I recently had full fibre installed on an EE plan that may be called Fibre 900, with a guaranteed speed of around 425 Mbps. On my phone, speed tests show roughly 800 Mbps upload and 100 Mbps download, although I may have written those figures the wrong way around. Upstairs devices only reach about 200 Mbps and 50 Mbps over Wi-Fi. My PC is connected through a network socket or powerline-style adapter: one unit is wired to the router downstairs and another upstairs connects to the PC. That connection only gets around 36 Mbps upload and between 30 and 80 Mbps download, which is almost the same as before the fibre upgrade. What could be limiting the speeds, and how can I test or fix it?
3 Answers
Wi-Fi results do not necessarily show the speed of the fibre service. They depend on the phone or PC’s Wi-Fi standard, distance, walls, interference, and which band it uses. Check whether the PC adapter supports Wi-Fi 5 or Wi-Fi 6 and try the 5 GHz network near the router. If it only supports an older standard, a modern Wi-Fi card or USB adapter could improve things.
First test the PC with a normal Ethernet cable plugged directly into the router, with nothing in between. If the speed jumps substantially, the upstairs adapter, its cabling, or the wall socket is the bottleneck. Older powerline or network-over-mains adapters are often limited to 100 Mbps, and real-world speeds can be much lower. Also check the Ethernet link speed in the PC’s network settings; it should ideally negotiate at 1 Gbps.
The speed figures sound mixed up, so confirm the package’s download and upload rates and run several tests using the same nearby server. If a computer connected directly to the router still performs far below the guaranteed rate, contact the provider. If direct Ethernet is fast but the upstairs connection is slow, the fibre service is fine and the home network equipment needs upgrading.
The upstairs socket may only support 100 Mbps, and an old or damaged cable can make the result even worse. Testing directly at the router will separate the broadband problem from the internal wiring.