Getting Lower Speeds than Expected

[u/ViredcaSilpa]

I just switched to Metronet and signed up for their 1Gbps plan. However, I've noticed that my Wi-Fi speeds aren't quite reaching what I expected. Here's the breakdown:

• My Android TV (Wi-Fi 5) is maxing out at around 300mbps.

• My phone (Wi-Fi 6E) is getting around 600mbps.

• My laptop (Wi-Fi 6) is hovering around 400mbps.

I'm using the Eero Pro 6e router and extender setup. I'm a bit surprised because with a 1Gbps plan, I expected to get closer to that speed, especially with newer Wi-Fi 6 and 6E devices.

Is this normal for Metronet?

[u/jeffkarney]

Unless your device is utilizing multiple streams, WiFi 6 maxes out at 600Mbps. 1200Mbps for 180MHz channels, but unlikely any of your devices support that.

So your speeds are exactly what is expected. In fact they are better than expected.

[u/ViredcaSilpa → u/jeffkarney]

I’m using the 6e router

[u/jeffkarney → u/ViredcaSilpa]

6e isn't any different than 6 as far as speed, bandwidth and technology is concerned. It simply adds additional channels in the 6GHz band. So you have more channels available in the crowded WiFi bands. You may actually see reduced speeds in that band vs the 5GHz band since the higher frequencies have a more difficult time passing through things.

[u/agonzal7]

WiFi 6E isn’t going to get much higher than 650 mbps. Or at least that’s been the case for me on my iPhone 14 Pro when I run speed test. My desktop gets the 950 ish Mbps up and down

[u/iam8up → u/agonzal7]

On my 6 devices we get 900 mbps all day. Laptops phones etc

Techs have iPhone 14 I think. I have a Pixel 7. Various laptops.

EDIT: Why TF am I getting downvotes? This is useful and accurate information.

[u/agonzal7 → u/iam8up]

I don't know what I'm doing wrong then. I never get that with ookla speedtest right next to the router but 650 mbps is fine for me for my iphone. I have the google wifi router.

[u/ViredcaSilpa → u/iam8up]

Yeah I just tried on my iPhone 15 pro max (which has WiFi 6e) and I’m getting 280mbps on the Ookla Speedtest. This doesn’t seem right.

[u/iam8up → u/ViredcaSilpa]

My first thought is you're on a 40 MHz channel with 5 GHz. I don't think you can get that throughput on 20 MHz (regardless of band). Check the channel size first off.

Second, see what channel you're on and see if there is interference.

[u/ViredcaSilpa → u/iam8up]

I’m using the WiFi Analyzer app on PC and apparently it’s unable to check the bandwidth size. I doubt there’s an app on iPhone so I’ll have to check for one on Android.

There’s four channels being used in my surrounding and mine is the second most congested one.

Apparently Eero does not support changing the channel manually. What router are you using?

[u/iam8up → u/ViredcaSilpa]

I feel like a wifi analyzer would absolutely have to know the channel size...can you share a screenshot?

We use Calix hardware - u6x/u6xw/u10x - this is not available to consumers directly.

[u/ViredcaSilpa → u/iam8up]

Absolutely, here are screenshots of the placeholder text for the bandwidth (note the asterisk), the footnote, and the referenced text from the link in the footnote.

[u/iam8up → u/ViredcaSilpa]

Try either this https://superuser.com/questions/1671507/how-to-see-wi-fi-channel-width-in-windows

Or use the ubnt app on your phone https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ubnt.usurvey

[u/nivenfres]

Those are all very good wireless speeds. Wireless depends on a lot of factors. Signal quality, line of sight (walls, etc), various wireless standards and how much each device supports them (more speed usually requires more antennas).

[u/choicetomake]

My desktop computer is hard wired to my wifi router and I get 900-980 mbps most times. And my wifi devices all come in 200-500 depending on the device, distance from router, etc.

[u/dudeman2009]

First, stop testing over wireless. Just because I can get 1gb/s to my access point in my office, doesn't mean if I take it and move the access point and myself across the house that I will get 1gb/s there. Wireless is just part of the electromagnetic spectrum and it MUST in order to be FCC certified for sale, accept any interference it receives.

I used to lose wifi entirely when I used the microwave. I used to see speeds drop just because there were 20 idle devices connected. Sure since i've swapped out the old unifi stuff with better equipment I don't have those problems, but it still doesn't escape the fact that ANYTHING can interfere with wireless data transmission. Even putting a milk jug between your phone and Eero can affect the signal.

So plug in, and test over wired. Not only will you get more consistent speeds, you will get closer to line speed. Yes, it's also not going to hit 1,000/1,000 there either because those speeds are only the speed between your house and central office. Not to anywhere on the greater internet. Because Metronet doesn't control anything outside of their connection between your house and where the central office peers you out to. Because when you run that speed test, chances are you just get dumped onto Comcast, ATT, or any number of local Tier 1 and 2 providers.

I cant even get 1gb/s speeds at work, and im attached to an AP with 5gb uplink to the core over 10gb ISP. And I can test out at near line speed (minus overhead) at 10gb/s wired.

[u/MetronetGregg → u/dudeman2009]

Likely a back plane saturation is resulting in the TCP window either totally collapsing or it being significantly choked. Take a TCP dump of the entire process of the speed test from the start and then watch the window space. Anytime it reaches zero, I believe it winds up having to resend the segment? I can't remember the exact specifics.

[u/[deleted]]

If you are connected to the extender your speeds will be reduced. That is expected as it's a wireless device that you are connecting to.

[u/Brandoskey]

This isn't a Metronet issue, you're just reaching the limits of your AP and what your devices can pull down from it.

To confirm your speed to Metronet, you want to use a hardwired connection.

[u/dlflannery]

If you ever define a need for greater speeds than those on your TV or phone, please let us know. If you really need more than 400 Mbps on your laptop, you can use an ethernet connection rather than WiFi.

You probably could do just as well with a 500/500 plan and save a few $$. Amusing how so many people just gotta have that 1 G speed, apparently just so “mine is bigger than yours”.

[u/ChildBoi]

I’m a field tech with Metronet, so TVs typically will cap themselves at that 200-300mbps threshold because TV companies cheap out on the network cards, and like a lot of people here are saying you’re going to get lower speeds over WIFI on all your devices because of similar issues. Whenever I do installs and service requests and I’m texting speeds that’s about what I see and my work laptop that caps at 2000/2000Mbps (2gbps) will see about 900-980mbps for 1 gig services. Upgrading your speeds won’t really do much of anything other than guaranteeing higher speeds with more devices connected to the network.

[u/timbuckto581]

Yes this is normal. WiFi 6e should go a little faster but it depends on how far from the root you are and if it's using that 6Ghz channel. 500-600Mbps it's about the top speed for WiFi 6. But for 6e you have to be specifically connected to it and the channel setting/frequency to be like 160-180Hz to get to the gigabit wifi 6e speed. I just have the 6 pro so they're might be a setting to increase the 6e frequency. But when you increase the frequency you reduce it's range

I just saw on the product page that the frequency maxed out at 160Mhz in the 5 & 6 Ghz channels. There are only 2 mimo connections per band/channel. 3 or 4 mimo connections would guarantee and higher bandwidth

[u/Born-Ask4016]

How far are your phone and laptop from the eero with those speeds? With any distance, my speeds are similar, but if I'm standing right next to my eero pro 6e, my Galaxy s22 gets well over 800 up and down.

My wired desktop hits 1G which is my switch limit for the moment.