Data rates for every 802.11n, ac, ax and be MCS with up to four spatial streams. Pick a cell to see how its rate is calculated, or enter the link rate a device reports to find the MCS behind it.
MCS stands for Modulation and Coding Scheme. Each MCS number is a recipe for how data is put on the air, made of two parts:
Low MCS numbers are slow but robust and work at the edge of the cell. High MCS numbers are fast but need a strong, clean signal (high SNR), so they only work close to the access point. The AP and client pick the MCS frame by frame, stepping down when frames fail and back up when they succeed. That's why a device's link rate changes as you move around.
The MCS alone doesn't set the data rate. The same MCS is faster on a wider channel, with more spatial streams, or with a shorter guard interval, and each Wi-Fi generation has its own table. Choose those settings above to see the rate for every MCS.
Enter the rate a device shows (for example 866 or 1201 Mbps). Whole numbers match within 1 Mbps, because devices round differently.
Results appear here.
Data rate = data subcarriers × bits per subcarrier × coding rate × spatial streams ÷ (OFDM symbol time + guard interval). The top part is the number of data bits per OFDM symbol; where it isn't a whole number (for example 996-tone RUs at MCS 9 and 11), the standard rounds it down, which is why 1 stream at 80 MHz MCS 11 is 600.4 Mbps rather than 600.5. Every rate here matches the rate tables of IEEE 802.11-2024 (clauses 19, 21 and 27) and 802.11be-2024 (clause 36), except two values that the 802.11be tables print incorrectly: Table 36-80 gives 26.2 Mbps for the 996+484-tone MRU at MCS 15 with 0.8 µs GI (its own 362 data bits per symbol ÷ 13.6 µs = 26.6), and Table 36-82 gives 183.5 Mbps for the 2×996-tone RU at MCS 2 with 3.2 µs GI (2,940 ÷ 16 µs = 183.75, shown here as 183.8). 802.11n and 802.11ac use a 3.2 µs symbol with a 0.8 µs or 0.4 µs (short) guard interval. 802.11ax and 802.11be use a 12.8 µs symbol with 0.8, 1.6 or 3.2 µs guard intervals and four times as many, more closely spaced subcarriers.
From 802.11ax on, a channel is divided into resource units (RUs) of 26 to 996 tones for OFDMA, and a full 20, 40, 80 or 160 MHz channel is a 242, 484, 996 or 2×996-tone RU. 802.11be adds 320 MHz (4×996 tones, 6 GHz only) and multi-RUs such as 484+242 that combine two or more RUs for one user.
802.11ac excludes a few combinations because their bits per OFDM symbol don't split evenly: MCS 9 at 20 MHz with 1, 2 or 4 streams, MCS 6 at 80 MHz with 3 streams, and MCS 9 at 160 MHz with 3 streams. 802.11ax allows 1024-QAM (MCS 10 and 11) only on RUs of 242 tones or more. In 802.11be, MCS 14 and 15 are single-stream only.
Both use BPSK with dual carrier modulation (DCM), which sends every bit twice on different subcarriers for extra range at half the rate. MCS 15 applies DCM to a single RU or multi-RU. MCS 14 (EHT-DUP) goes further and duplicates the signal across both halves of an 80, 160 or 320 MHz channel.
More than four spatial streams, 802.11ah (sub-1 GHz), 802.11n unequal modulation (MCS 33 to 76), and 802.11ax DCM variants of MCS 0, 1, 3 and 4. The rates are PHY rates: real throughput is lower because of protocol overhead, contention and retries.