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i have a TP link C6U Router which i am using as a repeater/extender WDS. I am using my 5G main router's wifi and extending that signal via TP link's router. My main router have a connection of 250Mbps. I have these scenarios

  1. When My mobile is directly connected to the main routers 5G Wifi connection i get 250Mbps full speed.'
  2. When my mobile is connected to main router and sharing the ethernet to PC via USB connection then still i get 250Mbps speed.
  3. When my TP link's router is connected to main router via WDS bridging of 5G connection, i am limited to nearby 120Mbps.

Note: I tested the mobile's connection the same place where my second router (TP link) is placed. And main router is in another room.

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If your phone is talking to a wireless router there are two streams of traffic, one from your phone to the router and one from the router to the phone.

If your phone is talking to a repeater, the repeater is also talking to the wireless router. Now there are four streams of traffic:

  1. From the phone to the repeater
  2. From the repeater to the phone
  3. From the repeater to the wireless router
  4. From the wireless router to the repeater.

Streams 1 and 2 are mutually exclusive, as are 3 and 4. Basically, the repeater can be either sending or receiving on an interface, but not both sending and receiving in parallel. This is called half-duplex.

This is why by default a WiFi repeater halves the speed of your existing WiFi network. The repeater uses half of the bandwidth to transmit the signal and the other half for receiving. If you choose a WiFi repeater with mesh, you won't have this problem.

This is chiefly a problem of single band WiFi extenders, having only one transmit/receive, thus having to use the same 2.4 GHz band and the same channel to repeat the frame. This reduces the throughput to 50%. There are better WIFI extenders that are dual band and some even tri-band. These will get the frame from 2.4 GHz and simultaneously send it (with slight delay) out to the 5GHz band.

User @TomYan recommended this Wikipedia article: Wireless distribution system.

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    I think you have twisted what half-duplex means. It's not really about "doubled the traffics", but rather, for e.g. downloading, when the repeater receive traffics from the main router, it cannot simultaneously send the received traffics to the client. Say it received frame #1, it cannot receive frame #2 at the same time while sending frame #1 to the client.
    – Tom Yan
    Commented Sep 16, 2023 at 9:32
  • @TomYan: I improved the text. Thanks.
    – harrymc
    Commented Sep 16, 2023 at 10:31

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