Virgin media 500

Psyrus

Hi,

I signed up for the VM500 and a speedtest on the superhub 3 showed me getting 530mbps, but the WiFi did not carry well. I have then set up a tp link vr600 v3 router with the superhub on modem mode, but my speed has dropped to 200-300mbps. I have also tried keeping the superhub 3 in router mode and disabling the WiFi, but this made no difference. Is the problem my third party router, or is there something I haven't done correctly?

[Deleted User]

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[Deleted User]

Useful to know a lot more details about your devices and speed tests:

1. Which devices were used for each test and what distance you were from the wifi router and are there any obstacles in the path of the wifi signal?
2. Was the VM 530mbps and the TP link test wired or wireless and what device, just want to check we are comparing like for like tests. What do you mean by "the wifi didn't carry well"? Was the wifi speed test on 5Ghz or 2.4 Ghz?
3. Also which speed test site, and have you tried a variety, some can't always provide the external bandwidth to support higher speed tests.
4. Also what ethernet cable are you using from modem to TP link? 
5.Has the TP Link router got the latest firmware? Has it had a factory reset to default settings after firmware update?
6. Is the router located clear of solid object, high up etc - wifi doesn't like going through walls, wood, glass etc.

Ideally with 500 mbps broadband the VM hub should be in modem mode with a good quality Wifi router connected to it for best performance, but to be honest the TP Link VR600 v3 isn't such, it is a budget one and won't be powerful enough. For years people have used bog basic routers because internet speeds have been 50-80 mbps which they can cope with but you are looking at 10 times that with 500mbps so you need 10x more processing power and you don't get that in a budget £85 TP link router.

Unfortunately the specs on the box don't always mean a lot, they might claim 1733 mbps on the 5Ghz wifi because it meets the standard of the wifi specification but processing power under the hood might not be able to cope, you need a beast of a router to cope with speeds like that.

For example the older version of that router that claimed 1300 mbps wifi couldn't achieve anywhere near that in a speed test - it topped out at 516 and dropped to 328 at 30 feet.

It does baffle me that the specs for the router claim it is a 4x4 Mimo yet it only has 3 aerials so at least one of them must be internal which isn't ideal either. On that point if the device (eg mobile laptop) you are using for speed testing only has 2x2 or 3x3 aerials then it will only achieve half or 3/4 of the rated wifi speed anyway - not many devices have 4x4 aerials.

You are obviously serious about internet usage to pay for a 500mbps connection, so you need to get serious about your equipment - £300-400 budget for your wifi router.

TLDR:
1. Provide a lot more details.
2. Get a proper wifi router to cope with 500 mbps. I have this for my 380mbps connection and I can achieve 700-800 mbps on wifi for local file transfers about 10 metres away from the router. It has a PC grade CPU - quad core 1.8Ghz to cope with such high data speeds.