I recently had full-fibre broadband installed on an EE Fibre 900 plan, which apparently includes a minimum speed guarantee of around 425 Mbps. My phone reaches roughly 800 Mbps upload and 100 Mbps download, while my PC's Wi-Fi antenna manages about 200 Mbps upload and 50 Mbps download. Other upstairs devices are similar. The PC is connected through a network-over-power wiring setup: one adapter is connected to the router downstairs and another is upstairs, with an Ethernet cable from that adapter to the PC. The wired connection only gets around 36 Mbps upload and between 30 and 80 Mbps download, which is close to what I had before the fibre installation. What should I check or replace?
3 Answers
First test the PC with an Ethernet cable plugged directly into the router, with no adapters, wall sockets, or other equipment in between. If the speed improves dramatically, the powerline adapters or their cables are the bottleneck. Some older adapters only support 100 Mbps, and real-world powerline speeds can be much lower depending on the electrical wiring.
Use another recent laptop or computer with a known-good Ethernet cable and test it directly against the router. That will tell you whether the issue is the broadband service or your equipment. Also check the PC’s Ethernet link speed in its network settings; if it shows 100 Mbps instead of 1 Gbps, the adapter, cable, or network device is negotiating at the wrong speed.
Wi-Fi performance is not a reliable test of the fibre connection. Check which Wi-Fi standard the PC supports and whether it is connected on 5 GHz rather than 2.4 GHz. Older 802.11n equipment, weak signal, walls, and interference can all reduce speeds. A newer Wi-Fi 5 or Wi-Fi 6 card or USB adapter may help, provided the signal upstairs is strong enough.
The upstairs adapter may be limited to 100 Mbps, but speeds around 30–80 Mbps could also be caused by old cables, poor wiring, or the adapters being on different circuits.