbps to a mean of 0.75 Mbps [This drastic rate loss is constant and NOT a typo!] and UPLOAD dropped from mean 0.92 Mbps to 0.91 Mbps. I can no longer watch streaming video. I will be switching back to Linksys Wireless-N WEP over Christmas holiday break.
left this nugget of wisdom December 18th, 2008 at 1:22 am
WEP and WPA networks can be cracked in less than 5 min
left this nugget of wisdom September 29th, 2009 at 2:45 am
WEP is actually breakable in under 60 seconds and should be considered mostly useless. While WPA is technically breakable that does not mean everyone should move from it. As noted in this post there is a performance trade off with encryption technologies. Implementation is about trade offs and quite often performance trumps security.
So the question is what is passing over the wire. Is it more important that it get there quickly or securely? For home wireless WPA is typically good enough security and acceptable performance degradation. It’s not like your sharing state secrets over your Airport connection.
left this nugget of wisdom October 30th, 2009 at 10:25 am