Fibre to the property

[Chippy_Tea]

Please thank BT for blurring the lines (some call it lying) about WiFi and broadband speeds on their marketing.

Its TalkTalk i am dealing with they gave me a guaranteed minimum speed of 120Mbps its the 150 package i am signed up for.


As @Stu said above he gets 96Mb/s via 2.4MHz on old device and 760Mb/s on modern iPhone connected via the Trooli provided router, I currently get 60Mbps on my 80Mbps max FTTC package if i got similar speeds to @Stu on my older devices and 120Mbps on the more modern stuff for an extra £2 a month for two years i will be more than happy.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Below is a breakdown of the various 802.11 WiFi standards and their corresponding maximum speeds. Theoretical wireless speeds (combined upstream and downstream) are as follows:

802.11b - 11 Mbps (2.4GHz)
802.11a - 54 Mbps (5 GHz)
802.11g - 54 Mbps (2.4GHz)
802.11n - 600 Mbps (2.4GHz and 5 GHz) - 150Mbps typical for network adapters, 300Mbps, 450Mbps, and 600Mbps speeds when bonding channels with some routers
802.11ac - 1300+Mbps (5 GHz) - newer standard that uses wider channels, QAM and spatial streams for higher throughput

Below is a breakdown of actual real-life average speeds you can expect from wireless routers within a reasonable distance, with low interference and small number of simultaneous clients:

802.11b - 2-3 Mbps downstream, up to 5-6 Mbps with some vendor-specific extensions.
802.11g - ~20 Mbps downstream
802.11n - 40-50 Mbps typical, varying greatly depending on configuration, whether it is mixed or N-only network, the number of bonded channels, etc. Specifying a channel, and using 40MHz channels can help achieve 70-80Mbps with some newer routers. Up to 100 Mbps achievable with more expensive commercial equipment with 8x8 arrays, gigabit ports, etc.
802.11ac - 100+ Mbps typical, higher speeds (300+ Mbps) possible over short distances without many obstacles, with newer generation 802.11ac routers, and client adapters capable of multiple streams.

https://www.speedguide.net/faq/what-is-the-actual-real-life-speed-of-wireless-374

 

[Lunesdale Brewer]

Chippy check out B4RN (Broadband for the Rural North) based at Melling in the Lune valley. Community owned not for profit providing 1Gb fibre to the premises. 1Gbps down and up
Not sure if they reach you.
You will only achieve full speed if connected physically to the router, agree with all the comments about wireless speeds dependent on environment and hardware.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

they're what's

Chippy check out B4RN (Broadband for the Rural North) based at Melling in the Lune valley. Community owned not for profit providing 1Gb fibre to the premises. 1Gbps down and up
Not sure if they reach you.
You will only achieve full speed if connected physically to the router, agree with all the comments about wireless speeds dependent on environment and hardware.

Thanks for the heads up but i am mid way through an 18 month FTTC contract so had no option but to switch to FTTP with TalkTalk, to be honest i haven't had many problems in the 15+ years i have been with them so i am not expecting it to be a disaster.

 

[DocAnna]

@Chippy_Tea a bit of a late reply about the eero WiFi routers that yes they are the easiest I have come accross to set up and add new access points to. I have 4 covering the house and garage where I previously needed six of the Linksys mesh routers. Our house has stone thick walls so most people won’t need that many. The management app that is used by them is regularly updated too.

Somewhat controversially all my routers (used as access points) are eBay second hand, and the vendor firmware branding for them doesn’t match my provider. I was forewarned that that might be remotely deactivated, but that hasn’t happened. To be fair I’m using them in bridge mode behind a firewall but I suspect the warning is a bit over stated.

 

[Graz]

Below is a breakdown of the various 802.11 WiFi standards and their corresponding maximum speeds. Theoretical wireless speeds (combined upstream and downstream) are as follows:


Below is a breakdown of actual real-life average speeds you can expect from wireless routers within a reasonable distance, with low interference and small number of simultaneous clients:


https://www.speedguide.net/faq/what-is-the-actual-real-life-speed-of-wireless-374

Your list doesn't include 802.11AX (WiFi 6/6E) or 802.11BE (WiFi 7). Both a significant speed improvement on 802.11AC (WiFi 5). If I was getting a fibre connection I'd consider a WiFi 6 system to be a minimum requirement to support the speeds offered by the fibre connection. Personally I have a TP-Link 6E mesh system which has been excellent to date. Could be some deals to be be had with Black Friday coming up too.

 

[MashBag]

Below is a breakdown of the various 802.11 WiFi standards and their corresponding maximum speeds. Theoretical wireless speeds (combined upstream and downstream) are as follows:


Below is a breakdown of actual real-life average speeds you can expect from wireless routers within a reasonable distance, with low interference and small number of simultaneous clients:


https://www.speedguide.net/faq/what-is-the-actual-real-life-speed-of-wireless-374

Spot on. Any network is only as fast as its slowest component

 

[Graz]

Ok....maybe time to reveal my slightly geeky side...

We have Fibre in through the wall to the fibre connection under the stairs through to a separate hardware VPN Gigabit router, switch(non managed), and eero wifi 6 routers on mesh, with Cat6 cabling to several rooms including my office. There's a 16TB qnap server in a RAID 10 configuration as well which keeps backups of all our computers and runs a media server.

View attachment 105944 View attachment 105945

My cabling isn't very neat which I do appreciate could be better.
View attachment 105946

The original question was the speed of the wifi, which is dependent primarily on your wifi set up rather than the fibre speed in most cases. Generally using the wifi built into the router will not be sufficient in a stone built building, in part because for many people the fibre is just brought through the wall so the wifi is at the edge of the house. Wifi extenders will eat into your bandwidth and speed unless part of an overall mesh system or using more than one channel to connect to your router. If you can run a cat 6 cable from the fibre modem to the router further into the house that will help, but generally a mesh system with triband will be necessary to get the better speeds from fibre in a stone built building. My preference is to use the mesh in bridge mode and use the DNS on the router, that does mean you don't get some of the clever software some mesh systems have but it does make it fast and reliable.

I had been using the linksys mesh but the software and reliability was patchy so I switched to the eero pro's earlier this year. I am under utilising the new VPN router and plan to add a back up mobile internet connection which can switch over or act as a merged connection for the WAN.

I have the same NAS currently running two 16TB drives in RAID1 (so 16TB of available storage). When funds allow I'll add another drive and switch to RAID5 to get 32TB of storage. It's a great device!

My biggest regret when having our house remodelled was to not run Ethernet cables into all the rooms I could have accessed. I use powerline adapters to my media streamers as despite having a decent WIFI system (6E) I just find the hardwired stuff to be more consistent. It will happily stream a 4K movie from the NAS to my Nvidia Shield without any stuttering etc.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Your list doesn't include 802.11AX (WiFi 6/6E) or 802.11BE (WiFi 7). Both a significant speed improvement on 802.11AC (WiFi 5

To be honest I haven't a clue what all these figures and letters means my dongle has 80211 AC on the front cover of the packaging so when I saw that in the drop down I posted earlier I chose that and I could then connect to 5GHz, my max speed is 150Mbps even if I get 2/3 of that it'll still be faster than what I am getting now, I don't need more speed so why pay more than I need to.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

@Chippy_Tea a bit of a late reply about the eero WiFi routers that yes they are the easiest I have come accross to set up and add new access points to. I have 4 covering the house and garage where I previously needed six of the Linksys mesh routers. Our house has stone thick walls so most people won’t need that many. The management app that is used by them is regularly updated too.

Somewhat controversially all my routers (used as access points) are eBay second hand, and the vendor firmware branding for them doesn’t match my provider. I was forewarned that that might be remotely deactivated, but that hasn’t happened. To be fair I’m using them in bridge mode behind a firewall but I suspect the warning is a bit over stated.

Thanks Anne, I have watched a few reviews and the app does seem to make it easy, I like the fact you can view all the stats and manage the connection from the phone.

 

[Graz]

Final post....

If you want to find your true WiFi speeds around the house (and over powerline adapters etc.) you can run a local speed test server: https://openspeedtest.com/?ref=logo

Do this on a laptop or other computer connected directly to your router. Then connect with various devices around the house to see what the actual WiFi speeds you can get are.

 

[matt.]

BT here
Not sure what kind of fibre
My BT contract says Fibre 2

Inside the house on my Android phone I get
33ms ping
download 2.89Mbs
Upload 4.06 Mbs

On my laptop
download 75.63 Mbs
upload 20.77 Mbs
ping 24.2

Paying £32.25/month
Aberdeen

BT are promoting EE and to switch to a comparable service would be £35.35/month
But it appears I would loose my home phone number:
Broadband without a landline

• You’ll lose your home phone number and your home phone will no longer work
• You won't be able to make or receive calls, including to emergency services
• You won’t be able to get your home phone number back. You'll have to get a brand new number if you decide you need a home phone in the future
• Personal alarms and any other services which are connected to your home phone will no longer work

Just the 2 pensioners in the house. No gaming or fancy stuff.

Thoughts folks?
Contract ends next May

 

[old dog new tricks]

Sky here not full fibre but meant to be faster than this!

On my work laptop main source as i work hybrid

Download 57.69 Mbps
Upload 12.21 Mbps
Ping 53.6 ms

Have a TV phone and Broadband package need to change as now paying way too much
Sky Signature (tv) £36.50 - no movies or sports just music and entertainment
Sky HD £9
Sky Broadband Super Fast £43.00
Sky Broadband Boost £7.50
Total £96

as customer for over 12 years think its time to move as much better speeds in my area now (Greater Glasgow)

 

[Chippy_Tea]

But it appears I would loose my home phone number:
Broadband without a landline

I am losing my landline but the only people that ring on that are ones I don't want to talk to anyway so it's a big plus.

 

[JockyBrewer]

Sky here not full fibre but meant to be faster than this!

On my work laptop main source as i work hybrid

Download 57.69 Mbps
Upload 12.21 Mbps
Ping 53.6 ms

Have a TV phone and Broadband package need to change as now paying way too much
Sky Signature (tv) £36.50 - no movies or sports just music and entertainment
Sky HD £9
Sky Broadband Super Fast £43.00
Sky Broadband Boost £7.50
Total £96

as customer for over 12 years think its time to move as much better speeds in my area now (Greater Glasgow)

If you go to full fibre then you can currently get a 500Mb connection for £43 a month from Sky, or a 300Mb for £40.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

as customer for over 12 years think its time to move as much better speeds in my area now (Greater Glasgow)

£43 is expensive for broadband and the to charge 9 quid for HD is a joke.
If you don't need shy have a look at Freesat boxes I have used one for many years after sacking sky, you use the existing dish connections on the Freesat box which you can record on and watch at the same time, haven't watched an advert in many years

 

[matt.]

Sky here not full fibre but meant to be faster than this!

On my work laptop main source as i work hybrid

Download 57.69 Mbps
Upload 12.21 Mbps
Ping 53.6 ms

Have a TV phone and Broadband package need to change as now paying way too much
Sky Signature (tv) £36.50 - no movies or sports just music and entertainment
Sky HD £9
Sky Broadband Super Fast £43.00
Sky Broadband Boost £7.50
Total £96

as customer for over 12 years think its time to move as much better speeds in my area now (Greater Glasgow)

Silly question perhaps but is that per month? £96.
My BT bill comes in quarters so I have to remember to divide by 3 .

 

[old dog new tricks]

Silly question perhaps but is that per month? £96.
My BT bill comes in quarters so I have to remember to divide by 3 .

Nope that per month after all offer expired out of contract refused new deal prices as still a current customer looks like Virgin then, I like the Sky Q box but its becoming far too expensive to continue.

Trying to get Sky on the phone as online only offers upgrades for more money!

 

[JockyBrewer]

I'm on a 300Mbps connection, and have a WiFi 6 (802.11ax) mesh network.

Just did a speed test on my phone via Wifi and I get... 300Mbps.

 

[MashBag]

My cabling isn't very neat which I do appreciate could be better.

You should be proud of that. I have seen some proper nightmares and some I had to unravel that were put in be professional () cable monkeys.