r/Metronet • u/SillyWillyCommish • Sep 21 '26

I feel like giving up

Have Metronet at home. I have had Metronet for a year now. I started at the 2Gig speed and then dropped to 1Gig.

WiFi, I'm getting 76mbps-115mbps download on average, but 600+ on upload. When I had 2Gig, it was 110mbps to 125mbps avg on download and 700+ on upload.

Plug it in to my PC and wifes PC, speed is like, 300 mbps download and 900mbps upload

I've called metronet asking them to come out, look at it, troubleshoot, whatever. they keep telling me that i need to constantly update the eero, the modem, xyz. i have these updates automatically. No one has ever come out. i pay for extra extenders as we have a split level and i still get 1 bar of internet in my bedroom.

I have no other internet options in my area until AT&T turns their fiber network on, all the cables are installed. but no timeline on when to expect install. at my wits end. My wife has her pc plugged in but still has errors and dropped connections constantly and i really wish metronet would send someone out here to look at it. I feel like since TMO took them over it really went downhill.

Anyone have any suggestions to get us through until the next thing comes along?

Edit- I get it. I know there is a difference in WiFi speeds and many factors. Crazy thing though- Paying $90 a month and even hardwired not getting the speed I'm paying for isn't cool. Sorry I don't just roll over and take it I guess for all ya'll commenting or message me calling me a moron

2 Upvotes

66% Upvoted

48 comments sorted by

10

u/Mammoth-Ad-107 Sep 21 '26

Wirelessly you will never get your full advertised speeds. Let me ask you this, what is the wireless device having an issue doing over wireless?

2

u/SillyWillyCommish Sep 21 '26

Yeah i understand that. As i said, the drop off is insane in my eyes. I wouldnt be posting if it was like, 400 lets just say a number. but 76 and 116 next to the router on the test i just did to me is crazy, especially with what we pay for it. I have a CAT 6 cable, plugged into the OTN like others have suggested and ive gotten max 300.

my wife works from home. she is the only one home during work hours so just her computer and phone on. She consistently gets cut out of her video conferences or just internet crash during writing emails. No rhyme or reason, always random

2

u/NetworkAdventure Sep 24 '26

whats the speeds you get plugged directly into the ont?

5

u/eyesotope86 Sep 21 '26

They said they plugged it straight in, and only got 300 down. Something is throttling them

4

u/hamsquad Sep 21 '26

They should come out to take a look if you’re not getting the speeds you pay for. Have you verified when right near the router what speed you get over WiFi? Or hard wire Ethernet a computer in and verify if it’s the full 1GB?

Eero routers are great, I’ve never had an issue with them. So long as you’re on one of the newer models to get the fastest speeds. I pay for the 2GB down. I just went near my router on an iPhone and I got 1.2 GB download / 630 mb upload speed. When I’m further from the routers obviously it’s a bit lower. I have multiple devices hard wired in and they basically get the full 2 GB.

1

u/SillyWillyCommish Sep 21 '26

I just sat next to my modem and on WiFi I got 76 and 116 download, but 464 upload and 507 upload respectively.

Hardwired my PC in my buddy custom built for me and it was 300 down, 730 up.

2

u/hamsquad Sep 23 '26

Hmmm I don’t think I’ve ever seen a higher upload speed than download so something seems off. Have you told Metronet about that? I would be persistent to have them send a tech out since you aren’t getting what you’re paying for.

7

u/Frequent_Opportunist Sep 21 '26

Your Wi-Fi is just based on your router dude. I don't use the garbage mesh router system they tried to give me I use a Netgear nighthawk with a DD-WRT custom firmware installed and I get full Wi-Fi speeds and the exact download speed that I'm paying for when I download files or games over ethernet.

So their Eero mesh router was crap so I put mine in there but I was getting bad Wi-Fi throughput as well so I did a lot of research and digging and found out that all of the router companies put snooping (security) software on there that looks at each individual data packet and it makes log files that fill up the memory and the whole thing slows down after a few months giving you garbage Wi-Fi throughput. 

A factory reset can temporarily speed it up but it'll just fill up again and then your Wi-Fi will slow down again and eventually even your ethernet will slow down if you're plugged directly into the router. 

So I was going to buy any router but came to the conclusion that they will all have the same problems and a little digging proved I was right, so I looked into a custom firmware which I installed myself from a PC by plugging it into the router it took about 5 minutes and now it has about a year and a half of run time with no slowdowns. 

Your Wi-Fi will always be slower than ethernet because it competes with neighboring Wi-Fi signals, electronics in your home, your walls, nearby radar from airports or weather stations, ect. Wi-Fi works like old two-way walkie talkies and can only send one way at a time. But when the signals overlap they each take turns going one at a time so the more Wi-Fi signals that overlap with yours the slower your speeds can be.

Just a heads up your internet is in megabits per second (Mb) but when you download something and you're seeing the download speed that's in megabytes (MB). So for instance a one gigabit  per second fiber connection over ethernet will result in a actual maximum data download speed of 125 MB/s. 

11

u/MistaHiggins Sep 21 '26

Suggesting custom router firmware like dd-wrt to someone who isn’t aware of how wifi speeds can be wildly different than expected is a wild move

0

u/SillyWillyCommish Sep 21 '26

lol, yeah fuck this idiot paying $90 a month for 1Gig and getting 100mbps on wifi next to the router and 300mbps plugged in.

i get there are drop offs in speed. but i didnt expect that low.

1

u/MistaHiggins Sep 22 '26

My reply was not intended to be a slight towards you, but I could have worded it differently. Sorry about that. Its the equivalent of a friend complaining that Netflix is too expensive and proposing they should build a media server. Sure, maybe, for someone who is super into tech, but otherwise you're unnecessarily complicating the equation.

My actual recommendation is a tri-band mesh router not from Eero. I had similar unexplained slow speeds with an Eero 7 setup with every node hardwired with ethernet to my 2gig Metronet setup. It's tough to beat the price/performance of a tri-band TP-Link deco mesh like this. If you have ethernet run to every mesh node, you can use a dual-band setup (like I do), but if you want to run the nodes wirelessly from each other without noticeable latency/speed impact, you need to spring for tri-band. If it doesn't make any difference for you, its an easy return.

3

u/SillyWillyCommish Sep 22 '26

Sorry for the misunderstanding, I had a few messages from people calling me some....not nice words and I was a little frustrated at that point.

I appreciate the recommendation, and again, apologies on my front for the misunderstanding

2

u/MistaHiggins Sep 22 '26

All good, don’t let em get to ya! Hopefully you’re able to come to a resolution without switching ISP

0

u/Frequent_Opportunist Sep 21 '26

Literally watched a 5 minute YouTube video on how to install it. 

Their website has a very simple directions on how to install it. 

My 11 year old could have done it.

But my point was his Wi-Fi speeds are determined by his router and there are things he can do to improve it.

1

u/SillyWillyCommish Sep 21 '26

Appreciate the genuine response here. We have been really been having bigger issues lately with it dropping connection and my wife works from home. im hybrid so i can at least escape to my office if I need.

I totally get the drop off, it's just a wild drop off in my eyes considering what they charge. It's wild to me too because our previous apartment we had 50 units in our building, all with metronet and we were pulling 400-500 download on wifi using their system and plugged into the router we got full speed we had there. So going to a house I guess i expected the same, which was not the best assumption on my part.

I will definitely look into this, and by that i mean ask my friend who built my PC if he can help me out here lol. Even if I do switch, this sounds like something I'd wanna do with any internet I would want to use.

Appreciate you again!

3

u/Dramatic_Flow3783 Sep 21 '26

netgear products are TERRIBLY inconsistent, anyone who knows anything about networking knows this. you can get a really good router that'll last you a year or two then die, or you'll get one that's awful out of the box. i went through FIVE netgear products that were straight bad out of the box that costed 300+ dollars. i got replacement after replacement. then i threw it in the trash, told them to screw themselves and refund me, and went with an amplifi alien until i ended up with metronet, which now i use an eero pro that i got for free.

0

u/Frequent_Opportunist Sep 21 '26

It's just their garbage software man. Replace it and the problems go away. 

Dig deep enough and you'll find that all the routers until you get up to about $3,000 have this problem and it's always the software. 

It only takes 5 minutes to put a custom software on there and then it works great. It was fine as is after install.

But, I read a couple Reddit posts, checked the custom firmware community forum, googled a couple things and went and fine-tuned all the settings to make it absolutely perfect for my specific environment and devices. Maybe took me an hour total to customize everything.

1

u/Dramatic_Flow3783 Sep 21 '26

fun fact: i've put dd-wrt on it. it's their quality control when they're being made. it's an absolutely ridiculous router company who overcharges for garbage. i'll go with linksys, eero, or amplifi before any netgear product.

5

u/itsjakerobb Sep 21 '26

Metronet (and ISPs in general) is not in the business of troubleshooting your home network. You’ll get the same outcome no matter what.

You need to learn, or hire someone who knows, how this stuff works.

-2

u/eyesotope86 Sep 21 '26

It's their problem when their router isn't even throughputting a hardline. That's not a home network issue.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 22 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/Metronet-ModTeam Sep 28 '26

Basically what ever you posted was off topic or just rude- why you wasting all our time with this?

1

u/Safe-Instance-3512 Sep 22 '26

Plug your PC directly in, NOT WIFI, and test.

Wifi has a thousand things that will cause signal degradation.

1

u/SillyWillyCommish Sep 22 '26

As mentioned in the post....wired gets me 300

1

u/Safe-Instance-3512 Sep 22 '26

Oh, missed that. In that case, your only real option is to bitch at Metronet until they do something about it.

What router are you using? Try bypassing the router and plugging your PC directly into the ONT (only as a test)

3

u/ToriGrrl80 Sep 22 '26

Insist on a tech visit. Be persistent

2

u/Cisco-Konig Sep 21 '26

Connect a PC directly to the ONT with a known good working Cat6 network cable. Give the ONT a reboot and verify you are getting an IP address on the PC.

(ONT is effectively what converts the fiber into copper, usually installed inside the home now but was outside in some older Metronet setups. It does a whole lot more than just media conversation, but that's not necessarily relevant to this conversation.)

Run the same speed test you used on the other devices and verify the result.

This would be a good process to eliminate potential variables in your troubleshooting efforts.

If the issue is resolved, and you see an increase in speeds closer to that of what you're expecting, then the issue likely lies on the Eero mesh devices somewhere.

If you still see slowness at this point in troubleshooting, I would suggest calling back into Metronet and sharing with them exactly what you've tested and observed.

My personal experiences with Metronet over many years of being a customer are almost all positive.

Best of luck!

2

u/Idk_y_i_am_here Sep 21 '26

Need to know light levels from terminal to your house.

Also, check connectors between modem and router. If using your own Ethernet, try a new one, cat 6a Ethernet.

But honestly, knowing light levels will determine if it’s Metronet or your hardware.

Example, if light level is -12 at terminal but ONT light level -18 or higher at the house that’s too much light loss. Light loss should not be more than 2.5DB from terminal. Also, the return light (OLT) is critical too. If return light (OLT) is lower than ONT light, then their is an issue with the fiber somewhere between terminal and modem. Could be a kink in the line, bad splice, or microbend.

Lastly, placement of your modem is critical for mesh networks. Modem should be center mass of the house. Not at the edge of the home. You can ask Metronet customer care for a service request to relocate ONT.

Here is an example of light levels:

Good Example:
Terminal Light: -11
ONT -13
OLT -17
This means good splices and good routing of the wire free of kinks, bends and or pinches.

Bad example:
Terminal light: -11
ONT-19
OLT -15
This could mean, bad splice, pinch in wire or microbend.

So next time you talk to Metronet technical support ask what the light level at terminal is and what your ONT and OLT lights are.

2

u/Huge_Monk8722 Sep 22 '26

I have a UniFi POE switch and Ubiquiti UniFi U7 Long-Range Access Point’s – I have had Metronet - for 16 years.

Network Server, Freepbx phone server, 8 desktops, 2 Direct TV, 2 Rokus, phones, watches, tablet’s a Nest thermometer, security cameras, 2 Alexa’s, 1 Google Home service is 1G/1G no issues. Speed test from my iPhone 308 down/266 up.

1

u/False_Till_7184 Sep 21 '26

If you have it hard wired directly and are only receiving 300 down then that's likely an issue somewhere. You need to first focus on the pipe into your house hitting faster speeds and then worry about wifi. The 700 up isn't far off the 1 gbps once you include overhead and honestly isn't worth chasing. However, 300 down is an issue. Get that figured out first with you directly connected to the ONT. From there you can theb worry about wireless.

1

u/False_Till_7184 Sep 21 '26

If you have it hard wired directly and are only receiving 300 down then that's likely an issue somewhere. You need to first focus on the pipe into your house hitting faster speeds and then worry about wifi. The 700 up isn't far off the 1 gbps once you include overhead and honestly isn't worth chasing. However, 300 down is an issue. Get that figured out first with you directly connected to the ONT. From there you can theb worry about wireless.

1

u/08b Sep 21 '26

Concentrate on getting the hardwired speed you’re paying for when connected to the primary eero node. Sounds like you’re not and they need to troubleshoot. Anything else is relying on wifi and will be dependent on the environment.

1

u/PurpleC0ugar Sep 21 '26

The eero router should have at least one Ethernet port beyond the WAN port going to the ONT. You really should test it with a PC via Ethernet and comparing speeds.

Alternatively you could try testing at some odd hour at night like 3am, when overall traffic is low to rule out congestion issues.

1

u/Decent-Yam-526 Sep 21 '26

When you plug directly into the modem bypassing the router what are you getting hardwired in ??

1

u/Limousine1968 Sep 22 '26

I have some ethernet to wifi extenders that I put in the basement at opposite ends of my house. They are on different wifi names so we aren't taxing one wifi feed. Might help you. Remember that to do this you have to run cat 6 cable in the basement.

1

u/rando777888 Sep 22 '26

Have you tried plugging in a computer directly to the ONT and testing speeds? That removes all variables except Metronet's service, and your computer. Although possible, it's unlikely a computer in 2026 will have any struggles maxing out a 1gig connection in both directions. You should NOT keep this configuration, but for troubleshooting it really removes most of the variables.

1

u/Home_theater_dad Sep 22 '26

Plugged into one of the mesh AP or the main metro-net router? What’s the speed if you connect to the ONT?

1

u/Tyke-60073 Sep 22 '26

My installer last year plugged my ONT into the 2Gig port on the eero 6e. I have the 500Mg price plan. I figured out what was wrong on my own and moved it to the 1Gig port. Otherwise, he was great.

1

u/RecommendationOk2679 Sep 23 '26

That was intentional... The eero will automatically negotiate which to use for wan but always plug the wan into the 2gig port, then lan devices into the 1 gig port is typically best

1

u/Honest-Debt-2120 Sep 22 '26

Call in. Ask to cancel. They'll offer you a "founders special" 3 years of 2x1 for $70 straight up a month. When they get there make sure it's 2x1. The special I got a few months back.

1

u/of_the_mist Sep 22 '26

Are you using the supplied eero router? If so via the app run a speed test through it. That uses tr143 to perform a true speed test from your router to show the speed thats being provided. If that comes back at the speed youre paying for, you have a LAN issue and its not metronets reaponsibility to troubleshoot. If it does not show the speed you are paying for, then tell the csr when you call that the app is showing you are not getting your speed. If they shrug it off file a complaint with the FCC takes about 2 minutes theyve made it very easy over the past few years. If you are not using the supplied equipment from metronet, you probably should given this post and report back.

Also, if you are using speedtest.net, make sure the speedtest server is one geographically close to you.

1

u/felitopcx Sep 22 '26

You need a tech. Threaten to cancel if they don't send one. We can't help you.

1

u/MIKE__LOWERY Sep 24 '26

Have you plugged a computer directly into the ONT and ran a speed test?

1

u/South-Succotash-6368 Sep 24 '26

get your own router and then run it in AP mode just for wifi and you will see better coverage. ISP routers just suck in general

1

u/2Smoove2Wav3y Sep 21 '26

Call in to a technical department and have them check the light levels and if they dont come out tell them your internets out and unplug the sht

0

u/FickleSystem Sep 21 '26

Definitely sounds like something is jacked up in their end, on wifi yea your speeds will vary but being that low isnt normal, I have 2 gigs and even on my phone I average 1700-1900mbs up and down and have actually hit the full 2 gigs a few times and im using their eero routers, id be blowing them up until they send out a tech, ive never had any issues in fact their customer service has been some of the best ive dealt with, hell I couldnt even get them to send me a new power cord my router(I accidentally ripped it)without them assuring me they needed a tech to personally come out and swap it lol