Is my vodafone router working properly? fttp 500mbps

JH1249

I am 1 week into a 24 mth Vodafone 500 contract. I can still cancel.
Speed to the property as measured on the ookla speedtest and using an ethernet cable varies between 90 and 453, usually between 250 and 350. So into the house is OK.
Best speed to laptop and phone is on 2.4g band and is between 50 and 60. Is that to be expected? This includes testing right next to the hub. When my phone or laptop uses the 5g band which I suspect the ipad uses, it's <1.
Vodafone have suggested a booster and I've said 'no. let's get a good speed when I'm in the same room with no other electrical equipment' and our previous isp's router under fttc covered the whole house without needing a booster/extender and that fttc speed in the living was 70 and the best fttp yet is 55. Using a wifi analyser on my phone I can see other networks near by which are say -78 when mine is -73 ish and sometimes a nearby one is stronger than ours.

Is there anything wrong with the router? I'd quite like them to send me another as a quick way of ruling it out but I doubt my ability to persuade them

Is the speed of 50-60 to the device on 2.4G band to be expected?

Should I get my own router?

Should I enable compatibility mode which will create separate 2.4g and 5g networks and then make every device use the 2.4 since it is better.

I have a spreadsheet of 36 test results across different devices in different rooms with different router positions.
I changed provider because their prices were going up too much and this V500 fttp was cheaper. I thought it would be better. I'm concerned it will always be slower at the devices.

Any ideas gratefully received. Thank you

MattMattMattUK

Yes that speed on 2.4gHz is probably realistic unless you have a Wifi6 or 7 router and laptop which most will not be. On 5gHz you will get somewhere between 200 and 800 depending on traffic, hardware etc.

Whether you should get your own router depends on both if you really need that speed to one specific device rather than having the bandwidth to accommodate multiple devices doing things simultaneously and also what wifi your devices have, in terms of frequency by also Wifi4, 6, 7 etc.

flaneurs_lobster

I'd be blaming the router, unless you've got it behind an aquarium or under the sofa.

Still got the old router? Try that out?

My FTTP BT 500 (so basically the same product) shows 490Mbps on fast.com on my laptop via Wi-fi, 5GHz channel, 3m from the EE Smart 7 Plus router.

Sam_666

2.4ghz wifi is for museum.
Only use 5g wifi, wifi6 if poss. You need to play with router wifi setting, try different high channels.
You probably got interference from next door.

QrizB

I am 1 week into a 24 mth Vodafone 500 contract. I can still cancel.

Are you saying it's only a week since you signed up with VF? Or are you saying that you signed up a little while ago but the service has been live for a week?

The 14 day cooling off period starts when you enter the contract, not when the service goes live.

Is the speed of 50-60 to the device on 2.4G band to be expected?

I'm inclined to agree with Matt^3 that yes, this is to be expected. That's the same ballpark speed that I get over WiFi from my phone. On a wired connection I get the line speed.

MyRealNameToo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6680528/is-my-vodafone-router-working-properly-fttp-500mbps

What level of configuration does the router have? can you set the channel being used? or better still, does it have an ability to scan for the least congested channels?

What spec is the router? What spec is the wifi on the receiving devices?

6ghz should be faster than 5ghz which should be faster than 2.4ghz. 2.4ghz however has the longest range and deals with walls better. The best routers can use all three and the best devices can use all three at the same time too but for that everything needs to be Wifi7 which i doubt the router is.

If its a wifi 4 or 5 router (11ac/n) then the 2.4ghz is the same and realistically is 30-60 Mbps
Wifi 6 or 6e router (11ax) then 2.4ghz is a little faster at 70-110 Mbps
Wifi 7 (11be) on 2.4ghz would be 80-140ghz

Go into Command Prompt and type

netsh wlan show interfaces

This will show you the actual speed the laptop itself is receiving (but only a milisecond snapshot) and also what channel its on etc which can help diagnose the problems

Ayr_Rage

Your signal strengths are low, suggests a router fault.

At 12 feet from my crappy Virgin HUB 3

2.4 GHz is -48 dBm, nearest neighbour which is at least 30 feet away -66 dBm, (detached houses).

5 GHZ is -56 dBm, only one neighbour showing at -90 dBm.

JSmithy45AD

"I am 1 week into a 24 mth Vodafone 500 contract. I can still cancel.
Speed to the property as measured on the ookla speedtest and using an ethernet cable varies between 90 and 453, usually between 250 and 350. So into the house is OK."

Presuming you've typed this correctly I'm puzzled as to why everyone seems to have skipped over this bit? Are you saying that a laptop or PC connected via ethernet cable directly to the router is only giving those figures on a 500Mbps service? That's an atrocious connection, your wifi speed is the least of your issues. Can you see what speed the router reports it's getting? Perhaps try a different cat5e or cat6 cable.

JH1249

Thank you all.

I seriously think 5G band is not working properly. I can live with what I'm getting on our windows machines on 2.4.
Now I've forced them to use 2.4 they're around 50 which is ok.

My phone switches between 2.4 and 5. Whenever it's slow I check and it's on 5G so if I'm impatient I use my mobile data.

The Ipad is <1 year old and I'm guessing it's on the 5G band. as it's too poor to stream. It used to stream on the previous wifi and has streamed in AirBnbs. I could use the router to create 2 networks, but that seems wrong.
I don't know enough about the router to change settings.

Ethernet speeds were in the 90s using a 6 year old hardly used 8m cat 7 cable. The supplied 2m cat5 cable has given 206,328,341 and 453. I've read length is immaterial up to 100m

The Vodafone hub is wifi 6. In device manager on the windows machines I can only see 11ac/n.

The old router is not compatible.

Fortunately the vodafone email says cancellation is up to 14 days from activation date.

JSmithy45AD

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82110713#Comment_82110713

Ha, I totally missed the fact that this is via mobile signal :(

Junk the cat7 cable, there was never a consensus on the standards. Either stick to cat5e or cat6.

Edit: damn, I got it mixed up with the other thread, this is FTTP, in which case it's still a rubbish signal to the router if that is what it is. And it's 5Ghz, not 5G.

JH1249

I contacted them and told them about the speeds on the 2 bands.
The first instruction was to create separate networks and use the 2.4 one.
I told them I wasn't going to use old tech on a 11mth old tablet.
They said it was all working fine.
I disagreed.
They found an update and the 5Ghz band speed went up to >100 on ipad and laptop. I was happy.
One hour later. nothing will stream on either band and the ipad speed has fallen to 2 I repeat and it's 146 and then the laptop's less than 1 and it is 2 hours later.
My phone has chosen the 2.4 band so I can stream there.
The webchat is very hard to use. Wits end.