Fibre 900 no use for Super Hub 2 ? (Wi-Fi)

[gillyallan]

Am I right in thinking that if I was to choose one of the higher speeds Fibre that given almost all in the house is wifi, I'd be wasting my money taking 900 as the router wouldnt handle much above the 500 package even in perfect conditions, so would be as well taking that instead ?

Thanks,

[licquorice]

No, you are not right in thinking that.

[WSH]

No reason why you can't disable the wi-fi on the Smart Hub 2 and employ a third-party wireless access point.

I will point out though, that unless you have six kids continuously gaming and you and the wife want to stream high res movies in separate rooms, you will not see the benefit of 900Mb/s.  For most practical intents and purposes 150 - 300Mb/s will be more than you need.

People have been conditioned to think faster is better & up to now it has been, but we are now at the stage where it is fast enough & any excess will just sit there unused 99% of the time.

[gillyallan]

So, the Super hub 2 in itself would never see 900 over wifi as I posted and the 2nd post disagreed with ?
I am probably swaying between 300 and 500. My sons computer upstairs seems to grab as much of the bandwidth as is physically possible, so want to leave myself some overhead for things that we actually want to do ourselves.
Thanks WSH

[licquorice]

The hub is perfectly capable of 900Mvps WiFi, no idea why anyone would want that to one device though.

[gillyallan]

It wasnt to one device.
I've obviously read wrongly somewhere on it. My info was saying it was wifi 5 and would only achieve 400-600 and any higher would need wifi 6/7 and the EE type routers. 900 only being capable through ethernet.
As what else was posted I think my mind is a little clearer and will go 300 or 500 (depending on price)

Thanks for info though

[WSH · Accepted solution]

The confusion comes about because wi-fi is a “half-duplex” system.  It works like a walkie-talkie.  Send a bit then listen for a reply, then send a bit more etc.

If memory serves, the max for wi-fi 5 is quoted as 866Mb/s but, as just explained, that is actually 433 send + 433 receive.

Wires (ethernet) are a “full-duplex” system.  They have both send and receive wires, so can send at 1000Mb/s and receive at 1000Mb/s simultaneously.

Rumour has it that wi-fi 7 will be close to a full duplex system, using different frequencies for send and receive.  Personally, I’ll believe it when I see it, as for a number of technical reasons, that is far more difficult to achieve with radio than wires.

Edit:  Just out of curiosity, I looked it up.  The theoretical max for wi-fi 5 is 3.5Gb/s but that’s if you use channel bonding.  I think the Smart Hub 2 can only use the one channel, so 866Mb/s.

[Kodikid]

According to BT it's most popular full fibre broadband package is 150mbps 

If yours is the average household this is usually more then enough 

Save your money 

[gillyallan]

At the moment I get by with 74 down. That's with multiple people doing streaming. The only time it's noticeable is if my son's computer is downloading as it seems to hog whatever it can at the expense of all other devices. It doesn't play fair and share the bandwidth

[WSH]

Just for reference then, I live on my own, (retired tech).   For years I was on 58Mb/s on FTTC.  That went up to 67Mb/s in the last couple of years.  (The ECI cabinets finally getting G.INP  plus people migrating to FTTP and so reduced contention I suspect).

I moved over to 150Mb/s FTTP six months ago.  Speed tests are spot on 150 every time.  Yet operationally, it's made no noticeable difference to the time it takes things to download.  As I said, once it's fast enough, it's fast enough.  The excess just sits there unused.

It's becoming a bit like the car salesman selling you a Ferrari just to do the weekly shop.  Of course they will if you're daft enough to pay for it.