BT Full fibre 900 Halo 3

[Ken66]

Does anyone know a fix for the Wifi speed limit on a BT Smart Hub 2?

Having recently upgrading to BT Full fibre 900 Halo 3, plus 3 BT complete wifi discs. I am a bit miffed at finding out the Smart hub 2 has a wifi limit of approx 400Mb i.e. 940Mb at the hub 412Mb standing 3 feet away from the Smart hub via wifi.

There is definitely a noticeable difference in speed when hard wiring in my laptop vs connecting via wifi. I have 1 device hardwired (BT TV) and 30+ devices connected via wifi (Alexa's, smart bulbs, smart radiator thermostats etc)

The competition offer routers that allow 900Mb wifi connections, and I am lead to believe this is because they support wifi 6 whereas the BT Smart hub 2 doesn't, I have also hear there is a BT Smart hub 3 coming out soon with Mesh enabled wifi discs.

Do I have to wait until BT catches up with the competition or is there a work around?

Many thanks

Ken

[Keith_Beddoe]

@Ken66 

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

You are unlikely to get anything like the full speed over wireless, on a single device.

It was never intended that people get full speed on all devices, especially on a wireless connection. The intention is to allow that bandwidth to be shared among family members and multiple devices, without each user noticing any slowdown.

Here is a quote from old post by @SeanD  on 18/06/2021

"I think for the first time ever we are in a situation whereby the speed you can now get through Full Fibre outperforms the capabilities of many devices.  

The Smart hub 2 does not come with Wi-Fi 6 but this is something we are looking to include in our next generation of Hub.  I don't have any info as to when we will launch a new router by Wi-Fi 6 will bring some improvement.

As an example of what I mean in terms of devices not being able to support the full breadth of speed available on Full Fibre , take a look at the table below.  This is just for a couple of Apple Smart Phones and Tablets along with  popular Samsung models,

Apple (Smartphones)	Dualband (2.4 & 5Ghz)	Theoretical Max speed on 2.4Ghz connection	Theoretical Max speed on 5Ghz connection
IPHONE SE	Yes	60mbps	300mbps
IPHONE SE 2020	Yes	135mbps	600mbps

Samsung (Smartphones)	Dualband (2.4 & 5Ghz)	Theoretical Max speed on 2.4Ghz connection	Theoretical Max speed on 5Ghz connection
galaxy-s10e	Yes	135mbps	600mbps
galaxy-s10-5g	Yes	135mbps	600mbps

Apple (Tablets)	Dualband (2.4 & 5Ghz)	Theoretical Max speed on 2.4Ghz connection	Theoretical Max speed on 5Ghz connection
IPAD pro 3rd gen (Nov 2018)	Yes	135mbps	600mbps
IPAD pro 4th gen (March 2020)	Yes	135mbps	600mbps

Samsung (Tablet)	Dualband (2.4 & 5Ghz)	Theoretical Max speed n 2.4Ghz connection	Theoretical Max speed on 5Ghz connection
galaxy-tab-s5e	Yes	100mbps	300mbps
galaxy-tab-s6	Yes	60mbps	600mbps

[Ken66]

Hi Keith,
First of all thanks for the quick response, this is a similar answer to the BT engineer who set up my Full Fibre 900, however I would question this. My son-in-law has Virgin Media, a test of wifi speed at his house shows at 900Mb+ on my iPhone 11, at my house the same test shows at around 400Mb. Running the same wifi speed tests on an iPad mini gen 5 and MacBook Pro achieve the same results and if this was down to the device, I would expect a MacBook Pro to out perform an iPhone 11, happy to be corrected if I am wrong by the way, everyday is a school day 🙂

[Keith_Beddoe]

@Ken66 

You may find this of interest.

https://img01.products.bt.co.uk/content/dam/bt/storefront/pdfs/smart_hub_claims_substantiation.pdf

Its discussed here https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/11/bt-publish-wifi-speedtests-for-new-smart-hub-2-router-...

[steephill]

The only workaround at the moment is to buy your own wifi 6 router. It is worth thinking about how many of your devices are wifi 6 capable and how much bandwith they need. Smart bulbs and thermostats aren't likely to tax even wifi 5. It might be the case that the only application that uses 900Mbs speed is running speed checks.

Even if BT get round to issuing a wifi 6 capable router it is worth remembering that your devices all have to share the available bandwith so they won't all get full speed all the time.

[rugbyguy]

very helpful info, thanks.

[rugbyguy]

On a personal level all these high speed devices need care with useage !. The 5G network has not been Safety Approved & phones indicate useage away from head ( Check Specs).