Broadband Speeds

duffman1233211

I recently upgraded my existing Vodafone Broadband account to 910mbps from 300mbps. Since the upgrade, I am still only achieving the same speeds as before the upgrade (approx 230mbps).

I spoke to Vodafone and they have said the speed of 910mbps is only achievable over an Ethernet connection (I don't use Ethernet connections, only WiFi).

I am going to cancel the upgrade within the cooling off period as I dont want to lock myself into a 24 month deal, for effectively the same service.

My question is, if I change providers, and go for the gigafast or 900/910 mbps service, with this also be pointless? It will be the same fibre line, so will it still only achieve the same speeds that I am getting with Vodafone?

Are there any ISPs out there that guarantee a WiFi speed of close to the advertised speed and not via Ethernet?

Thanks.

MattMattMattUK

duffman1233211 said:

I recently upgraded my existing Vodafone Broadband account to 910mbps from 300mbps. Since the upgrade, I am still only achieving the same speeds as before the upgrade (approx 230mbps).

I spoke to Vodafone and they have said the speed of 910mbps is only achievable over an Ethernet connection (I don't use Ethernet connections, only WiFi).

I am going to cancel the upgrade within the cooling off period as I dont want to lock myself into a 24 month deal, for effectively the same service.

My question is, if I change providers, and go for the gigafast or 900/910 mbps service, with this also be pointless? It will be the same fibre line, so will it still only achieve the same speeds that I am getting with Vodafone?

Are there any ISPs out there that guarantee a WiFi speed of close to the advertised speed and not via Ethernet?

Thanks.

What devices are you using and what is the maximum transfer their WiFi component can transfer data at? Unless you have very modern kit with Wifi 6 or Wifi 7 you will not get much above 200Mbps and even then you would only get the higher end in a very good signal environment (close to the router, nothing blocking the signal, not lots of other Wifi devices about etc. 

duffman1233211

Using internet for PS5, mobile phones, Surface Pros. 

My phone is S24 Ultra, so has WiFi 7 capabilities.

The connection does not show the 6 or 7 icon next to the WiFi symbol on my mobile. When test speeds, i do it close to the router or in the same room, and cant get more than 250mpbs.

Would a more modern router help with the speeds?

Vodafone said there is no need to upgrade the router, as their 'Technical Teams' say it is capable of achieving high speeds, but that may just be ethernet speeds.

Peter999_2

What router are you using?     I personally have a City Fibre 1Gbps connection.

My laptop is WiFi 6E connected to a Wifi 6E router and I get the full 900Mbps on wifi when near the router, and even upstairs I'm getting about 700Mbps (it's not quite as stable as a hard wired ethernet connection, but FAST.COM often reports it at 1.1Gbps).   Wifi 7 should presumably have no problem with 1Gbps.

When I had Virgin I found the router to be pretty poor so I put it in Modem only mode and passed it thorugh to a router I bought myself.    I'm not sure if Vodafone allows this or not but I would guess that you could actually totally replace their router with a new one and just get the connection settings required from Vodafone (it's usually quite simple)

DullGreyGuy

duffman1233211 said:

I recently upgraded my existing Vodafone Broadband account to 910mbps from 300mbps. Since the upgrade, I am still only achieving the same speeds as before the upgrade (approx 230mbps).

I spoke to Vodafone and they have said the speed of 910mbps is only achievable over an Ethernet connection (I don't use Ethernet connections, only WiFi).

I am going to cancel the upgrade within the cooling off period as I dont want to lock myself into a 24 month deal, for effectively the same service.

My question is, if I change providers, and go for the gigafast or 900/910 mbps service, with this also be pointless? It will be the same fibre line, so will it still only achieve the same speeds that I am getting with Vodafone?

Are there any ISPs out there that guarantee a WiFi speed of close to the advertised speed and not via Ethernet?

What devices are you using, both router and the things connecting to it? 

No ISP will guarantee wifi speeds because if you connect an old laptop that only has 802.11a then the max speed it will get is 20Mbps no matter what router or line speed you have. 

You need to also make sure you are being careful if you are talking about Mega Bytes (MB) or Mega Bits (Mb) as there are 8 bits in a byte so capitalisation is very important.

To make use of 910mbps over wifi you need at least wifi 6 (802.11ax) and 5 or 6ghz  for both your router and your other device. Older devices may be limited to older protocols or only 2.5ghz frequency which reduces speeds. 

FlorayG

Nope, it all depends on the connections available. My broadband speed is appallingly slow but my provider tells me that's the best I can get where I live, nothing to do with the quality of their equipment

vacheron

I used to have Virgin 1.2Gbps broadband, (as they offered it to me for £32 per month), but the only way to test the speed was to use the router itself as even a gigabit wired LAN connection wasn't fast enough.

The Virgin Router does include a single 2.5Gbps LAN port, but I had no switches or PC's which were compatible and it didn't offer link aggregation. 

So they are delivering the speed promised to your house, but if you don't have the LAN / WiFi 6 interface that can transfer at this speed on both the router and your devices, then it is just a waste of money.

As you say you have WiFi 7, have you tried doing a transfer test between two WiFi 6/7devices on your WiFi to rule out the router WiFi interface as most websites / streaming / downloading sevices will cap their upload speeds to way less than this.

At the end of my contract I downgraded to 150mbps and can't say I really notice any difference. 

MattMattMattUK

duffman1233211 said:

Using internet for PS5, mobile phones, Surface Pros. 

The PS5 can in theory download at 640Mbps over Wifi, but in reality the top end would be 500Mbps with distance from router, signal attenuation etc. Mobile phones vary wildly, the small antennas do not help. Surface Pros depend on model, but again small antennas will impact max download speed apart from when right next to the router.

duffman1233211 said:

My phone is S24 Ultra, so has WiFi 7 capabilities.

The connection does not show the 6 or 7 icon next to the WiFi symbol on my mobile. When test speeds, i do it close to the router or in the same room, and cant get more than 250mpbs.

Would a more modern router help with the speeds?

That would indicate that it is not connected via a 6 or 7 protocol, what is the router? Only the "Power Hub", the most recent Vodafone router has Wifi 6, from the specs I can find for it, it is not full speed on all connections though, Wifi device is capped at 300Mbps (and that is on the 5Ghz band, the 2.4Ghz speeds are half that), although it can support up to four devices at max speed at one, and up to 100 in total (although that would result in severe slowdown).

duffman1233211 said:

Vodafone said there is no need to upgrade the router, as their 'Technical Teams' say it is capable of achieving high speeds, but that may just be ethernet speeds.

It may be, it may not. The other thing to factor in is why do you need that speed? I have 500Mbps at home not because I particularly need to download things at that speed, but because of the increased bandwidth, so I can leave large files downloading on my laptop and PC, play on my PS5 etc. My PC is wired and my laptop can be if I needed to transfer a particularly large file to it, although it is Wifi 6 and will do about 800Mbps anyway. 

littleboo

^ The other thing to factor in is why do you need that speed? 
Absolutely this. What prompted you to upgrade? There is no point in paying for more bandwidth unless it improves something which you want to improve.  

duffman1233211

littleboo said:

^ The other thing to factor in is why do you need that speed? 
Absolutely this. What prompted you to upgrade? There is no point in paying for more bandwidth unless it improves something which you want to improve.  

It was costing an extra 80p a month or something to get the extra speed, so thought why not, but I did not fully understand that the device used and router etc would effect things. 

You are right, 300 is probably enough tbh, but for such a little price increase it seemed worth it.

littleboo

ah ok, yes for 80p I would probably do the same, just to be able to brag....