Loosing speed across wifi

Digideath · April 1, 2022

First off. I'm in the uk. I just started on bt home essentials 2. I'm using the smart hub 2 that they provided. I'm on a slightly different version of fiber. What they call fiber to the box. Its basically a 100 meg fiber cable that runs to the junction box outside. From there it uses old school copper cable to the house. I loose speed because of that. I only get 74 meg, max.

The problem I'm having is with the wifi. I have my kids computer upstairs. I have my laptop up stairs. I sit with my phone up stairs. All three of these devices are running slow on the network across wifi even though they are showing a full signal. To test this I ran bt's speed test. It showed me getting 71 meg into the hub but only 57 meg to the device. So I'm dropping about 16 meg on all the devices upstairs. It's actually worse than that sounds because it hits 57 meg peaks but most of the time it's down around 40 meg.

Fyi my pc down stairs is also on wifi and it's running at 71 meg peaks so the wifi def works. It's just upstairs that I'm having issues.

Is there any way to fix this or boost the signal upstairs? Because it's really frustrating.

I'm also wondering why it's so slow considering every device I use is showing a full signal.

Falcon1986 · April 1, 2022

2 hours ago, Digideath said:

To test this I ran bt's speed test. It showed me getting 71 meg into the hub but only 57 meg to the device. So I'm dropping about 16 meg on all the devices upstairs. It's actually worse than that sounds because it hits 57 meg peaks but most of the time it's down around 40 meg.

As I'm aware, UK ISPs always quote an "average" speed in their broadband tiers to ensure that customers are aware that getting 100% isn't always possible. While that's not reassuring if you're paying for 100Mbps and only getting 75% or less, at least they're not hiding anything in fine print as other western ISPs.

If you're consistently getting 74Mbps while directly wired into the BT Hub via ethernet, then that's your best achievable speed. Test at different times of day at on- and off-peak hours and using different speed test websites (e.g. speedtest.net, fast.com, dslreports.com) to get a better idea of speed variation. Check your contract with BT; if this speed falls below the average they promise, then that's an issue you have to take up with BT.

Then, there's the WiFi side of things. Firstly, ISP gateway/combo devices don't always provide the best WiFi. Secondly, if you live in a home that has a lot of brick/concrete/steel in walls or floors, wireless signal is going to be attenuated. 2.4GHz has better range and can penetrate more physical obstructions than 5GHz, but you lose on maximum throughput. Thirdly, most wireless routers and APs have omnidirectional antennae, which means they have very limited "vertical throw" of their signal. Finally, if you live in an area with lots of other people broadcasting their own WiFi, there can be interference from them. Your devices can be getting a strong signal, but the wireless environment is so "loud" from other broadcasts, that communication with your own has to wait.

Nuh_ · April 1, 2022

22 hours ago, Falcon1986 said:

As I'm aware, UK ISPs always quote an "average" speed in their broadband tiers to ensure that customers are aware that getting 100% isn't always possible. While that's not reassuring if you're paying for 100Mbps and only getting 75% or less, at least they're not hiding anything in fine print as other western ISPs.

If you're consistently getting 74Mbps while directly wired into the BT Hub via ethernet, then that's your best achievable speed. Test at different times of day at on- and off-peak hours and using different speed test websites (e.g. speedtest.net, fast.com, dslreports.com) to get a better idea of speed variation. Check your contract with BT; if this speed falls below the average they promise, then that's an issue you have to take up with BT.

Then, there's the WiFi side of things. Firstly, ISP gateway/combo devices don't always provide the best WiFi. Secondly, if you live in a home that has a lot of brick/concrete/steel in walls or floors, wireless signal is going to be attenuated. 2.4GHz has better range and can penetrate more physical obstructions than 5GHz, but you lose on maximum throughput. Thirdly, most wireless routers and APs have omnidirectional antennae, which means they have very limited "vertical throw" of their signal. Finally, if you live in an area with lots of other people broadcasting their own WiFi, there can be interference from them. Your devices can be getting a strong signal, but the wireless environment is so "loud" from other broadcasts, that communication with your own has to wait.

Then there's also the fact that WiFi is by design slower than ethernet, because packet headers are bigger than those of wired connections.

As with the interference, with 2.4Ghz you can use a tool such as Acrylic WiFi to see what channels are less crowded so you can place your wifi connection in them. Though, proceed with caution because some countries have laws on what channels you can use.

There are 13 channels, (11 in most countries), the non-overlapping ones are 1, 6, and 11.

Edited April 2, 2022 by Nuh_
wrong piece of information

Alex Atkin UK · April 2, 2022

On 4/1/2022 at 1:41 PM, Falcon1986 said:

As I'm aware, UK ISPs always quote an "average" speed in their broadband tiers to ensure that customers are aware that getting 100% isn't always possible. While that's not reassuring if you're paying for 100Mbps and only getting 75% or less, at least they're not hiding anything in fine print as other western ISPs.

Indeed, its actually gotten even more confusing as Zen for example sell their CityFibre service as asymmetrical due to those rules, but its actually symmetrical.

Apparently they don't use data from their-end to monitor it, they rely on customers running speed test boxes and as its a new service there is not enough (or possibly any) customers on the service to provide enough data for an average to be calculated.

On 4/1/2022 at 2:48 PM, Nuh_ said:

There are 13 channels, (11 in most countries), the non-overlapping ones are 1, 6, and 11. if all are heavily populated I'd suggest a channel in between because some overlapping is better than full overlapping.

Actually its the opposite, partial overlapping is WORSE than full overlapping, as if you fully overlap it can see another network is active and not transmit at the same time vs partial overlapping where its only seen as unknown interference and will try to transmit over it, which can cause all networks on those channels to have corrupted data and have to re-transmit again.

In some scenarios partial overlapping may perform better for you, but it can completely ruin your neighbours WiFi (if your WiFi signal is stronger than theirs) so is extremely inconsiderate and should not be done.