Have 160mb connection but hugely varying speeds from 20mb to 150mb - mostly the low end

[#1]

I have read this post, especially the very interesting guidance at the bottom of the first page.  I have had Full Fibre for one month with the 145mb package which in reality is a 160mb line.   My ONT is connected to the router (Plusnet Hub 2) using a 20 metre CAT6 cable (to a different room) and I get 150mb/29mb using an ethernet cable.  Great!  However using Wifi with the router only about 6m away the speed is so erratic.  When it connects to the 5ghz network I may get anything from 20mb up to 145mb (typically about 60mb), upload almost always 22-25mb.  When connected to the 2.4ghz network the speed drops to 5mb to about 40mb, upload 20mb.  My laptop is an Asus F15 - a gaming laptop not short of speed.  I've tested using my wife's slowish HP laptop (I5 processor) and she gets around 40mb.  This is using the Okla speedtest.net - using BT's speed test even less as it doesn't allow enough time for a decent test. Using Thinkbroadband's test I am getting around 150mb!

My conclusion is that the quality of the Wifi in the Hub 2 is poor and the fix is to either put up with it, get Plusnet to change it in case I got a bad one, or buy a better router.  I am also confused by the different speed test results.  What does the community suggest?

[#2]

Your problem could be interference from neighbours to your WiFi signal rather than a poor signal from the Hub2.

I use an app called WiFi Analyzer on my Android phone, which shows the relative signal strengths of local WiFi signals, and also which channels they are operating on.

The default for the Hub2 is to "Smart" select the best channels at 2.4GHz and 5GHz - but in my experience, (and others I think?), "Smart" isn't always smart - and manually selecting the channels gives better results.

[#3]

Thanks for the reply.  My house is a distance from others so I don't think that's the problem - I can see 6/7 other networks but none has a strong signal and none are on 5ghz (I guess it doesn't reach that far).  It's interesting that the thinkbroadband test is so different from Okla and the BT speeds tests.  I need to find out why it is so different - maybe the other tests are simply wrong or misleading.

[#4 · Accepted solution]

The thinkbroadband test runs a single thread and a multiple thread download test, as well as upload and latency (ping).

The first download test uses a single thread, and is usually slower than the second multi-thread test. It shows latency and delays (sometimes downloads take a while to build up to maximum speed) that a single thread experiences, but which are often hidden by the multi-thread test. Overall thinkbroadband is probably the most reliable broadband tester.

[#5]

Thanks - I think the erratic results from speedtest.net are misleading and I'll go with the thinkbroadband test - in which case there's not a problem.

[#6]

A couple of observations.

1) If you are primarily using WiFi, some money spent on a mesh system might be well spent.

2) I've had dreadful WiFi chipset driver problems with a laptop. It is worth investigating whether your WiFi chipset (have a look at "Device Manager" to find the make & model) has known driver issues 

[#7]

Thanks for the ideas.  Now I've moved the router it's much better and using the Thinkbroadband test feels better as well!  Also you are right re. Wifi drivers - I have an Asus F15 laptop with MediaTek Wi-Fi 6 MT7921 Wireless LAN Card which has been a problem on and off - seems better with Windows 11 though (maybe)