FTTP (Full Fibre 900) download being throttled when VPN connected

[adam_101]

No no, just ONT - Cat 7 - Router. The router is a  BT Smart Hub 2 (assuming thats what SH2 stands for). Nothing else is involved. A relatively simple setup which has worked fine for years at around 80-90mbs wired (on 100mb BT package). We have full fibre to the home (not sure if this is obvious or not by the setup).

[Fractal_Fragger]

Can you make sure the wifi adapter/lan adapter on the device you are using is gigabit capable. Not all ethernet ports are 1/100/1000T - some older wifi adapters may not support faster speeds either. my latest laptop only bought last year does not have a gigabit ethernet port.

[stevebrass]

Okay. So just to check I understand- you were on FTTP 100 package with set up ONT - cat 7 - SH2. This was working satisfactorily. You upgrade to the 900 package with no changes in hardware and now you have the problem. 

[adam_101]

Yes this is a good summary, although to be clear rather than facing a 'problem' now we just aren't getting any increase in download speed which we should have on the 900 package. Download speed is exactly the same as on the 100 package, although weirdly the upload speed has increased 4x that of the 100 package. All hardware is exactly the same. 

And the issue is the same for both wired and wireless connections, so not isolated to any older non-gigabit wired connectors.

[stevebrass]

And to be clear - the download speed is limited only when using the Cat 7 cable?

I think it must be a problem with the interfaces between the ONT and cat 7 cable and/or the SH2 and the cat 7 cable.

If you can user a Cat 5e cable I would do so - I don't know how feasible this is though in terms of physical installation.

Another option might be to try a managed switch between the cat 7 cable and the SH2.

[adam_101]

I have ordered a new ASUS - RT-AX86U router which arrives tomorrow so will test that first to rule out the SH2, I will feedback in here with the outcome. If no luck then I will resort to the rewiring the etherenet connectors at the ends of the cat7 cable to see if they are causing the problem. 

Thanks for all of your help so far. Hopefully I will  get to the bottom of it!

[adam_101]

So for those interested, problem solved. Speeds are now up to 900mbps. There were two issues: 

1. 1 of the 8 pins at the end of the CAT 7 was not connected properly to the ethernet faceplate. It seems that having just 1 pin not connected in a cat 7 cable will dramatically reduce the speed of the connection, although not stop it completely. 

2. Nord VPN caused problems. Even with the cable fixed, NordVPN capped my ethernet connected pc speeds at 25mbps. When I disabled the Nord VPN I was able to get up to 900 mbps. 

Anyone had similar experienced with VPNs causing speed problems and knows if this is isolated to Nord or common for other VPNs too?

[matekaneve]

I use IPvanish and most UK servers can provide between 500 and 900Mbps download speed. I have never used NordVPN, always preferred IPvanish (it always worked...). However if Nord is not up to the speed maybe try IPvanish or I heard good things about Surfshark as well. You can google plenty of discount codes for both to save a lot on a 1 or 2 year plan. 🙂

Here is a speedtest connected to the  Birmingham server.

[stevebrass]

Thanks for the update. Glad you got the ethernet cable sorted.

[ianclemow]

I have has similar problems with FTTP. When initally installed the fibre box was connected to the hub (5) by CAT5 cable by the BT engineer. I only got 100Mbs. On investigation I found that the hub itself reported that the connection speed max was 100Mbs. Ater many phone calls to many engineers and further visits from engineers I finally spoke to an engineer in Scotland who informed me that to get more than 100Mbs I had to connect the fibre box to the hub with CAT8 cable. On doing this the hub imediately reported a maximum speed of 1000Mbs. The hub can detect the cable type (probably via the screen) and can only delviver the highest speeds with CAT8 cable. Yesterday I had a visit from another BT engineer as my speed had been dropping over a number of months asd was only giving me 150Mbs. This engineer tested the fibre connection and found 920Mbs available but was again unaware that the hub required CAT8 cable to work correctly.

Miraculously my speed check this morning is giving 850Mbs.

I have subsequently rewired my complete wired system with CAT8 cable and found that the Netgear Gigabyte switches I use also detect CAT8 cable and switch to 1000Gbs for those channels coupled with CAT8 cable.

Ian Clemow