It is known that AWDL causes issues for Wi-Fi on apple devices, however it is much worse on Apple Silicon devices for some reason.
How AWDL works?
AWDL is a closed-source, proprietary protocol, but it has been reverse-engineered.
See the MobiCom'18 paper One Billion Apples’ Secret Sauce: Recipe for the Apple Wireless Direct Link Ad hoc Protocol
AWDL channel usage
AWDL works on
- channel 6(2.4GHz)
- channel 44(5GHz)
- channel 149(5GHz,preferred channel in the US).
If the access point uses a channel different from the AWDL channel, it might cause the Wi-Fi to slow down!
Monitor awdl0
How to check whether the awdl0 interface is active
ifconfig awdl0
Check current AP channel
To see the current Wi-Fi channel used, press option and click the Wi-Fi icon on the toolbar.
Wi-Fi details: channel 124 is used.
To list BSSID, channel and RSSI for nearby access points,
sudo /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/Apple80211.framework/Resources/airport -s
Shut down the awdl0 interface
sudo ifconfig awdl0 down