WIFI 7 - Sales Snake Oil

[Venkmanz]

Anyone else get suckered in?

I switched from BT to EE on the basis of Wifi 7 improving Wifi stability and performance in my garden office - spoke to the sales advisor on the phone about my BT Discs not being up to the task - had a 100mbps connection normally max out at around 30mbps if lucky, with patchy signal coming from the house to the office

Oh yeah - wifi7 will solve all your problems, should be super stable and much faster he says despite my caution... well, it started off like that, I upgraded to 500mbps down the pipe and was getting 100-200 mbps for a time but now its dropped right down to 30mbps again and I've had several engineers out to check. Problem is its coming in good to the main router, over the 425mbps promise but just not making it down to the garden office

EE say - oh we never guarantee wifi performance - I asked them to review the sales phone conversation and they say they find no wrong doing - but they won't share the transcript or recording... 

Fed up of being sold on lies and promises that go unfulfilled. Anyone else had similar experience?

[Mustrum]

@Venkmanz   No offence meant, but it sounds a bit blind leading the blind.

WiFi signals are only ever going to travel so far at full speeds and get less the further away you get. You may have got better results using powerline extenders, certainly a lot cheaper, but ideally you would need an ethernet connection from the router to the extender in your garden office - one that is at least Cat 5C or better.

[Venkmanz]

That's what I had thought, but as the office has already been established was a bit impractical - I should have listened to my own experience but got suckered in by the promise of WIFI7 being far superior to previous wifi performance

When I run an ethernet cable from the extender direct into my laptop its fine - 300mbps, but my mobile for example off wifi is now only getting 30mbps

An engineer came round at one point and reset the access point where the connection comes into the house and then the router and it boosted the wifi performance for a time - was getting 200mbps wifi again in the office but it dropped off again. Seems like if I complain it goes back to how it was for a time, are they are throttling it or something - is that even possible?

[Mustrum]

@Venkmanz   no they will not be throttling it, it is all down to whatever is going on in your property.

Are you able to move the router ? Or the extender? Hopefully you have not hidden them away so they are not seen, or in a cupboard or something.

Also if the office has power, then an ethernet cable could just follow the same route.

[Northerner]

Hi @Venkmanz 

The devices you use will only connect at the speed they can manage and what is blocking the signal. WiFi 7 makes little difference.  More devices are now fitted with this radio but still much depends on what is between your router and the radio fitted to your devices. 

You need to analyse your WiFi signal and there are plenty of apps which can do this, then place the disks where the signal becomes weaker, if they are too close it will cause issues/congestion especially as the new router is more capable on WiFi 7. 

Personally I don't like the free isp routers and use them as a modem connecting up my own mesh network with better quality hardware. 

Thanks 

[bobpullen]

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@Venkmanz wrote:

When I run an ethernet cable from the extender direct into my laptop its fine - 300mbps, but my mobile for example off wifi is now only getting 30mbps

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Wait, is the extender located in your office? The speed you can obtain when plugged into an extender using Ethernet should be similar to what you can get over the air as long as your device (the laptop in this case) is capable enough 🤔

[Venkmanz]

Yes, I've got the router at the front of my house, one extender in the room at the back of the house which looks out to the garden office and one extender actually in the office on my desk next to the laptop which I plug into with ethernet. The laptop is Wifi7 capable, my phone is not though.

Just checked again 200-350mbps plugged into the extender with laptop,  between 70mbps-110mbps with wifi only.

I had considered building my own mesh but I was convinced that wifi7 would be the answer, with the support from EE being a factor should anything go wrong etc. with my thinking that i'd pay the premium so they can manage all the tech and performance etc. but in hindsight maybe I would of been better figuring out all this stuff on my own

[bobpullen]

Is the laptop definitely connecting wirelessly to the extender in the office and not the one at the back of the house? I assume if you take the same laptop next to the hub itself and toggle the Wi-Fi off/back on, then you get speeds closer to your expectations?