@malcoski,

if I set a rate limit of 1 Kbps or 10 Kbps, I can't load any website at all b/c of timeouts in the browser. I can't even load my own website, which is plain HTML text, no Javascript, no dynamic content, no big images, very slim and super-fast. With a 1 Kbps limit I can't even issue DNS queries, b/c MacOS (falsely) detects a missing Internet connection, thus causing the browser to show an error message and the OS displaying an exclamation point over the grayed out WiFi symbol.

A limit of ~70 to 100 Kbps is the lower limit to be able to load websites. A Youtube page requires minutes to load. As soon as the browser has loaded ~3-5 seconds of a YT video (after loading all those thumbnails in minutes), it starts playing the video, but it repeats the first 3 seconds of the video dozens of times until next 3 seconds have been loaded. Then again it repeats the following 3 seconds several dozen times again.

Videos are streamed over HTTPS and are subject to browser caching, so the browser plays the video from the cache and repeats it again and again until the data for following 3 seconds have been loaded.

I suggest to check your network setup and the testbed. There must be something terribly wrong.

@malcoski,

• create another SSID with encryption (to prevent devices switching away from it), set a rate limit,
• disconnect your laptop from the wired network,
• delete all WLAN names known to te laptop (again to prevent switching away to another known WLAN),
• clear the browser cache,
• connect to this new SSID,
• then run the test again (keep an eye to the WiFi connection to ensure it's still connected to the new SSID).

BTW: SSID limits have nothing to do with WiFi basic rate limits. The client and the EAP still negotiate a much higher basic rate: