Review of WiFi 7 Pro Router & 1.6Gb Service - Mixed Feelings.

[CarbonStar]

Hi Everyone!

Please see my review below, 

1). Engineer Appointment was 8am-1pm and the gentleman arrived around 9:15am and gave a courtesy call 10 mins before too!

2). Swapped the little ONT box within 5 minutes, just took off and added new one - turned everything on and started working!

3). Gave the Hub Pro a few minutes and was hitting max speed!

4). My iPhone 16 Pro Max is able to get around 1.4Gb download max from the hub, up from 840Mb from my Eero 6E router (TalkTalk).

5). PC is almost at 1.7Gb Down with Ethernet.

6). Disappointing to see you cannot hide your SSID / not Broadcast Your Wifi Signal - but it is what it is I guess.

7). Not sure if I need to opt out of "EE WiFi" which makes you a public WiFi hotspot? - can anyone advise on this please?

8). Overall, higher latency on EE than TalkTalk but much faster speeds - not sure if I'll keep or switch back as Latency is more important than Speed to me. Disappointed in this - EE has 2-4x more latency than TalkTalk - I will see if this will settle over next 24-48 hours.

9). Furthest Room in my home (3-storey) gets 600 - 700Mb which is excellent. The same spot with Virgin Media (1Gb) would get 150 - 300Mb using their router and wifi booster in the same location as EE's Pro Hub and Extender. I appre you don't need such fast speeds however for battery life, the quicker load times and stronger signal I'm hoping will help!

I think that's everything, so conclude,

Great Speeds, Easy Set Up.

Higher Latency - most important for me - so I will most likely cancel this and go back to TalkTalk.

[JimM11]

@CarbonStar Thanks for the reply, your gaming response was higher and you saw a marked response using. When you go back to Talk Talk, does it mean that you have to drop back to 900mb/s package speed, or do they offer higher speeds now, if you know the answer. There have been reports of poor gaming with the Smarthub+ although you have no experience of that router, so just confirming that you don't rate the Pro version using fibre on the 1.6Gb/s also.👍👌

[Huggons1]

Just wondering if you have used a Wi-Fi analyser and have checked if this router broadcasts the hidden ssid's. Would be very interested to know.

Cheers

[CarbonStar]

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@JimM11 wrote:

@CarbonStar Thanks for the reply, your gaming response was higher and you saw a marked response using. When you go back to Talk Talk, does it mean that you have to drop back to 900mb/s package speed, or do they offer higher speeds now, if you know the answer. There have been reports of poor gaming with the Smarthub+ although you have no experience of that router, so just confirming that you don't rate the Pro version using fibre on the 1.6Gb/s also.👍👌

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Yes, I'll drop back to 900Mb - that's more than enough and the ping/jitter is more important.

The Pro version is good, but when it comes to gaming, its similar to my Virgin Media Superhub 5.

Now thats officially 1Gb but I get almost 1.2Gb from them for £33 a month.

Is it worth £70 a month for 1.6Gb with WiFi 7? - no, not if the ping/jitter cannot match what I had with TalkTalk, imo.

YouFiber is also coming to my area soon, they offer 8Gb Symmetrical for £99 a month, I'll try that soon.

But I'll wait until Black Friday Deals for now and go back to TalkTalk as they usually offer their 900Mb for £35 a month + £100 Gift Card.

[CarbonStar]

Sorry, I did not check this and the router has been disconnected and ready to go back to EE.

[CarbonStar]

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@bobpullen wrote:

TalkTalk use DHCP

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How did you find this out and do you know what other ISPs use DHCP?

[JimM11]

@CarbonStar You normally gleam it from forum sites, sky also use dhcp that's another one, not sure what there ping etc is like, have a look on the sky forum, router is not fast like EE and no wi-fi 7 as yet as far as recall.

[CarbonStar]

Ah ok,

I’ll try them as well ! 

Thanks for confirming ☺️

[bobpullen]

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@CarbonStar wrote:

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@bobpullen wrote:

TalkTalk use DHCP

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How did you find this out and do you know what other ISPs use DHCP?

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It's fairly common knowledge amongst the Broadband Community however, on reflection I think your observations are probably less to do with the authentication method and more to do with your geographical location and where TalkTalk and BT/EE have their points of presence/peering links.

e.g. TalkTalk look to have peering exchange points in Manchester, whereas BT/EE will be largely London.

Shame to see you go as I still maintain that the difference would be practically inperceptible in real world scenarios, but it's obviously something you feel passionately about so I doubt I'll change your mind 😉 

[CarbonStar]

I can connect to US East servers at 65ms ping whereas on EE it was 100-120ms. 

That is absolutely noticeable. 

UK wise, my ping was 5-15ms and on EE it was 28-40ms. 

It’s still a difference I can feel. 

Also, the pure test of pinging bbc - you can see how superior the TT connection was compared to EE - and if I can get better, there’s no point paying more for worse when the speed is nice but I can easily live with 1Gb rather than 1.6Gb on my purely gaming line !

[Huggons1]

Thanks. Is anyone able to confirm if the smart hub pro router broadcasts the hidden ssid's, like the previous EE routers?

I am awaiting delivery of one, but would be very interested to know. 

Cheers