This topic

BT Whole Home Wifi disk slower upstairs

ShaunyC — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 12:25:37 GMT

I have Gigaclear Ultrafast Full Fibre (BT don't have FF in my area yet). I get a native speed into the router around 900Mbps. When I connect a BT Whole Home Wi-Fi disc to the router, it works at around the same speed - I call the disc network "mesh" and the router network "gigaclear" so it's pretty easy to get the right one. 🙂

I have a second and third disc upstairs, where I run a cable into the attic and then via a tp-link Gigabit Switch LS105GP. (I have tried other switches too), and from there I run cable to each of the upstairs discs.

The second and third discs only ever get me around 350Mbps wifi connection - if I take either disc downstairs and connect directly to the router, I get 900 again, so I know the discs aren't at fault.

Apologies for my ignorance, but is the switch the contention here, if so why, and what can I do. There is nothing else connected to the switch, other than these 2 discs and all cables are Cat6, none longer than 20M.

All suggestions gratefully accepted!

Re: BT Whole Home Wifi disk slower upstairs

Keith_Beddoe — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 12:36:58 GMT

@ShaunyC

Welcome to this user forum for BT Retail phone and broadband customers.

Gigaclear do have their own forum https://www.ispreview.co.uk/talk/forums/gigaclear.625/

It would be best to give the WHW product helpdesk a call on 0808 100 6116 ( Mon to Fri 9am to 5.30pm and Sat 9am to 2pm) or drop them an email to: btconnectedhome@bt.com and they'll be happy to help.

Re: BT Whole Home Wifi disk slower upstairs

ShaunyC — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 12:40:29 GMT

Thanks - I did that yesterday, and they said that if the discs worked fine downstairs then it wasn't an issue with the discs, but the setup outside of the BT discs, so they couldn't help.

Hence posting here, to ask the wider community what they thought.

Shaun

Re: BT Whole Home Wifi disk slower upstairs

ShaunyC — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 12:41:40 GMT

Oh, and Gigaclear say I should use their linksys repeaters and try that, but I thought I'd check here before I spent hundreds of pounds swapping the BT discs for another vendors identical piece of equipment.

Re: BT Whole Home Wifi disk slower upstairs

Keith_Beddoe — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 12:49:23 GMT

I suspect that most people here are using the BT Complete Wi-Fi discs, as they are designed to work with the BT Smart Hub 2, and are actively promoted.

There have been a few posts here about the Whole Home system, but most have been resolved via the helpdesk, who are the product support.

You could ask on the Gigaclear forum to see if anyone is using the Whole Home system.

Re: BT Whole Home Wifi disk slower upstairs

c64z86 — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 12:50:16 GMT

Have you tried swapping out the Ethernet cables that connect your switch to your 3rd and second disc? Maybe they are damaged. Is the switch itself connecting to the router and to the discs at 1000mbps?

Re: BT Whole Home Wifi disk slower upstairs

ShaunyC — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 12:51:26 GMT

Thanks - yes, I've tried Cat5e and Cat6 cables for each bit, and connected my laptop directly to the switch over ethernet and got the full 900, which confuses me 😞

Shaun

Re: BT Whole Home Wifi disk slower upstairs

c64z86 — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 12:54:52 GMT

What does it say in the advanced page of the SH2 itself, for the speed of the connected discs? Does it say 1000mbps and Ethernet?

Re: BT Whole Home Wifi disk slower upstairs

c64z86 — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 12:56:46 GMT

Oh damn sorry, I didn't read that you had gigaclear as your ISP so you do not have the SH2 xD

What does it say on your router anyway for the connected discs?

Re: BT Whole Home Wifi disk slower upstairs

naylor2006 — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 13:07:18 GMT

Hey hello to a fellow Wholehome User, I have 8 disks, 5 of which are on Ethernet, yes I know only 4 are supported but you can do it so long as you are using ethernet, otherwise the mesh will crash. The app even shows me two pages of disks and a network map showing how they all operate.

Interestingly my master disk which is connected directly to the router will only give me 500Mbps max from an internet speed test, this is to an iPhone 13 Mini which can do more on its 5Ghz band, I have the 900Mbps Openreach package and I can easily achieve this on any ethernet device but not on the disks. Even doing a local speed test, IE downloading something direct from my NAS via the master disk will only give me 500Mbps, which is kinda odd, these disks are AC2600 so could technically support over 2000Mbps but real world never works that well. Having said that I would expect 900Mbps to my phone.

In your case whats interesting is those two disks upstairs are both connected to ethernet so you should at least see the same results as you do with the one on the ground floor. Unless something else is hammering that switch in the loft theres no reason why the disks wouldnt allow the same speed unless its a proximity thing.

You may want to go into the BT Wholehome app and check that the device you are speed testing is actually indeed connecting to one of the disks, because thats how it works, the WIFI 'MESH' indeed provides coverage but you are always pulling off one disk, I hate to insult you but just to be clear.....I wonder if by walking upstairs your device is still actually connected to the downstairs disk and proximity will be a factor in the speed you are getting. If I want to test a disk directly from my phone I go stand right next to it, then turn off wifi on my phone then switch it back on again, I check the BT Wholehome iOS app and make sure it shows my device connected to the disk I am going to test.

With all that said however, when I say that my Master disk is plugged directly into the router, it is via a switch but this really shouldnt be a problem unless the disks themselves are kinda dumb, it also used to be connected directly to my router but I wanted to free a port there for a new subnet so I shifted it to the switch.

What I will say is that it is a solution on the cheaper side, its worked great for me but I have been thinking about a proper Ubiquity setup or similar lately because I have so many devices, there is alot connected to WIFI at my place and I wonder if this load, even though the actual bandwidth requirement is small, overwhelms the BT disks as they are a more budget option, which is fine but it doenst leave much monitor capability, on a more expensive device you'd be able to see whats going on more.

Another interesting test would be to create different WIFI networks on the upstairs disks and see if the 3 disks communicating is having an effect.

Re: BT Whole Home Wifi disk slower upstairs

ShaunyC — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 16:01:04 GMT

The BT Home Whole Wifi app doesn't allow you to have different SSID's per disc, all it allows me to do is rename or delete the disc really. What I've been doing is exactly as you suggest, taking in an iphone, turning wifi off and standing next to the disc and turning it on again, and then checking on the app which disc I'm connected to.

I don't know why it would be slower the other side of a switch?

Shaun

Re: BT Whole Home Wifi disk slower upstairs

naylor2006 — Thu, 22 Feb 2024 16:17:28 GMT

It is possible to do but on reflection pointless.....

I guess one way of providing an ultimate test is to disconnect the switch and plug that ethernet directly into the disk, thats a POE switch so I assume you have it powered like that in the loft so you may need to run a power extension, be interesting to see if it is literally just by having a switch in place is that causing the issue.

Do you get better or worse results if you remove one disk from the upstairs switch so that are not both connected to the switch at the same time?....or just have no other disk apart from one connected to the switch and check, the master doesnt need to be on if another one is there on ethernet.

I do wonder, as these things were designed to piggy back off each other via WIFI whether actually they perform worse when using Ethernet, which goes against everything you think but they are specifically sold to extend WIFI via themselves (WIFI) and not via ethernet. It would be really interesting if you set them up so they connect via WIFI to each other but in close proximity to each other, connect to the 2nd and 3rd ones and see, you should get above 500Mbps like that.

In my household because I have multiple disks connected to ethernet if I power off one of the ethernet connected ones..... another one then seems to think it is the master disk because it is there from ethernet, its kind of odd, its almost like its not expected to be like that. I wonder if there is some sort of broadcast traffic returning through the network from the disks for discovery which the aux disks are performing.

Re: BT Whole Home Wifi disk slower upstairs

naylor2006 — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 13:33:48 GMT

Did you ever get to the bottom of this?

I was going to ask which disks you have?

Pretty sure the original Wholehome Disks AC2600s will only do about 500Mbps WIFI when they are wired directly to the router, disks that are in Mesh around half that and the further the daisy chain the worse it gets. I have tested this with mine, I have 900/110 with BT FTTP and my disks that are hard wired all give 500Mbps to my iPhone 13 Mini. Those that in Mesh by one hope are 200-300 based on how good their connection to their wired neighbour is.

Here is the review testing the same:

BT Whole Home Wi-Fi Review - Tech Advisor

If you have these disks and getting 900Mbps I am wondering how on earth?

Have you got the premium ones or WIFI 6 or something?

Re: BT Whole Home Wifi disk slower upstairs

ShaunyC — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 14:43:29 GMT

I managed to get ye olde worlde ethernet adapter for one of my laptops (none of which have ethernet!), and connected to the cable into each disk.

Over ethernet I get 600+ MBps, but the same cable into the disc, then connecting on wifi gives 200MBps.

So, it's clearly the discs - maybe they're old or merely extenders and halving the connection multiple times, but I cannot get anything like ethernet speeds, whereas on the BT disc next to the router, my primary disc, I can get 600MBps, and they were bought as a pack, so I can't believe there's a maximum speed limit somewhere on them.

They're "BT Whole Home Wi-Fi" which says AC2600 running v1.02.13 build 07, but they seem to be operating as extenders, i.e. dropping the rate to half, or less.

Am I missing something? Is there a different technology I should use?

Re: BT Whole Home Wifi disk slower upstairs

naylor2006 — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 15:10:28 GMT

Same discs as me.
I’m confused now, if the disks all have a route back to the main router via Ethernet then you should be getting 500Mbps ish.

My understanding from your original post was that an Ethernet cable runs upstairs from the router into a switch which the other two mesh disks connect to?

Kinda sounds like they aren’t connected to Ethernet, or at least aren’t connected back to the router as what you are seeing is the typical halving of the speed as it repeats.

In the app, select disk details on the upstairs discs and see if it states ‘ethernet’, it will only say Ethernet if it has its own route back to the Internet and not via another disk.

Re: BT Whole Home Wifi disk slower upstairs

ShaunyC — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 15:17:23 GMT

All the discs show "ethernet" in "Disc Details", and unplugging the cable from the disc into my laptop gives 600Mbps. Plugging the cable back in, connecting over wifi (disconnecting all the other discs ti make sure I'm connecting to the right one, and the BT App shows my laptop connected), goes down to 200Mbps.

So the network cable is passing the full 600Mbps out (it runs from the router, up to the attic, through a network switch, and down to the disc).

But the disc just seems to max out.

Re: BT Whole Home Wifi disk slower upstairs

naylor2006 — Sat, 09 Mar 2024 15:32:52 GMT

Sorry say then I’ve not a clue.

Seems to me that even though they are connected to Ethernet they are still passing traffic through WiFi repeating.

Couple things, what ghz is the laptop connected on, 5ghz? The app will show, be interesting if for some weird reason the upstairs disks are only running the 2.5ghz….?

Also, take the master disk, plug it in upstairs off that switch and have it as the only one one and check the speed from it.

Re: BT Whole Home Wifi disk slower upstairs

ShaunyC — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 17:56:03 GMT

Hi

I plugged the Master upstairs and get 600Mbps.

I think you’re right, when I just use 2 disks the one upstairs (plugged into Ethernet) shows it’s connected on 2.4GHz WiFi.

Is there a way to force it to use the Ethernet connection?

Re: BT Whole Home Wifi disk slower upstairs

naylor2006 — Fri, 15 Mar 2024 18:29:20 GMT

Hmm, think I may have finally unpicked what’s going on here.

Right so if all the discs are connected to Ethernet and that Ethernet is connected back to the router then that’s as good as it gets. So long as the discs say Ethernet they are in Ethernet connected via 1Gbit.

If you laptop is connecting using 2.4Ghz then it doesn’t matter what the internet speed is hard wired to the disc, you’ll only get 100-200 Mbps ish. So if your laptop is connecting using 2.4Ghz that would explain the slow speed at the laptop. If you connect your laptop via Ethernet to the switch then of course you’ll see up to 950Mbps, because the laptops Ethernet adapter will be 1Gbit.

Connect to the downstairs disc via WiFi with the laptop, check its connection, if it’s 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz in devices and run a test, if you are seeing 2.4Ghz your speed test will also reflect those speeds, 200Mbps probably.

If the discs upstairs are connection to the router via Ethernet then you can expect 500Mbps over the 5Ghz connection, if you have a device that can connect to 5Ghz that is.

The discs are dual band to support 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz, devices will connect to them on whatever they support, crappy smart bulbs will use 2.4ghz etc and a smart phone will use 5ghz unless it’s super old.

Sounds to me that the speed issue here is just the WiFi on the laptop?