topic Re: Fullfibre: Fast, but not good in Full Fibre

Fullfibre: Fast, but not good

Bakertribe — Fri, 31 Jan 2025 12:31:35 GMT

Been on full fibre since 8Jan25 and, while it meets the speed stated, the service is far from acceptable and considerably below the experience I had with the slower copper line. Niggly faults, like Google searches from Firefox just timing out (especially on the first tab) (wired connection). poor video quality over firestick (wireless connection). Signal strength from EERO6 is low (-46dbm typical) and an old netgear router achieves +20dbm more than this when connected as an AP.

Re: Fullfibre: Fast, but not good

KeithFrench — Fri, 31 Jan 2025 12:59:14 GMT

Hi @Bakertribe

A signal strength of -46dbm is not low, but could possibly be improved a bit. Which WiFi band is this, you mention an old Netgear gave you more, perhaps that was 2.4GHz only, which does have a greater range. As you have requested my help in a PM, I will send it over. None of that though will address the Ethernet connection issue that you have; unless you have two eero 6s and the Ethernet is connected to the Extender node.

Do not worry about interpreting the results, I will do that for you. I will send a PM to you that contains a link for a guide of mine on Wi-Fi interference. It is quite long (about 30 pages), but you will probably only need to look at three or four pages in total. Initially look at the section called "Are you suffering from interference – prove it first". This is the first link in the table of contents. This section includes full details of free Wi-Fi analysers that I recommend for Windows, Windows phone, Android and Apple operating systems. However, I have no way of testing the Apple product. Select the analyser of your choice & my guide explains how to use it.

If you are using Wi-Fi Scanner, then please attach the zip file to this thread. As soon as I have downloaded it, I will remove the attachment from your post, to preserve your privacy.

With all other analysers, please follow my instructions below.

Collect the screenshots that I require and include them in your reply.

Please post the screenshots to me in a PM (to protect your privacy), which I have requested in my guide. No photos please as they can be difficult to read, because the text can get out of focus when zoomed in. Please ensure that the analyser window is maximised (if Windows) before taking the screenshots & upload them via the "Insert Photos" button (in a mobile browser it's the picture icon) on the post editor's toolbar with the Size parameter set to Large.

Re: Fullfibre: Fast, but not good

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 06:39:24 GMT

Morning,

How are you getting on?

Thanks

Michelle

Re: Fullfibre: Fast, but not good

Bakertribe — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 09:40:35 GMT

You tell me!, but over the weekend it did seem to mysteriously get a lot better of its own accord.

Re: Fullfibre: Fast, but not good

KeithFrench — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 09:44:53 GMT

Hi @Bakertribe

WiFi interference can vary by the minute from bad to good & back again. If you can, please work with me to get the information I need to help you.

Re: Fullfibre: Fast, but not good

Bakertribe — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 15:15:50 GMT

Hi Keith,

I don't think its an interference problem because: 1. theres no history of it here (I'm in a rural town), 2. The netgear AP didn't seem to help. I am currently working my way through your process and will send the results as soon as I can.

Re: Fullfibre: Fast, but not good

KeithFrench — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 15:17:05 GMT

That's the only way we are going to know - evidence.

Re: Fullfibre: Fast, but not good

Bakertribe — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 10:39:49 GMT

And here it is. Do you know why an EERO 6 has so many channels called "Hidden"?

Re: Fullfibre: Fast, but not good

KeithFrench — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 10:47:29 GMT

Hi @Bakertribe

Yes, all mesh networks of whatever manufacturer use what is called a backhaul network between the various nodes within the mesh (e.g. multiple eeros). When there is no Ethernet connection between the eeros, this is done over wireless with hidden SSIDs (WiFi network names), except those hidden ones have no names allocated to them. They carry the traffic from a device connected to an extender eero onto the gateway eero and out to the internet. They also carry inter-eero management traffic to maintain the mesh network, like nodes going offline or changing their topology etc.

If you only have one eero, you will still see these, because the eero is always looking to see if you add another eero to your mesh.

I'll have a look at your zip a little bit later today & get back to you.

Re: Fullfibre: Fast, but not good

Bakertribe — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 11:07:21 GMT

Thanks Keith. I expected that's what the "hidden" transmissions were, but I had never seen them before, and I would only have expected one. From the files I attached I couldn't see anything with enough power to interfere (I judged signal/noise ratio proportional to other signal powers in relation to the channel I'm using). I suppose the idea is coverage with multiple eero's, so each one can be a 'lower' power. I'd always considered less than -30dbm to be 'good', sliding away below that, but I suppose new ways of extracting information means that lower powers and distributed channels (making interference on any 1 channel less critical) can be used.

Re: Fullfibre: Fast, but not good

KeithFrench — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 11:15:44 GMT

Hi @Bakertribe

I have just started looking at the info now. I am currently trying to find out the specifications of your Broadcom WiFi adapter.

Where is the eero located (you may have mentioned this before, I have been dealing with lots of TalkTalk stuff recently & I do not remember). What is around it in terms of electronic equipment, large metal objects, mirrors, glass & water tanks? Where is this PC and what is around that or reasonably in between the PC & eero?

A good signal strength is less than -50dBm, modern WiFi adapters with decent gain antennae can easily handle this.

Re: Fullfibre: Fast, but not good

KeithFrench — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 12:55:58 GMT

Hi @Bakertribe

I am struggling to find out the specifications of your Broadcom 802.11ac WDI SDIO Adapter, is it also known as a BCM43460?

Re: Fullfibre: Fast, but not good

Bakertribe — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 17:06:37 GMT

its in the front room, on a small table about 1 foot tall, in the room directly below where I took the readings. Its 3 feet from a radiator, with only its power supply, a telephone VOIP adaptor and a switch and their power supplies on the floor beside it. Exactly where the previous router was, only I didn't have the VOIP adaptor and switch (because that one had several network sockets).

Re: Fullfibre: Fast, but not good

Bakertribe — Tue, 04 Feb 2025 17:15:00 GMT

I have no idea. The readings were taken on a Linx 12V64 windows tablet, so its all built in.

Re: Fullfibre: Fast, but not good

KeithFrench — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 08:36:50 GMT

Thanks, I will read through this and have another look at the info you sent me & hopefully have an answer by this afternoon.

Re: Fullfibre: Fast, but not good

KeithFrench — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 10:30:09 GMT

Hi @Bakertribe

That does not match up at all, the netsh command clearly shows that it is a Broadcom 802.11ac WDI SDIO Adapter which is connected to the 5GHz band using 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5), the datasheet for that Windows tablet shows that it can only work up to 802.11n (Wi-Fi 4) and only in the 2.4GHz band, not the 5GHz band.

Please can you confirm then that you used WiFi Scanner as well as doing the netsh command on that tablet?

Re: Fullfibre: Fast, but not good

Bakertribe — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 09:57:10 GMT

Hi Keith, Both wifi analyser and netsh were run on the tablet. I've run the command line instruction on the tablet again, sitting next to the eero 6 (wifi analyser wasn't running this time, incase that makes any difference).

I can only assume that the tablet I have was built after the datasheet was published and a more capable radio card was fitted.

Re: Fullfibre: Fast, but not good

KeithFrench — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 08:46:53 GMT

OK I'll have a look at that, there does look like problems with your desktop though. I would have thought that would have been the better device to run it on than the tablet. My guide never said to use a tablet in preference to a PC. It just lists the possible devices that they can run on.

I will download your attachment a little bit later this morning and then delete it.

Re: Fullfibre: Fast, but not good

Bakertribe — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 09:24:43 GMT

Hi Keith, would be a bit pointless running it on the desktop - since it has no wifi card and is running over TP link powerline adaptors. I'd have liked to have run it on the firestick, but I don't think I could download the results.

Re: Fullfibre: Fast, but not good

KeithFrench — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 09:50:34 GMT

Sorry, from what you had said about running the netsh on your desktop, that clearly showed a WiFi card.