Engineers devices get full speed but mine do not

[AaronP]

Hello everyone.

I'm on Full Fiber 500 and noticed I was only getting 200-300 speed instead of the guaranteed minimum 425. Had a frustrating engineer visit this morning where they placed there laptop next to the router and via wifi showed them getting full 500ish speed on both his laptop and phone.

I preformed the exact same test  same test on my PC, phone & after they left, my gaming consoles, and they all showed the exact same slower speed of about 280. It turned into a back and forth of mine says this your says that, so I asked what could be the issue effecting my devices but not his and he had no idea.

I would understand if it was just one device but ALL of my devices have the exact same, consistent (regardless of wifi or ethernet) lower download speed when I did tests one after the other. I must be missing something.

I'm at a complete loss here and I'm having a catch-up call Monday and I don't know what to say. Any advice?

Note: I have CAT 6 ethernet cables and using 5GHz Wifi.

[AaronP]

Update: I installed a third party router but it doesn't seem to have changed anything.

[iniltous]

There have been many similar posts and it’s invariably the customers kit , or unrealistic expectations of WiFi that are the problem , the way FTTP works isn’t like FTTC or ADSL in that there is no reduction in the connection rate depending on variables like line length , line quality, FTTP either connects or doesn’t , and provided the administrator has set your profile correctly ( so in your case set as a 500Mb ) then that what you get…..throughput is different as that isn’t entirely within the control of your ISP, have you tried the ‘BT’ speed tester making sure to use the 500/1000Mb option ?, what results do you get from that.
Any speed test should be done on a cabled Ethernet connection as WiFi speeds cannot be guaranteed,
If your laptop can support Gb speeds connect it using the Ethernet cable that would plug into the router from the ONT , and set up a PPPoE connection direct from the ONT , if that gives the speed you expect , whatever the issue is , isn’t really your providers problem , unless the router is kaput

[NigelB72]

As @iniltous says, there are so many variables that affect the speed that your devices can handle. You could have a gigabit ethernet card, a fast CPU and fast RAM but if you have a poor quality HDD, it will drag your speeds to down to a level it can handle. This will apply to every piece of hardware that is running on your network. One teeny bottleneck will drag the speeds down for that device. 

This is why ISP's only guarantee speeds to the hub and no further.

[AaronP]

Hi, thanks for the reply.

It was BTs router and the speed test on the engineers laptop showed 500mb speed fine over Wifi. There aren't any connection issues with wifi (or eithernet), it's connecting fine and single strength on wifi is consistent upstairs and downstairs. It's just my devices are not getting the full speed, only around 300mb instead of 500mb. My devices connected with an Ethernet cable also show this same speed.

Again, if it was just Wifi devices with a speed limitation and my Ethernet connected devices were getting full speed, then I would determine it is a wifi issue, but my Ethernet devices are getting the exact same limited speed.

I have tried BT speed tester (https://speedtest.btwholesale.com). Results were: -8 ping, around 300mb Download and 72 Upload (I should note I am receiving my Full Upload speed). I ran this on my PC and I did read the disclaimer regarding 500/1000mb testing speeds and my pc specs, ethernet cables[CAT6a], OS etc all are within minimum spec.

I do understand this looks like it may not be a provider issue, I am just frustrated the engineer was not able to provide any insight.

UPDATE: I unplugged the BT router and plugged in my own 3rd party router and it does appear to be slightly increasing the speed. The speed before ranged from 220-300 now it is closer to 300-340 (on all my devices). Tho other factors may be contributing to this.

[AaronP]

Hi, thanks for the reply,

Yes I agree completely, my main issue however is that every single device regardless of connection type, storage speed, distance from router, all seem to be limited to the same speed. I do a test on my pc, then phone then game console, all the same number. (+/- 5mb).

Which leads me to believe that something specific is limiting my devices.

[gg30340]

When the engineer carried out the speed test were all you devices turned on and connected to the Internet?

Have you tried turning all your devices that are connected to the Internet off then turn only one on and run the speed test then turn that device off and turn on another device and run the speed test again and repeat with all your devices.

This might show if it is a specific device that is dragging the speeds down.

When doing the speed tests ensure that none of your devices are doing any cloud backups or downloading anything.

[Paul608085]

@AaronP 

Have you checked that the device drivers for the various components inside your ethernet connected PC, (for example), are all up to date?

[Tap-a-Lap]

It does seem odd seeing this across multiple devices, wired as well - All I can really add in is when we had full Fibre 100 installed I couldn't get anywhere near 100 > 150 d/l using any speed tester on my phone - but my partner could on her phone - reason?.... my phone doesn't support the faster 5G wifi band, hers does - that said you're also seeing this on multiple devices and ethernet too so probably not that but just though I'd mention just in case - and re the BT Wholesale speed test - I note you said that you read the disclaimer on there but it does seem maybe a bit too coincidental that they state:

2. When testing assets above 330Mb please ensure your device and set up meets the required specifications. For more info click here

... and you're seeing around that same figure?

I'd be interested to find out what it was anyway

[PB54]

Unless I’ve missed it the speeds received by the devices have been listed but what does the router manager state it is getting? 

Also might help to know the specs of the devices / network devices you are using.