Broadband speeds query

Rotor

Hi all, after years of sub 1mb download speed we've been told we're being upgraded to ultrafast FTTP in sept/october.   Nice.   We're currently on contract to EE for 4g wifi as 1mb was no good for 2 people working from home.
Our EE 4g contract runs till April next year but hoping they will agree to transfer over to fibre within the contract period ( currently pay £60/mth - same as their 900mbs service)
So looking at EE broadband options their speed packages range from average 10mbs to 900mbs

question is - how much speed do I need after contract finishes?
Our usage? well - 4 people in the house using usual youtube/zoom/gaming/tv type stuff - no big up/downloads except possibly a game every now and then.

Second part of the question and the reason why i'm asking now and not April is if my router and mesh needs upgrading or not? (Do most new contracts supply their own routers)

Current system is 
Router - tp-link td w9970

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-Wireless-Support-UK-TD-W9970/dp/B013OXVA6M/ref=sr_1_1?adgrpid=105821736460&dchild=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwmeiIBhA6EiwA-uaeFU1KRnEkxKX2dISCMaefbSyqaDs3ApGZ17Q1O8N0DFM-6AIic8ozahoCNagQAvD_BwE&hvadid=450739049723&hvdev=c&hvlocint=9046172&hvlocphy=1006891&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=1800181658751382212&hvtargid=kwd-306181812371&hydadcr=17219_1746583&keywords=td+9970&qid=1629107230&sr=8-1


mesh is Tenda nova MW3 - 3 pack

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tenda-Nova-Whole-Home-System/dp/B07D9CC637/ref=sr_1_5?crid=14AKVI6FB3GKM&dchild=1&keywords=mw3+tenda&qid=1629107312&sprefix=mw3,aps,197&sr=8-5

Thanks

jamesd

There are various internet speed measures but two of the most important are raw speed, bandwidth, these days measured in megabits per second and latency, the time to get a reply to a request, typically measured in milliseconds.

The highest bandwidth need that seems to fit your description would be 4k streaming video from Youtube or other video source. That is commonly said to use something between 30 and 40 megabits per second depending on who is writing and what video compression they are assuming. Gaming is relatively much less sensitive to bandwidth.

What gaming live over the internet is sensitive to is latency because that affects the time between you doing something locally and the game server getting the result back to you.

Your upgrade will improve both but there's potentially more that you can do with your own equipment in the wifi area.

The fibre will have to come with a fibre interface box and might or might not come with a wifi router. At a minimum it'll have a network LAN port and you plug the WAN port on a wifi box or home router into that. The fibre box will have at least one gigabit LAN port.

The Tenda mesh boxes have two one hundred megabit ethernet ports. This means that the absolute fastest speed they can deliver from the internet if plugged in with one is a total of 100 megabits per second. The 100 megabit/s from the base box has to be shared by every other box.

The base way that the Tendas work is they use their wifi connection to send data to the box you're connected to and again from that box to your computer or whatever. So the connection uses twice the wifi bandwidth and has something like twice the latency. Or three times if an extra hop is needed.

There's a cheap and partial remedy for the multiple transmission and extra latency issue: use a network cable from the Tendas to any static equipment where it's convenient, like TV or desktop computer. Then their final connection will go over the wire and you'll have saved at least one wifi hop and reduced latency and the total amount of stuff going over wifi..

There are more expensive single Tenda boxes that have a gigabit WAN/LAN port and that will increase the speed available from the internet, likely limiting it by the wifi and number of hops needed instead. You only need to have gigabit on the base for all of the boxes to use it, though their hundred megabit/s ethernet ports won't get any faster. That doesn't matter because 100 megabits per second is probably fast enough for internet with just one computer using it, or with two or three if you wire to a hub in the room and from there to the end devices. You can do this wired bit now and benefit both now and later, though it might not be noticeable.

Your TP-Link DSL router also has only 100 megabit ports. DSL probably won't be needed but you can use your box to get three extra wired connections to say TV and desktop computer as well as the wifi.

Don't spend money on the Tenda or TP-link things yet, but maybe buy some cat 5a or cat 6 ethernet cable and use that to the computers which can use wired connections, since that'll at least help latency a bit with your existing internet connection.

If you do need more with fibre, start out by ensuring that the wired network connections have gigabit ethernet ports all the way from the fibre box to the Tenda base box then upgrade that base box to one with a gigabit ethernet port.

At no cost you can have things that are able connect to the TP-link wifi instead of the Tenda wifi. That'll eliminate some wifi retransmission since it'll just go once from the router to the device. You can do it now and it'll still help later.

What you have now is fine for your current connection and things with gigabit ports are pretty cheap now you know that you might need them. If buying new, try to get every wired port gigabit since that or faster is the future and the cost isn't great unless you're really tightly constrained on the money side. Fast ethernet is code for the mid 90s 100 megabit per second standard.

If anyone is playing latency sensitive first person shooter games the most effective way to speed things up for them is to get them a wired connection directly to the TP-link router. That'll eliminate all of the slowing wifi hops.

For my place I've a BT router that uses flat cat 7 cable to connect to an 8 port Zyxel gigabit switch in my living room and cat 8 cables from there to the end devices. I'd have used flat cat 8 instead of flat cat 7 but the run length is a bit too long for that - the BT router is placed optimally for whole place wifi, not wiring convenience. You can spend half as much on an 8 port switch and less on four if that's enough, I wanted some of the features offered by the one I got. Wifi is being used only for the things where wiring isn't convenient. The one cable from the BT router to the Zyxel saves ports on the BT and means fewer wires to run. Cat 7 and 8 are far more than needed today, it's more for possible future 10 and 40 gigabit or my network file server applications, which can use the potential speed once connected to a router and switch that are also able to go faster - it's wasted money except for future proofing and unlikely benefit from extra resistance to external interference at the moment.

JenB79

1. For a family of 4, EE's 160/30 Mbps FTTP service ('Fibre Max 1') should be enough. But of course if you are happy to pay more then you might as well get the fastest speed you can afford, up to 1000/115 Mbps.

2. EE supply a router on all their full fibre services. You won't have any issue reaching up to 900 Mbps through a wired device on their router but over wifi, it won't go beyond 500-600 Mbps as it's only wifi 5 (802.11ac). For close to gigabit speeds you will need to invest in a wifi 6 (802.11ax) router - obviously you will need wifi 6 clients as well. My suggestion would be to see how you get on with the EE supplied router before potentially spending extra money.

I'm also on a full fibre service but with TalkTalk. These are the sort of speeds I'm getting over wifi 6 using a Netgear RAX200 router:

Rotor

thanks for taking the time to respond. Hard wire to the desktop for gaming is easy so will certainly do that. Will be tricky to hardwire other stuff as it would leave cables all over the place and , except for tv,s it's mobile stuff so everything else will be over wifi .
In this scenario would upgrading to the tenda MW6 or even the MW12 ( bit spendy for me though this one) make a difference?
Coverage at the moment is ' just adequate' because of solid brick walls

JenB79

I would wait and see how the EE supplied router performs first before splashing out. Your existing TP Link W9970 is only wifi 4 standard (802.11n) whereas the EE kit will be wifi 5 (ac) so you will almost certainly get an improvement.

jamesd

Adding one Tenda MW6 as your base unit will make a difference because it has two gigabit ethernet ports. That'll change your whole Tenda mesh from sharing 100 megabits per second to sharing a gigabit per second - which is faster than your likely internet connection so you'll be able to go as fast as the internet, except for the limitation of multiple wifi hops that I described earlier. So if needed, get one of those and use a wired connection to it from the EE router.

Your existing tenda setup is 802.11ac AKA wifi 5 like the EE router. There's scope for faster wifi but it requires more modern wifi 6 support in the devices you're connecting as well as the wifi boxes and that's currently unlikely to be present so it's likely to be wasted money. Wires wherever they work and wifi where they don't is currently the best combination for the hardware collection that most people typically have at the moment.

The main gain from the Tenda MW12 is the third wifi channel. Remember I described how the connection sends more than once, from the base station to the closest other one and then to your device, so at least two wifi transmissions are needed? The third channel isn't currently used much and when sending between MW12s the transmitting between those boxes can use the third channel, freeing up bandwidth on the main two that your devices are sharing. That can halve or reduce by around a third the total amount of data being transferred over the main two channels, helping with the speed your devices see. Unlike the MW6 which helps all of your MW3s, the third channel only helps if you're using new MW12s throughout.

I doubt that the MW12 is a good buy. That's because the £270 price may allow you a better option: paying an electrician to run cat 7 or cat 8 from a ground floor place near the router to at least one other point. You can then use a non-mesh (or mesh if desired) connection from that second place. Because it's wired there will be no wifi transmission to get to the new place so just the one transmission from it to your devices. Plug in a cheap wifi 5 or 6 wifi access point into this new place and you'll get faster speed than the MW12 except for the newest devices with third channel support.

As JenB79 wrote see how you get on with the EE router, connecting everything possible directly to it and wired to the gaming computer first. Then maybe add an MW6 as your Tenda base. Beyond that, an extra wired ethernet spot is likely to be better value for your money.

Ibrahim5

I don't bother replying to these threads. They all get hijacked by the 'my gadgets are better than yours' boys. The OP is getting less than 1mbps. They don't need 900mbps with gigabit ports.

[Deleted User]

Ibrahim5 said:

I don't bother replying to these threads. They all get hijacked by the 'my gadgets are better than yours' boys. The OP is getting less than 1mbps. They don't need 900mbps with gigabit ports.

I don't think that's fair, the responses above are some of the best I've seen on this forum lately, informative with sound technical advice from people who clearly understand the technology involved and can appreciate what a quality internet and Wi-Fi experience is all about - and above all put a lot of effort into providing personalised advice for the OP which will result in good use of money.

Rotor

As tallmansix says , I think i have done well for informed and helpful advice and am grateful to the contributors. As jamesd suggested I think I will get a MW6 box to add to the MW3s an extra box will be useful for areas with less than ideal coverage and it may as well be the 6 not a 3. Other than that I will leave it for now

Not sure about the router , not least because I don't know yet what EE's response will be when we do get the ultrafast installed ( only got the sept/oct guide from a surveyer on the road outside i talked to when he was assessing for what was required so it is by no means set in stone)
Could be one of 3 responses from EE ; 
1/ No - contract is the contract, it stays till april
2/straight transfer over to ultrafast - unlikely to give us a new router ( unless we pay) as they supplied the 4g router at the start of the contract
3/Agree to void existing contract if we agree to another 18/24 mth contract - get new router

Wait and see is probably the way forward and , knowing me as i do, if it works ok then i won't try and fix it

Thanks all

jamesd

Ibrahim5 said:

I don't bother replying to these threads. They all get hijacked by the 'my gadgets are better than yours' boys. The OP is getting less than 1mbps. They don't need 900mbps with gigabit ports.

Rotor has two different internet connections to consider, the current one that is slow by modern standards and the new one that could be very fast depending on which is chosen. The post asked for assistance in selecting the fibre speed that would be useful and for related wifi changes to go with that upgrade. If you reread the posts you'll find that they were careful to specify which connection each suggestion was for, since many things won't be of use with the existing connection.