This is your wireless card:
03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Qualcomm Atheros QCA9565 / AR9565 Wireless Network Adapter [168c:0036] (rev 01)
Subsystem: AzureWave Device [1a3b:2130]
Kernel driver in use: ath9k
That card is NOT a Dual Band* card. It only works on the 2.4GHz spectrum. It will not work with 5GHz wireless networks.
* (dual band means the card works with both 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks)
So I'll never reach the maximum internet speed on my laptop? – Lurrdock (comments)
Speed isn't necessarily determined by which band your wireless card is on. True, 5GHz band will be less cluttered, but you have to be closer to the access point because 5GHz doesn't travel as far, and doesn't penetrate walls and structural obstacles as well.
So, we go back to the speed of the wireless standards.
The current "standard" of wireless is N. It's not new, but it's still the standard. (AC is the latest standard, but N is still the most prevalent standard in use).
The maximum speed of a Wireless N(+) network theoretically is 150Mbps down/up over a single wireless channel. (Wireless N, with the correct wireless card and router pairing, can support triple-channel bonding, which can get you a theoretical 450Mbps speed by connecting with three channels to the router/accesspoint). However, this only refers to the data rate between a computer and the wireless access point/router and the rest of the internal network (such as computer-to-computer on your home network only) - it does not actually mean you'll get those speeds when surfing the internet or using it for things outside your internal network.
Here's where that bottle neck comes into play. The maximum speed of the average residential connection to the Internet (in the USA region I'm in) appears to be between 25 and 54Mbps download speed.
Even with the Wireless N standard, most networks are never going to see the full potential speed a wireless standard would give them. This is partly due to ideal conditions not existing - radio frequency collission because of radio waves, structural obstacles between a given computer and the wireless access point, etc. are all factors in why wireless networks don't actually give you their maximum rated theoretical speed.
An example of this is my network. My network is a 150Mbps download, 25Mbps upload, from Comcast, and I never see those speeds over wireless, even with my computer right next to the Wireless Access Point, due to signal interference, and many other radio-related issues. The only way to really achieve those speeds is through Ethernet connections to my switches and my network, which can reach up to 1000 Mbps up/down (Gigabit!). However, speed is also impacted by number of devices on the network, so I have several devices that share the network.
