BT HH5 is faster than HH6

I've been using a BT HH5 for the the last few months on a plusnet ADSL2 line and have had a solid, stable and reliable DL connection 14 -14.5Mb/s with a line status of about 16.5Mb/s (600m from the exchange) and average upload of about 0.8 Mb/s.

The only drawback is a wifi signal strength of about 40-50% at the front of the house (on 2.4Mhz). I got the chance of a new smart hub 6 very cheap so it seemed worth a try rather than messing about with boosters. HH6 works fine with about 30% improvement of signal strength, BUT the DL speed has dropped by 2Mb/s, and the UL speed increased to about 1.16 Mb/s.

Left it a few days inn case the line needed to re-learn, but there was no perceptible change, so I plugged the old HH5 back in and the speed is straight back up to 14.29, and the UL is back down to about 0.89.

Same settings on both hubs.

Any ideas why there is this odd discrepancy? I can live with either but I'm intrigued why . . .

TIA - Alastair

Different chipset/components...

Yup, different DSL chipset giving different sync.

Turn DHCP off on the HH6, change IP of the HH6, turn wireless off on the HH5, use the HH5 as the modem/router and plug the HH6 into it via LAN, thereby using it for wireless only.

Gives you the better DSL sync of the HH5 with the better wireless performance of the HH6.

Thanks for the input nemeth, but it's not a particularly elegant solution.
Weirdly I've been checking the range & speeds on the HH5 and they seem slightly better than before - the furthest room was @ 39 on HH5, then went to 65 on HH6, back on 5 it's now 45. Identical position and conditions.
I'll try the smart hub again for a few days, but if it 's no better. I'll keep the 5 and add a booster.

Overall the HH5 has been flawless, it's only since SWMBO got an iPad air that the signal in the living room became an issue.

Seems odd that a later chipset would have inferior performance to the one it replaced, and obviously the increased upload speed is welcome, as I have to send quite large image and print output files, but once you've had that extra DL speed you don't really want to relinquish it . . .

Thanks again

In reply to a post by odyssey2:

Overall the HH5 has been flawless, it's only since SWMBO got an iPad air that the signal in the living room became an issue.

Have you split the bands with 2 different SSIDs?

The smarthub is really aimed at fibre users FYI.

Can you setup a cable between the main router and a second location? Then install an AP.

Yes, you can run an ethernet cable, or use powerline adaptors, to connect two BT HHs. I have a HH6 plugged into the DSL connection and a HH5 upstairs to connect to my PC and provide better wi-fi coverage. I had to fiddle around with the BT powerline adaptors but my PC running off the HH5 connects at 74 Mbps which is pretty good I think.

@ Batboy. Yes, from day one on HH5.

Edited by odyssey2 (Tue 17-Jan-17 10:42:25)

What about on the HH6?

Edited by BatBoy (Tue 17-Jan-17 11:21:12)

Yes - that also, all settings on both hubs are the same (apart from the fact that the 5 inserts a dash instead of a space in the 5ghz SSID name

Further thoughts - it has been suggested that changing wifi channels may help. When setting up the HH5 last year I went through all the best channels using the wifi overview app and eventually realised the 'smart' auto channel hopping setting produced he most consistent results, the most contention I ever saw was 4 users on channel 1, but usually most of the 2.4Mhz channels show 1 or 2. The HH6 is also on smart and usually uses ch11.

But this obviously wouldn't affect the max data rate, as the main PC is wired to the hub via a 300mm ethernet cable and the router is connected via a 7m dedicated cable (genuine BT solid copper core, which alone gave a 1.5Mb speed improvement) hard wired into the ADSL faceplate.

HH5 stats show:-

up/down max line rate of 1108/17072

Data rate: 1112 / 16737
Noise margin: 6.7 / 5.4
Line attenuation: 13.5 / 28.1

HH6 stats show:-

up/down max line rate of 1284/16952

Data rate: 1.27 kbps / 15.12 kbps
Noise margin: 6.4 / 6.1
Line attenuation: 27

TIA - Alastair

Is your HH5 a Type A or a Type B ?

Both type A

So the different sync speeds could be because the HH5 has a Lantiq chipset and the HH6 has a Broadcom chipset