How does the SNR impact the speed and range of my wireless connection?
SNR, range and speed (data rate) are tightly interdependent. Users often notice that higher data rates do not “travel” as far as lower data rates do – and frequently they think that increasing the power on the router will take the signal further (increase the range). It is not the power of the router, it is Signal-to-Noise ratio (SNR) that dictates the data speed and the range of the signal. SNR determines which data rates can still be correctly decoded in a wireless connection – as data rates increase from 6 Mbps towards 54 Mbps, more complex modulation and encoding methods are used for transmission and that requires much higher SNR to properly decode the signal back to the data stream on the receiving side. Using full 54 Mbps data rate requires at least 25 dB of SNR – and getting that much SNR is achievable only if router and client are relatively close together. As the signal travels further away from the transmitter, a path loss occurs (the signal gets attenuated) and SNR is gettin
