Slow WiFi

My sister had virgin media installed a month or so ago after Virgin expanding their network to the town we live in, anyways all working great apart from the slow speeds she’s getting, been testing the past few weeks and it’s been around 40-200 which is awful for a 630mb service, anyways she got a ethernet cable today and tested with that and speeds were bang on so that proves the service itself isn’t at fault, is there any suggestions as I’m guessing the WiFi router is at fault here, probably a cheap device they send out or is it not setup correctly, thanks for any help?.

Could be the router, but more likely due to the way WiFi is which is unreliable. Where is she doing the tests in relation to the router? If she's right next to the router, then I would say that's at fault, or something is majorly affecting the signal like a microwave.

Yeah she’s tested speeds right next to the router and the router is in the living room on a tall cabinet which is where the engineer said it would be best placed, microwave in the kitchen so quite a way from the router, definitely something wrong with the WiFi speeds somewhere as ethernet is spot on, just not sure where to start to fix it or is that something you’ve gotta put up with being WiFi, but would of thought the speeds should be better even on WiFi.

Try one factory reset of the router and see if that helps. Note: If any settings have been changed they may be reset to default.

In reply to a post by tomxlisa:

630mb service

600 Mbps will be hard to achieve on WiFi without really state of the art equipment. Which Virgin Hub was your sister provided with? What device are you testing speeds on?

Not sure what router it was but it’s the latest when I think they are giving out, tested speeds using mobile devices and a laptop all quite poor with WiFi, nothing above 200mb really but normally around 40-100mb, ethernet cable though full speed so service seems to be perfect itself.

In reply to a post by tomxlisa:

Not sure what router it was but it’s the latest when I think they are giving out, tested speeds using mobile devices and a laptop all quite poor with WiFi, nothing above 200mb really but normally around 40-100mb, ethernet cable though full speed so service seems to be perfect itself.

Is this the Virgin Router the have? link

Also unless the Wi-Fi devices they are using have at least Wi-Fi 5 (802.11AC) the speeds sound about right.

Can you give some examples of the devices and age of them?

Thanks
Dan

In reply to a post by tomxlisa:

Not sure what router it was but it’s the latest when I think they are giving out

Typically most service plans are getting the Hub 3, and if you are on the Gig1 service then the Hub 4. Both of these are WiFi 5 (AC). Some pictures of the various Hubs is here:
https://www.virginmedia.com/help/virgin-media-config...

As you are having no problem over Ethernet, you might need to check the WiFi specification of the laptop or PC that you are using to connect to the WiFi. To get WiFi reliably faster than 200 to 300 Mbps, you MAY need to invest in a WiFi 6 hardware both in the computer and in an access point.

If you are testing with tablets or phones, they may not reach the full performance of WiFi 5 (AC) given the focus on power saving.

Edited by jchamier (Thu 06-May-21 11:13:23)

Simple things to try are:

Go in to the router settings and under wireless signal:
1) Split out the 2ghz and 5ghz bands by giving them another name. Then connect to the 5ghz side.
2) Ensure the 5ghz band has channel width setup as 20/40/80mhz. For some reason it defaults to 20/40mhz.
3) Turn off channel optimisation

When on 2.4ghz with a 20mhz channel width I find the average speed as low as 50mbpson to the Hub 3 even when close.

On the 20/40mhz width on 5ghz I found the maximum to be around 200-220mbps. Extending the width to 80mhz increased speed to over 400mbps.

It seems like you are limited by the above (or just poor WiFi in the devices you are using), hopefully the above helps.

Thanks for all those tips I will give that a try when I’m next round my sisters and report back to you.

Edited by tomxlisa (Thu 06-May-21 23:50:11)