Dreadful WiFi speeds.

[nomis36]

I know this subject has probably been discussed before but thought I’d ask with my specific circumstances in mind.
I’ve just gone to download a 19gb game on my PS4. 57 hours over WiFi! So I’ve tethered the ps to my iPhone and it’s now down to a 100 minutes.
My current provider is EE, I have used them for my mobile phone contract for years, since the orange days because I like the service they provide such as good loyalty discounts and uk based call centres.
A while ago I noticed signs going up locally saying mega fast fibre broadband (or whatever it’s called) was in my area so I contacted BT. They said yes they could offer me fantastic speeds and would I like to go ahead with it. I said yes definitely. I did the change over then they said they’d have to send an engineer to install the fibre. Not being very tech savvy I said yeah no problem. The next day the engineer rang me and said he was pretty sure he couldn’t do it because the landlord of my block of flats won’t allow them to run cables up the building etc etc. He said he’d tell his head office. Anyway, to cut a long story a bit shorter after a couple of weeks of waiting for an answer they eventually came back to me and said sorry they couldn’t do it.
I cancelled the change over and went back to EE who very graciously made my monthly bill even cheaper!
So, in my situation, what would you more tech savvy types do? Would a better quality router help, I’ve still got the supplied EE one at the moment.
I get 80gb of data on my phone contract but I use quite a lot of it because I’m away most of the week and use it to tether my laptop. Also, don’t want the faff of having to tether everything every time I get home, tv etc etc.
If you’ve read all this to this point, well done! Sorry it’s so long winded.

[Mr Pointy]

What is your download speed measured at the router - use a cable to connect, not over the Wi-Fi

https://www.speedtest.net/

[nomis36]

Download speed this morning is 2.01mbps. It ranges between about 1.5 to about 3.

[NorthDave]

Now do a speed test from your mobile without being on wifi. Do you have a 4G or 5G phone?

[xeny]

nomis36 said:

Download speed this morning is 2.01mbps. It ranges between about 1.5 to about 3.

If this is with a wired connection into the router (and wifi switched off on the device you tested on) you've not got a wifi problem, you've got a broadband speed problem.

Is the router plugged into the "master" phone socket in the property, and are microfilters fitted on all the in use phone sockets?

[robsa]

nomis36 said:

Download speed this morning is 2.01mbps. It ranges between about 1.5 to about 3.

Congratulations - you're even worse than my 5-19 Mbps! You could always get a 4G/5G router from EE for your home? You need to check your local area to see what your maximum speeds are at your address as well.

[nomis36]

xeny said:

If this is with a wired connection into the router (and wifi switched off on the device you tested on) you've not got a wifi problem, you've got a broadband speed problem.

Is the router plugged into the "master" phone socket in the property, and are microfilters fitted on all the in use phone sockets?

Ah, no, that’s the speed tested with my phone over the WiFi. I need to work out what cable I’d need to ‘hardwire’ a device directly into the router and see if I’ve got one in the rats nest of cables draw
The router is plugged directly into the phone socket via a filter.

[nomis36]

NorthDave said:

Now do a speed test from your mobile without being on wifi. Do you have a 4G or 5G phone?

I’m just doing the PlayStation download using the 4g, I’ll test the speed when that’s disconnected. I have done a speed test right now though and it’s at 20mbps. From memory I’ve had it as high as mid 30’s I think. That’s on my iPhone 8 which is only 4g obviously.

[Mr Pointy]

nomis36 said:

Ah, no, that’s the speed tested with my phone over the WiFi. I need to work out what cable I’d need to ‘hardwire’ a device directly into the router and see if I’ve got one in the rats nest of cables draw
The router is plugged directly into the phone socket via a filter.

You need a RJ45 network cable which looks like this:

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffnt&q=ethernet+netw...

[AC43]

robsa said:

nomis36 said:

Download speed this morning is 2.01mbps. It ranges between about 1.5 to about 3.

Congratulations - you're even worse than my 5-19 Mbps! You could always get a 4G/5G router from EE for your home? You need to check your local area to see what your maximum speeds are at your address as well.

I had a similar problem when I moved to my current house 3 years ago; BT hadn't installed fibre to the local cabinet in the street so I went from 200mb/s of Virgin to the 1950's.

A savvy neighbour managed to get BT to so the upgrade but in the interim I had a 4G router.

Without it everything kept grinding to a halt.

[nomis36]

Mr Pointy said:

You need a RJ45 network cable which looks like this:

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffnt&q=ethernet+netw...

YES! found the box my router came in about 5 years ago! The cable was still in there unused.
Ive plugged my mac into socket one of the router then switched off wifi on the mac. The speed test 'rocketed' up to 3 but then gradually dropped to a rather disappointing 1.63

[Mr Pointy]

nomis36 said:

Mr Pointy said:

You need a RJ45 network cable which looks like this:

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffnt&q=ethernet+netw...

YES! found the box my router came in about 5 years ago! The cable was still in there unused.
Ive plugged my mac into socket one of the router then switched off wifi on the mac. The speed test 'rocketed' up to 3 but then gradually dropped to a rather disappointing 1.63

That's pretty bad. put your phone number into this checker & see what it says you should be able to get:

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADS...
https://availability.samknows.com/broadband/broadb...
https://www.zen.co.uk/broadband/guides-info/broadb...

If it says you should be able to get a decent speed then there might be an issue with the internal wiring in the flats.

Edited by Mr Pointy on Monday 3rd May 11:36

[nomis36]

Mr Pointy said:

nomis36 said:

Mr Pointy said:

You need a RJ45 network cable which looks like this:

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffnt&q=ethernet+netw...

YES! found the box my router came in about 5 years ago! The cable was still in there unused.
Ive plugged my mac into socket one of the router then switched off wifi on the mac. The speed test 'rocketed' up to 3 but then gradually dropped to a rather disappointing 1.63

That's pretty bad. put your phone number into this checker & see what it says you should be able to get:

https://availability.samknows.com/broadband/broadb...
https://www.zen.co.uk/broadband/guides-info/broadb...

If it says you should be able to get a decent speed then there might be an issue with the internal wiring in the flats.

The second link you sent says they recommend ultrafast broadband so the cheapest package should give 100mbps for £39 a month without a landline. Looks like i need to get on to the landlord to allow somebody to upgrade the wiring to the flat/flats. The block of flats isn't an ancient building, probably something like 15 years old so the phone line shouldn't be terrible, ok, not fibre good but certainly not 1960's bad.

[Amateurish]

I would move to a 4G router with a sim with unlimited data. Much easier than trying to resolve broadband issues.

[journeymanpro]

Check out three 4g. Just got one, over 100mb download with unlimited data.

[NorthDave]

nomis36 said:

The second link you sent says they recommend ultrafast broadband so the cheapest package should give 100mbps for £39 a month without a landline. Looks like i need to get on to the landlord to allow somebody to upgrade the wiring to the flat/flats. The block of flats isn't an ancient building, probably something like 15 years old so the phone line shouldn't be terrible, ok, not fibre good but certainly not 1960's bad.

Have you asked your neighbours what they get? It would be strange for the wiring in the block to be impacting you so heavily - more likely to be something in the flat itself. This assumes you are different than your neighbours.

If you are all on the same then it is likely the link above is wrong. Someone like Zen should be able to work out why there is a difference i.e. if you are wired in to a different cabinet than expected or similar.

Whilst you get it sorted it sounds like 4 or 5G would be a good upgrade.

[Mr Pointy]

nomis36 said:

The second link you sent says they recommend ultrafast broadband so the cheapest package should give 100mbps for £39 a month without a landline. Looks like i need to get on to the landlord to allow somebody to upgrade the wiring to the flat/flats. The block of flats isn't an ancient building, probably something like 15 years old so the phone line shouldn't be terrible, ok, not fibre good but certainly not 1960's bad.

I added a link to the BT checker which gives some more detailed information:

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADS...

It would probably be a good idea to ask other tenants what connection speeds they are getting so you get some idea if it's just you that is having problems. If you don't get anywhere with the landlord or you need assistance looking at the wiring then have a look round for an ex-BT/Openreach engineer as many of them have set up as installers/problem fixers. Here are a couple of examples (I don't know how good they are though):

https://www.exbtengineers.com/
http://ex-btengineer.co.uk/