What would I need to fully utilise a 1Gbps broadband connection ?

AdamBrunt · 07-01-2021, 13:36

Hi all,

As above really.

I am currently paying �35pm for 60-70Mbps FTTC broadband on a contract that is due to end in April. However, 1Gbps will shortly be available in my area.

Inside the house we use iPhones, tablets, laptops ( wi-fi not wired ) and one desktop PC ( with a 10/100 network card ) all using a LAN made up of a combination of a 3 node Tenda 10/100 ( I am pretty sure ) mesh and a few AV1200 powerline adapters.

First stupid question ... does RJ45 cable / powerline adaptors support 1Gbps speed ?

Obviously, I would need to update the MESH and PC to 10/100/1000 but are wi-fi devices going to notice any difference ? I can see that 1Gbps into the house then onto a hardwired PC with a 1Gbps network card would be great but ... wi-fi once inside the house is going to be a bottleneck, right ?

T4V · 07-01-2021, 14:22

I�ve no idea but I bet you�ve missed the �up to� tag in there

basegreen · 07-01-2021, 14:26

Nah, BT do a 1GB service and I get about 1.1GB on the 10GB backbone and it saturates the Gigabit ethernet.

Only gig ethernet will support the full bandwidth. I've had around 600MB down over Mesh (ax) wifi on the iPhone 12 Pro Max and new MBA M1, I don't think those can be increased at the moment.

Realistically it's the concurrent data access that benefits from it. I have hard wired points into each room, and a mesh wifi node per room with roaming on a single SSID.

Goooner1 · 07-01-2021, 14:29

I�ve recently switched to 900/120.

I�ve got the BT whole home Wi-Fi thing, with the black discs.

In the room with the router, my Series X network test shows full speed, in practical download terms, I get probably 450-500 down, still a massive improvement on the 100 or so down I used to get when I was on 145/20.

My iPhone 8 tests at about 450 down.

In the back room where my pc is, it�s gone from the 80 down I was getting to around 250 down via the Wi-Fi discs.

I did try some power line adapters, the gigabyte rated ones, but I couldn�t get more than about 80-90 down to my pc using them, so sent them back. Whether that was down to the wiring in my house or the power lines I couldn�t tell you, just that they were significantly slower than the Wi-Fi mesh.

In practical terms, once the novelty of doing speed tests and seeing them clock at 900 down us worn off after the first few days, or the occasional big Xbox game or patch download, which whilst not at full speed is still worth having, although not used that much, it�s nice when there�s something like the 15gb Cyberpunk patch that only took about 4 minutes to download.

I was out of contract, so going from 145/20 to 900/110 actually cost me less. I could�ve just gone for a cheaper price on what I had, but couldn�t resist the higher speeds

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basegreen · 07-01-2021, 14:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goooner1

I’ve recently switched to 900/120.

I’ve got the BT whole home Wi-Fi thing, with the black discs.

In the room with the router, my Series X network test shows full speed, in practical download terms, I get probably 450-500 down, still a massive improvement on the 100 or so down I used to get when I was on 145/20.

My iPhone 8 tests at about 450 down.

In the back room where my pc is, it’s gone from the 80 down I was getting to around 250 down via the Wi-Fi discs.

I did try some power line adapters, the gigabyte rated ones, but I couldn’t get more than about 80-90 down to my pc using them, so sent them back. Whether that was down to the wiring in my house or the power lines I couldn’t tell you, just that they were significantly slower than the Wi-Fi mesh.

In practical terms, once the novelty of doing speed tests and seeing them clock at 900 down us worn off after the first few days, or the occasional big Xbox game or patch download, which whilst not at full speed is still worth having, although not used that much, it’s nice when there’s something like the 15gb Cyberpunk patch that only took about 4 minutes to download.

I was out of contract, so going from 145/20 to 900/110 actually cost me less. I could’ve just gone for a cheaper price on what I had, but couldn’t resist the higher speeds

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If you plugged a laptop into the router with gig ethernet you would see 900-1000MB throughput

Fast.com is the best speed test

PLAs are useless apart from the one use case of taking wifi to the end of a garden

Goooner1 · 07-01-2021, 14:37

I�ll have to try fast.com, usually just use Speedtest.net.

I think I said wireless to my Xbox before, I meant wired, using cat 6 cable, I get full speed on the Xbox own network speed test.

The actual downloads from them seem to be throttled their end though.

It seems if you quit any games that were or are running in the background you can get 450-500 down, but if you haven�t fully quit a game it can go as low as 20 or under. Not sure if that�s a bug or design choice.

As I said though, in practical terms it�s way faster than I need and it�s good just to be able to download big files while the mrs is watching YouTube and I�m watching a 4K Stream.

But then I could pretty much do that before, it�s just the download took a bit longer

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The Bear · 07-01-2021, 15:09

Fast.com never reports my connection correctly. It's usually out by a factor of 2.

I found MeasurementLab and https://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/ are the most accurate.

basegreen · 07-01-2021, 15:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Bear

Fast.com never reports my connection correctly. It's usually out by a factor of 2.

I found MeasurementLab and https://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/ are the most accurate.

I have zero difference between fast.com and those.Seems really strange to me.

Actually I did another with the measurement lab and it shows 453MB - it looks like some of their servers can't keep up with the download because I ran two tests simultaneously and they added up to around 980mb

BT speed checker and ookla also match fast.com and actually downloading something is 1gb

AdamBrunt · 07-01-2021, 15:56

Thanks for the replies so far.

Completely forgot about my son's hard wired ( well powerline'd ) XBox and all those 45Gb patches LOL

Just to clarify ... I would need to update all my cabling from Cat 5(e) to Cat 6 ? And any switches to 10/100/1000 ?

TBH given it is only �5pm more than I am currently paying, it's a bit of no brainer in some ways

shteve · 07-01-2021, 16:10

Cat 5e can do gigabit. You wouldn't *need* to upgrade all switches, just those where you've got devices connected to them that can take advantage of over 100mb.

The mobo question is interesting. I can't see a reason any PC made in the last 10 years wouldn't be able to support a gigabit network card, but most have it built in now. What mobo is it?

AdamBrunt · 07-01-2021, 16:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by shteve

Cat 5e can do gigabit. You wouldn't *need* to upgrade all switches, just those where you've got devices connected to them that can take advantage of over 100mb.

The mobo question is interesting. I can't see a reason any PC made in the last 10 years wouldn't be able to support a gigabit network card, but most have it built in now. What mobo is it?

Thanks.

Just checked the NIC and the Windows description says 'Gigabit' [ Intel 83579LM ] so hopefully that's good

It is an onboard one as well so should be no problem.

What will be an issue, however, is my TP-Link TL-WR841N Wireless N router ( which is the last point on the LAN before the BT Fibre modem ) which only has 10/100 ports on it

basegreen · 07-01-2021, 16:52

Yeah time for an upgrade.

If I weren’t stuck in I’d send you a spare one I have with gigabit

basegreen · 07-01-2021, 16:53

You could grab something like this
https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Tenda-AC1...038352&sr=8-14

Or ask bt for halo

AdamBrunt · 07-01-2021, 17:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by basegreen

You could grab something like this
https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Tenda-AC1...038352&sr=8-14

Or ask bt for halo

Not sure I want to do anything that might possibly extend my BT contract at this point

basegreen · 07-01-2021, 17:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by AdamBrunt

Not sure I want to do anything that might possibly extend my BT contract at this point

I dunno - they're the cheapest for gig internet at the moment

AdamBrunt · 07-01-2021, 17:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by basegreen

I dunno - they're the cheapest for gig internet at the moment

Sadly not available in my area yet even though another ISP can offer it shortly

basegreen · 07-01-2021, 17:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by AdamBrunt

Sadly not available in my area yet even though another ISP can offer it shortly

Ah you mean you want to move ISP to get gig bb? Which one is it? It's all open reach so it should become available at same time in reality.

The Bear · 07-01-2021, 18:27

I just got Virgin Media 500mb this morning and upgraded all my ethernet cables (max 2m) to Cat8. Overkill but my Cat5e ones were donkeys years old and the Cat8 ones are just as cheap.

AdamBrunt · 07-01-2021, 18:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by basegreen

Ah you mean you want to move ISP to get gig bb? Which one is it? It's all open reach so it should become available at same time in reality.

It's a potential move to Hey Broadband, in April, for 1Gb at �40pm from BT Fibre 1 ( or whatever it's called ) but there's been nothing recent from BT about 1Gb from them in my area.

I have a BT pole right outside my house and only knew about Hey when their engineer knocked on the door to make sure I wasn't using the drive while they prepped the fibre cable on the pole

Goooner1 · 07-01-2021, 19:02

Might be worth asking BT.

Couldn�t find any mention anywhere if anything above 150/20 on their site, although Google searches lead me to faster but no gigabyte. Why they don�t advertise the quicker ones on their site, I don�t know.

Especially when you do a search with your phone Number, address and postcode.

We had City Fibre digging up the roads and putting a load of green boxes up all over our estate a few months back and I�d fully intended to go with them as Gigabyte was cheaper than what I was paying BT for 150/20. I didn�t even realise BT did Gigabyte in my area.

Rang BT telling them I could go with Vodafone/City Fibre for cheaper, then to my surprise they said I could get 900/110 with them and they beat the other price so stayed with them.

So can�t hurt to ask.

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