EE full fibre with Smart Hub Plus - fast broadband but SLOW wifi!

[JimboCoco]

Hi, 

I've just changed my BT FTTC to EE full fibre FTTP with an EE Smart Hub Plus and I'm getting an excellent speed at the hub (900+mbps), however I've a real problem with my portable devices (mobiles laptops etc). For example, I'm getting a speed of 30 - 40mbps on my mobile (less than I was getting previously on the BT Smart hub2 on 55mbps FTTC).

I contacted EE support and it was suggested I try disconnecting the Ethernet cables ( to my TV, printer and EE TV box) from the hub. Amazingly this worked and my speed went up to 150+'ish mbps and I put them back and it was still good. I thought yippee sorted, but no! it dropped back to 35mbps within half an hour. I've now discovered that if I switch off wifi on my phone, my wifes phone or my laptop for 10- 15 seconds then switch it back on, up comes the high speed, but only for a while, then it drops back again. I've tried re-installing the wifi connection on one of the phones, I deleted the connection, switched off wifi  and restarted the phone, but  again it only lasts for a while ( up to 20 minutes it seems) 

I'm confused because the hub is obviously getting high speed feed and can obviously generate high speed wifi, I've had speeds of over 250mbps for a short while but defaults to this 30-40mbps by default.

Any Ideas?

Cheers Jim 

[JimM11]

@JimboCoco First off all network is a shared resource and your pipe to the Internet is max 900mb/s which you have got, so next is the device speed, whatever is being used at that time is what is left, so unless you ONLY have one wireless device on then it can be hard to check, but you do need to establish what they are doing, with the Plus router you have 2.4ghz and 5ghz bands only, if the device latches on to a 2.4ghz, on a 1 x 1 then the speed is on average 70% off 70mb/s which is down about the 50mb/s range, the next 5ghz similar will be around the 400mb/s so again 70% is about 280mb/s, devices jump in and out, and one slow device can cripple a wireless wi-fi system...

If you can look at the devices to see if you can figure out what band/speed/capability they have, for example my Samsung A54 hits my FF500 with no problems, but my older Asus laptop can be a dog if it decides to jump to 2.4ghz and wireless N (wifi4), but i see it, drop the wireless on the device and it normally reconnect's at wifi 4 5ghz band with a max 300mb/s speed so runs along ok. HTH

www.wiisfi.com if you wish to get some insight on wireless.

[JimboCoco]

Thanks Jim

I understand your response, but my old BT fttc broadband , though obviously only 55-60mbps, was rarely less than 45mbps at my phone and I've not changed any of the "attached" devices , just the hub, and I do realise that some of the devices are at 2.4 and some at 5.

Seems that although it's supposed to be a big step up, it's not much better than my previous BT service, and the EE hub, though supposed to be better using WiFi -6 Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) it doesn't seem as good as the old BT Smart hub2. Plus it won't run my BT WiFi  (WiFi-5) Disc unless anyone knows how to get round the issue 🙂 

cheers - Jim 

[JimM11]

@JimboCoco Just been using a brand new BT Smarthub2 where i was working for the last 3 weeks, and personally set it up for the owner, so comparing the EE Smarthub+ to the BT Smarthub2 router, then the EE wins in my book hands down, the connection was on an fttc 40/10 split so speed could not be compared but found devices were ok, phone seemed to latch on to the 2.4ghz band regularly, and BT Router had 2 FW updates, last being yesterday 1/4/2025, so they are having some issue to sort out.

As for your BT wifi 5 disc, if it is the Black complete wifi you can forget that, will never work with a EE Smarthub+ router.

New Smart devices are/will be required. EE version is the SW30A that you require.

Your upgrade is just not an apples to apples for sure, wifi 6 is another complete different ball game.... 

Edit: If you still have all you BT equipment it will work on the EE service no problems, you just got to swap it all back, bit of a pain but certainly worth the test if you think Router's are your issue.

[JimboCoco]

Thanks Jim, yes I realised the black discs won't work. It would be good to select the 5ghz bands rather than the 2.4 but it seems quite arbitrary?

[JimM11]

@JimboCoco All the main ISP's are kind of conforming with the single ssid arrangement and not allowing separation and selection of the requirement, down side is that some devices will have a real bad time getting going...

If you are prepared to spend sometime, then you MAY have to setup the compatible operation on your NEW EE smarthub+, and this MAY take care of the older devices that struggle, EE have not thought out very well the changes that they are applying to the + router, FW updates may settle it down, so the router that was working well for me went to being an absolute dog, so bad that i just upped and left, fought it hard for about a month then threw in the towel....

[JimboCoco · Accepted solution]

Thanks @JimM11,  Much appreciate your responses 🙂 

cheers

Jim