We have recently upgraded from a Plusnet VDSL2 connection using their Plusnet Hub One to EE Fibre Broadband and the EE Smart Hub.
Initially I was impressed. 300Mbps+ on my mobile phone over WiFi, very nice. However the wired results weren't just underwhelming they were downright awful. I used to have stable 120Mbps+ (probably higher if the source wasn't an old hard disk - just note that the number exceeds the limits of a 100Mbps port). My network layout was like this:
- Plusnet Hub One router
- NetGear WNDR3700v2 router (as accesspoint) [connected with a 10m CAT5E flat cable)
- PC#1 - B650 motherboard with Realtek 2.5 Gbps ethernet [Win11]
- PS4, Switch, Various wireless devices
- TP-Link Gigabit network switch [connected with a 10m CAT5E flat cable]
- PC#2 - B450 motherboard with Realtek 1 Gbps ethernet [Win11]
- PC#3 - B450 motherboard with Realtek 1 Gbps ethernet [Linux]
- PC#4 - B450 motherboard with Intel 1 Gbps ethernet [Win11]
- Wireless extender
Stable speeds on all 4 PCs. Replaced the Plusnet Hub One with the EE Smart Hub and suddenly:
- PC#1 does only ~96Mbps
- PC#2-4 do at best 28Mbps but sometimes as low as 6Mbps.
Well that's odd, perhaps the EE Smart Hub is more sensitive to interference on the cable even though it's only a 10m run? I replaced the cable going to the gigabit switch (and indirectly PC#2-4) with a higher quality, better shielded CAT6 cable.
Same problem, terrible 8Mbps speeds.
I decide to troubleshoot by connecting PC#2 directly to the new cable without the network switch, tada - 96 Mbps, same as PC#1. Well that's odd, it seems to be capped at 100Mbps, so I check the cable with my network tester and confirm that all 8 wires are connected and it should be a gigabit (or even greater) cable.
Then I continued to troubleshoot on PC#1 connecting it directly to the EE Smart Hub without the Netgear router in between, boom 306Mbps. That's what I wanted, why is it working? I set the old Plusnet router to act as an accesspoint and put it in place of the Netgear and connect PC#1 to it - nice, still 306Mbps. I don't know what's going on but that's the network fixed in one place.
Back to PC#2-4... I replace the TP-Link gigabit switch with a Tenda one, no luck. I order a second Plusnet router to use as an access point (but with alternative firmware, openWRT). I replace the gigabit switch with the second plusnet router and PC#2 does 96Mbps, PC#3 does 306Mbps, PC#4 does 6Mbps... now I'm even more confused. Dive into the network adapter settings of Win11 on PC#2 and see it's connected as a 100Mbps device. Diving deeper into the settings I force it to gigabit speeds and behold 306Mbps. So auto negotiation failed me, thinking I had cracked the code I force PC#4 to use gigabit as well and... it doesn't connect at all. Undo it, it connect again at 6Mbps.
What on earth? Whatever is going on the EE Smart Hub is to blame. Everything worked as expected before it. I set up the OpenWRT Plusnet Hub One as the main router and leave the EE Smart Hub connection and get about 200Mbps everywhere (still roughly 100Mbps short, but in general an improvement) , turns out the Plusnet Hub One is too weak to handle these speeds (and I miss out on wifi6). But at least the problem and solution are clear.
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tldr;
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The problem:
The EE Smart Hub has TERRIBLE compatibility with wired network devices causing issues with almost all of mine! Gets as bad as 6Mbps (out of 306Mbps!)
The solution:
Replace this terrible EE Smart Hub with something else.
