Question Wireless speeds cut in half recently

[jonashlock]

Sorry for the long post. Over the past two weeks our wireless speeds have been cut in half. We used to get about 850 down, 40 up anywhere in our house. Now it bounces between 250 to 500 down, 8 to 20 up.

I was pretty sure it was a comcast issue and they even reported that they saw speeds bouncing in our area. That is not the case now.

Here is my hardware setup. Xfinity router, Orbi mesh setup with 3 satellites.

• We have replaced the comcast router.
• spent 10 hour easily on the phone with comcast. (that was painful)
• Hardwired we are getting speeds up to 890 down.
• Wireless using either the xfinity SSiD or our Orbi is still giving very slow speeds unless you are 1 foot from the router.
• Tested on multiple devices (several laptops and phones)
• I have removed the orbi (physically disconnected and powered all satelites off) to test and still have the same results.
• Changed the channels on both 2.4 and 5 to the least congested ones. (using wifi analyzer) Old channels were not really congested, but thought this might help.
• verified firmware is up to date
• Changed our SSID on all devices so that any rogue connection is not on the network. (no ring cameras, xbox, security system, etc)
• From time to time I see a 6ghz network that is not mine pop into view but it is on higher channels. We live on an acre and our closest neighbor is several hundred feet away. (I am guessing it is theirs)

I am at a loss. Any other suggestions?

 

[bill001g]

It is not the ISP or the router if you get the full speed using ethernet.

I would have told you that you will never see 850 down on a wifi connection so for you to have gotten that much you were very lucky. Even 500mbps is a lot.

First the only way you get over about 300mbps is to use 160mhz radio channels. This can be impossible to sometimes get on the 5ghz radio band because of all the rules about weather radar and other restricted use. If you router or devices would detect a weather radar signal they would drop back to 80mhz which you seldom get over 300mbps on.
If you have wifi6e devices you can many times use the 6ghz band to get 160mhz wide channels. Does not help devices that do not have 6ghz radios.

Next is the use of what is called QAM1024. This is a extremely dense data encoding method. Because of this it is extremely sensitive to interference. It tends to only work in the same room as the router.

If this wasn't bad enough you have now added wifi repeaters to the mix. You now in the very best case have 2 wifi signals that can be interfered with. If you purchased cheaper models of your orbi it runs as a repeater and signals to the router interfere with the signals to the end devices.

Even when you buy fancy mesh units that have a extra dedicated radio chip you make the 160mhz radio band issue even worse. You would be very lucky to get a single 160mhz radio block in the 5ghz band you are not going to get 2. Now if you spend way over $1000 they make orbi systems that have a dedicated radio that can talk to the main router on 6ghz as well as chips that can do 2.4,5 &6 to talk to end devices. With 4 radio chips per box a set of 3 gets expensive fast.

Hard to say what you problem is. Mostly I suspect your expectations are too high. If you have all wifi6e equipment and you spent the big money for the top end orbi system maybe you can get 800mbps. Hard to say so many variables you have to sort out.

It tends to be silly to do this. Most portable devices don't have any need or ability to download huge amounts of data. If you have a desktop machine you are better off spending money to have ethernet run rather than spending thousands of dollars on wifi equipment.

 

[jonashlock]

It is not the ISP or the router if you get the full speed using ethernet.

I would have told you that you will never see 850 down on a wifi connection so for you to have gotten that much you were very lucky. Even 500mbps is a lot.

First the only way you get over about 300mbps is to use 160mhz radio channels. This can be impossible to sometimes get on the 5ghz radio band because of all the rules about weather radar and other restricted use. If you router or devices would detect a weather radar signal they would drop back to 80mhz which you seldom get over 300mbps on.
If you have wifi6e devices you can many times use the 6ghz band to get 160mhz wide channels. Does not help devices that do not have 6ghz radios.

Next is the use of what is called QAM1024. This is a extremely dense data encoding method. Because of this it is extremely sensitive to interference. It tends to only work in the same room as the router.

If this wasn't bad enough you have now added wifi repeaters to the mix. You now in the very best case have 2 wifi signals that can be interfered with. If you purchased cheaper models of your orbi it runs as a repeater and signals to the router interfere with the signals to the end devices.

Even when you buy fancy mesh units that have a extra dedicated radio chip you make the 160mhz radio band issue even worse. You would be very lucky to get a single 160mhz radio block in the 5ghz band you are not going to get 2. Now if you spend way over $1000 they make orbi systems that have a dedicated radio that can talk to the main router on 6ghz as well as chips that can do 2.4,5 &6 to talk to end devices. With 4 radio chips per box a set of 3 gets expensive fast.

Hard to say what you problem is. Mostly I suspect your expectations are too high. If you have all wifi6e equipment and you spent the big money for the top end orbi system maybe you can get 800mbps. Hard to say so many variables you have to sort out.

It tends to be silly to do this. Most portable devices don't have any need or ability to download huge amounts of data. If you have a desktop machine you are better off spending money to have ethernet run rather than spending thousands of dollars on wifi equipment.

So yes.. I agree with what you say but up to 2 weeks ago running speedtest we were getting over 800 down wirelessly consistently without a single change to our configuration (for over 5 years) Our orbi does have the dedicated back channel. It is the RBS50 (3 of them) and the main router RBR50.

I did just have an thought though on your weather band comment. We live about 2 miles from the Narrows regional airport. I wonder if they may of upgraded some equipment which is causing both antennas to use the different slower frequency.

As we work out of the house and are regularly on zoom meetings while downloading data, we do require the higher download speeds. (anything below 400 we get chatter)

 

[bill001g]

The only way you got 800 was if you someone connected to the main router using wifi6e. Those orbi units are close to crap.

The radios that talk to the end devices are limited to 2x2 mimo. This means even using all the deceptive wifi number the maximum number you get is still 866. Problem is wifi is half duplex so you tend to get only half that and that would be in a perfect world with no overhead and no interference. This is why you see most people get about 300mbps maximum.

Hard to say what you were testing. You were not running over the orbi systems.

 

[JohnMGotts]

Added any new "electronic" devices or construction to your home recently? Just a thought.

 

[jonashlock]

Added any new "electronic" devices or construction to your home recently? Just a thought.

No changes to my house or network at all. By changing my SSID's I bumped all devices connected to my network off. ended up with 3 wirereless devices connected.. (two cell, one laptop)