Soon to get FTTP do I need to upgrade my BT Whole Home WiFi four unit system?

[Yorkie29]

I currently have a four unit BT Whole Home Wi-Fi Mesh system and a FTTC Broadband service.  In the next few months we are getting FTTP broadband, do I necessarily need to upgrade the Whole Home units?  If so what would be recommended? What will result if I don't upgrade?

[gg30340]

They will just continue to work as they do now. 

You may get a new Smarthub supplied which if you decide to use it you will need to connect them to it.

[Yorkie29]

I will get a new router.  What I was really asking is will I get the benefit of the faster fibre connection or will my internal mesh system constrain performance?

[gg30340]

It is impossible to say. You have not given any information about how it performs at present.

Wifi will always be slower than a direct Ethernet connection but you should get at least what you are getting at the moment and in theory it should be capable of speeds of up to 1,733Mbits/sec over 5GHz and 800Mbits/sec over 2.4GHz.

[bobpullen]

... in theory it should be capable of speeds of up to 1,733Mbits/sec over 5GHz and 800Mbits/sec over 2.4GHz

I've seen that 2.4GHz spec before for the base tier Whole Home discs and I'm struggling to understand how you're going to get anywhere close to 800mbps an a 2x2 2.4GHz radio; AFAIK it defies physics.

Either way, these values are PHY rates so won't be anywhere close to what you'd see in terms of real life throughput. Given that most Wi-Fi clients have 2x2 antenna configurations, I'd say a much more realistic top-end estimate is around ~100mbps on 2.4GHz and 500mbps on 5GHz.

[Yorkie29]

"You have not given any information about how it performs at present."

Could you please tell me how I measure it.  Thank you.

[gg30340]

If you already have the MyBT app on your mobile device, there is a speed test section. Click on the "more" button and go to "Test my Speed" and click on it. This will then run a wireless speed test.

Normally you would do a speed test using a wired device but as you want to test the speed that is being delivered by your Whole Home you need to make sure that you are connected to one of the discs.

If you don't have the MyBT app you can run a speed test by running one on the Ookla website. See link

Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test

Again, you want to do this on a wireless device connected to your Whole Home disk.

There are many other web sites that offer speeds tests if yu want to try some of the others just do an Internet search for "broadband speed test".

[Yorkie29]

So, I've run Ookla.  Not sure what this proves since the speed is governed by my present router (72.8Mps Down/19 Up) - Exactly the same as I get on my iMac that connects to the router via Ethernet. My question was when I get FTTP will my BT WholeHome set up give me the full benefit of the faster speed?

[gg30340]

... but it tells you what your present wifi speeds are. They are not necessarily the same as a wired speed. If you are getting near to the max speeds that your router is delivering at the moment, the Whole Home discs should be able to deliver the faster speeds that your new package will deliver albeit they will not deliver you 900mbps.

You are over thinking this. Wait until the new FTTP connection is up and running and then decide if there is a problem.

[Yorkie29]

Is there no way of knowing from the specification what the max speed the Whole Home units are capable of delivering?  I didn't really want to 'wait and see' hence the reason for my original post.