When Will WiFi 6 be with BT ?

[Ewan1]

Actually I made a mistake BT do two very similar products.

BT whole home (now discontinued which was WIFI 6)

BT Complete Home which is what you have which is WIFI 5

Apologies 

[Monir]

If you're trying to max your connection via WiFi then it's not just all about whether it's WiFi 5 or 6. MiMo streams also matter quite a bit. You'd want to get a WiFi card that's 4x4 mimo capable, currently there are no WiFi 6 4x4 mimo cards but there is a WiFi 5 one. It's the Asus pce ac88. Although it's WiFi 5 it can reach about max throughout speeds of about 1.1Gbps download when right next to the router and about 700-800mbps when there is a solid brick wall and some distance in between them. Getting a good WiFi 5 card that takes advantage of your routers mimo capabilities may be more important than getting a normal WiFi 6 card that can't fully take advantage of mimo capabilities(there aren't currently any 4x4 mimo WiFi 6 cards available, and I don't think there will be for a while).  May I ask what WiFi 6 card are you using?

[Azorees]

all it comes up with is Intel (R) Wi-Fi 6 AX200 160mhz , Says its capable of 866mb/s .

even hard wired to a disc it only gets 200 - 300 mb/s and there's only 1 wall in-between the connection.

i can put the laptop right next to the hub and it will only hit 300 mbps but that could be just a Wi-Fi 5 card not sure.

but i did put the disc right next to the hub and hard wire the laptop to the disc and it reached the same speeds, so i'm not sure if its the Wi-Fi card and buying a new 4x4 MiMo card would make a difference.

[Monir]

Is it a laptop or desktop pc that your using that's in the dining room? If it's a laptop I do t think you'll be able to get a 4x4 mimo card as it has to be connected via pcie. Anyway this might sound complicated, but try turning your 2.4ghz off on the hub and leave only 5ghz on and reconnect the WiFi disc to the hub using wps.(I'd recommend WPS instead of ethernet). You should reset your WiFi disc before doing this as it should connect wirelessly to the hub at 5ghz. After its connected leave the disc very close to the hub and plug an ethernet cable from your laptop into the disc. Also it would be better to disconnect any devices while your doing this just so the disc can try and utilise all 4x4mimo 5ghz streams. I'm not sure what difference it might make to have some devices connected while doing this, but I think it might mean that the disc won't be able to use all 4 mimo streams which could result in lower speeds. Because the bt smart hub2 doesn't have MU-MIMO, you can only have a max of 4 streams going to one device. If MU-MIMO is introduced into the SH3 then you could have 4x4 mimo speeds on all of your 5ghz devices but unfortunately there is no MU-MIMO just yet.  Also the 160mhz WiFi card won't be able to use the 160mhz channel since the hub can only transmit 5ghz signals of 80mhz. All of our issues would mostly be fixed if BT released a hub that has mu mimo and can sperate the bands.

[Ewan1]

Which would give better performance running an ethernet cable from the hub to the disk or just relying on the MIMO via wifi between the hub and disk

[Monir]

Better performance for your pc?

[Ewan1]

I got the disk today and it does increase the strength of the WIFI signal, however the speed to my mobile for example is about half of what it is when it is connecting directly to the hub (at the same equivalent distance from both). I was thinking that if I connected the Disk and Hub together using an ethernet cable whether the speed would likely be the same as I have removed the hub to Disk hop, however would the Disk still extend the WIFI properly?

[Cliffycliff]

Always best when possible to connect the disc to the hub via Ethernet. WiFi still a long way off comparing to a wired connection especially if BT ever get around to giving us 2.5Gbps LAN ports. 

At least with a Ethernet cable to Disc your disc will have access to a full 1Gbps of bandwidth 

[Monir]

If you keep the disc a fair distance away from the hub with an ethernet cable connected to it from the hub then yes, it would extend the signal. I think the wireless speed would be he same but you should try it out and see. I dont have a disc so I'm not sure. I can help guide you though. The problem with this is what wireless band you'd be connecting to. You'd get higher range but speed may vary depending on which band your on when connecting wirelessly. Would you want higher range or higher speed? Have you left only 5ghz on on hub and tested speed without the disc, compare It when you're using the disc together with the hub.

[Monir]

Yes, you're definitely right there,  but remember speed from the disc will also depend on how many devices are connected to it, even though they may not be actively downloading or uploading data. They will still impact speed.