Router upgrade to smart hub 3

[Kimberlin]

There, hopefully @Peter_W  post should calm everyone down 👍

[WSH]

Oh, I’ll wind them up again…

Just remember, even those speeds quoted will be half duplex.  For example, 1200 Mb/s is really only 600 upstream + 600 downstream.

Just bite the bullet and put wires in.  1000 Mb/s upstream + 1000 Mb/s downstream all the time.  Put wires in and do away with this Wi-Fi nonsense.  You won’t regret it.

[Kimberlin]

@WSH  Whilst I appreciate your love for wires 😂 for a lot of customers, there’s no issue with WiFi whatsoever. I admit to having one laid Cat7 flat Ethernet cable in permanent situ for that odd occasion when I’m mucking about doing upgrades to my PC etc, but otherwise 100 percent of the time in all areas of the house and into the garden, it’s WiFi with zero issues.

[WSH]

Told you it would wind them up again!

@Kimberlin  I did preface that by saying it’s a wind up…

You can’t beat wires, though.  More secure, more stable/less interference and full duplex!

[Jahz94]

Thanks 

[Kimberlin]

@WSH  I took your wires in the wind up that was intended 😂 At least you don’t troll me 🤣

[Colin_London]

@Colin_London - this is a bit of a confused statement. 2400Mbps is the max speed for a2x2client using WiFi 6 and160MHzchannel width. 1733Mbps is the max speed for a4x4 client (of which practically none exist in the market) using WiFi 5 and80MHzchannel width (the Smart Hub 2 doesn't support 160MHz).

The reason the speed tops at ~866Mbps on the Smart Hub 2 is because that's the max speed for a 2x2 client at80MHz; it has nothing to do with backhaul.

A better comparison for 5GHz would be: -

Smart Hub 2 (WiFi 5): -
866Mbps (5GHz, 2x2, 80MHz)
1733Mbps (5GHz, 4x4, 80MHz)

Smart Hub 3 (WiFi 6): -
1200Mbps (5GHz, 2x2, 80MHz)
2400Mbps (5GHz, 4x4, 80MHz)
2400Mbps (5GHz, 2x2, 160MHz)
4800Mbps (5GHz, 4x4, 160MHz)

Fair enough - I forgot about the end device limitation to 2x2. Also I did not know that the Smart Hub 3 works on 160MHz channels (does it really?).

So on a like for like basis the Smart Hub 3 will give a 38.5% improvement in speed which still equates to a 500Mbps throughput increasing to about 700Mbps. Only if you are fortunate enough to have run of the 5GHz band in your location will you get 1400Mbps (the best real world throughput you can expect is 60% of the connection speed).

As for the comment above about duplex halving the connection speed, these figures are in each direction. So an 866Mbps connection is usually 866 up and 866 down as per the screenshot from my network adapter report below for my current connection to a SH2 complete wifi disc.

[Colin_London]

The Smart Hub 3 has only just been announced over the last few days, so no customers outside of internal trials will be using this yet.

I'll see if we can get some details on when exactly this will be available, and if there will be the option to directly upgrade, but normally this would only be the case if the customer is upgrading to Full Fibre and has an incompatible existing Hub.

Peter

Hi @Peter_W  - I fully expect that you won't be dishing these out for free to customers mid-contract. However if you could please ask about customers who are out of contract and currently having to decide between recontracting with BT or going somewhere else? That is the position I am in and this could swing the balance in BTs favour (although it would also have to include you swapping out my two complete WiFi discs which I have under Halo 3 as well as my SH2).

Obviously if I went anywhere else I would get a WiFi 6, 6e or 7 router now, which is a big reason to want to change.

[WSH]

@Colin_London   You sure those figures are both?  I've only ever got 433 up and 433 down from the SH2.

[Colin_London]

@WSH No I can get a smidge over 500Mbps throughput which is around 60% of 866Mbps.

Don’t forget real world performance is 50-60% of the connection speed.