Awful Speeds over WiFi and Ethernet

[MJG65]

I'm paying for 1Gb broadband with 600Mbps guaranteed speed. The speed into my hub is around 680Mbps. I'd like it to be faster but not much I can do. The WiFi speed at my laptop right now is an abysmal 1.1Mbps and 24Mbps on my phone as measured by FAST. The laptop speed is 170Mbps via an ethernet cable. It's not always practical to run a cable over 13m from the router (downstairs) to my laptop (upstairs). So my questions are:

1. Can you recommend a router that's going to give far better WiFi signal coverage than the Sky Q Hub?

2. Why am I only getting a speed of 170Mbps via a wired connection?

[JimM1]

@MJG65 Just how good is the device that you have plugged into the Ethernet port off the sky hub, that is where the speed comes from no where else, and as you say you are allready getting the speed to the sky hub!

https://www.sky.com/help/articles/broadband-speeds-explained

And for speed related issues good read.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/12/why-buying-gigabit-broadband-doesnt-always-deliver-1gb...

Test my speed
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest
https://speed.cloudflare.com/
https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferbloat
https://www.howtogeek.com/426757/how-do-internet-speed-tests-work-and-how-accurate-are-they/

[JimM1]

@MJG65 With the sky FF500 service and using the SR203 hub, i hit mostly the 490 mark wireless about 20' away through 2 doors, and always 500+ on Ethernet connection. Sky measure daily from 380 to 520Mbps to the hub with there software service check.

That will be final now as just stopped using all the Sky equipment, but was in service for 10weeks so i could see that everything was working, just all went back in the boxes yesterday afternoon.

[MJG65]

Thank you @JimM1 

All very helpful. 

Do you have a router recommendation?

[JimM1]

@MJG65 There are that many but i have a pair of Asus XT8's with a RP-AX58 all in AI Mesh mode, and some powerline thrown in the mix, old 50's house with solid brick walls to fight. Asus is not a cheap option, but i am 100% Asus user...

Couple NIC speed pic's to follow Ethernet connected direct on the Asus XT8 Master router.

[JimM1]

FF500 on Asus XT8 at 2.45pm with EthernetFF500 on Asus XT8 at 2.45m with Ethernet

[MJG65]

The Asus xt8 is expensive, but might just be what I need.

[JimM1]

@MJG65 As i said there are many available the XT8's are getting hard to find, XT9's now the replacement, and if you do not mind having spider antenna lots to chose from and at way better cost's...

And they are just not plug it in and work like a sky supplied ISP Hub....

[cookiemonsteruk]

@MJG65 

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@MJG65 wrote:

The Asus xt8 is expensive, but might just be what I need.

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Just look aound for asus rt ax58u and above .  They are also powerful wifi 6 routers.  The xt8 is tri band wifi 6 whilst the rt ax family are dual band wifi 6

[jamesn123]

@MJG65 

Before shopping for other routers I would consider fixing your ethernet speeds first, there is no way they should be that low.

Is the ethernet connection direct? E.g. not through boosters/powerline etc?

What model is the laptop?

Is the laptop doing anything in the background that could be using bandwidth?

[MJG65]

The laptop is a HP Elitebook. I normally work over WiFi, but it was so bad today that I connected directly via an ethernet cable. There's nothing running in the background. 

[MJG65]

The TP-Link Archer AXE75 gets good reviews for a mesh system. 

[JimM1]

@MJG65 Laptop running on mains power or via battery, makes a difference if not setup correctly!

[JimM1]

Tp-Links are good, no problems with them. Getting them to work on sky is the only iffy point, but Fibre is way different for connection, just a try and see, search the Forum for AXE75 users that have on the system.

[mormegil]

When changing to a different hub you also need consider the WiFi signal

after changing from the max hub to an ASUS although I got slightly faster WiFi for my needs it was worse for Samsung mobiles and some ring devices, that require 2-4 ghz, would switch daily to 5ghz when it's not supported and lose signal even though remaining connected to the network