1Gbps internet not reaching 1Gbps in speed tests, is that normal?

[ChrisD.]

Minimum guaranteed speed participation by an ISP is voluntary.

Broadband slow? You've now more rights

Major broadband providers now have to give customers a minimum guaranteed speed before they sign up – and if speeds subsequently drop and cannot be fixed within one month, you'll be able to ditch your contract penalty-free.

www.moneysavingexpert.com

But as it's a voluntary code, they only apply to firms which have signed up to it. This includes the biggest companies such as BT, Sky and Virgin Media, but not some other big names such as the Post Office and Vodafone – so the rights won't apply to everyone.

 

[ChrisD.]

Also:

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/consultations/category-2-6-weeks/237423-updating-and-clarifying-customers-rights-to-exit-contracts-for-broadband-services/associated-documents/bbscop-gc-alignment-statement-version.pdf?v=328448

Update to the Residential and Business Voluntary Codes of Practice on Broadband Speeds

 

[ChrisD.]

Any consumer would understand the word guarantee as meaning just that... if you're trying to be facetious then fair enough, I'm not going to argue the point, but that is absolutely not how Ofcom and the ASA see things.

Shady marketing department IMO. They're being clever with wording, rightly or wrongly. They have clear clauses which state speed fluctuates depending on network load as ultimately it's a shared residential connection.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

OK, you know what, I'm big enough to admit that this may mostly have been a PEBKAC problem...

I plugged in the router they supplied (which in typical Wildanet fashion is pants) because of two things. Firstly it has a 2.5Gbps WAN port and secondly it has a built-in speed test. The speed test running on the router was hitting 1022Mbps-ish every time. Now I'm not sure if this is because there are no Gigabit ethernet ports in the chain or if the built-in speed test might be a little generous, but since I've always had slightly over the rated speed in the past I'd say there's a 50% chance that that figure is accurate.
So then I had to try to figure out why that is so consistent. I think the issue is that the PC I was mostly using to test is an old B350 AM4 motherboard that only has a Gigabit ethernet port built-in. So when I updated my home network to be 2.5Gbps I bought a USB 2.5Gbps ethernet dongle. It seem to work well, decent speeds between PCs and decent speed to the NAS. iPerf3 seemed reasonable. However I tried another PC that only had a Gigabit ethernet port and that was getting 920Mbps-ish consistently in speed tests. So I tried the AM4 board using the Gigabit ethernet ports and all of a sudden 900Mbps+ every attempt. Started to worry it was some of my 2.5Gbps hardware (I didn't get the most expensive options/brands) so decided to try a PC with an AM5 motherboard that uses a built-in 2.5Gbps ethernet port. 940Mbps-ish every time so far.

So now it's looking like it was the bloody USB to ethernet adaptors! If the router's in-built speed test is anything to go by I might even be able to get over 1Gbps if I get a router with at least 1 2.5Gbps LAN port.

While I'm still not a massive fan of Wildanet, I will admit that this might not have been their fault.

 

[sandys]

Did you install the latest drivers, if its USB it is likely a Realtek chipset, the drivers from their website offer superior performance to the ones provided by Windows even if they appear plug and play and functional.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Did you install the latest drivers, if its USB it is likely a Realtek chipset, the drivers from their website offer superior performance to the ones provided by Windows even if they appear plug and play and functional.

No, but I'm thinking I should. Are there generic drivers or do I have to find something specific? (I don't usually update network drivers)

 

[ChrisD.]

Presume the tests are all wired directly to the router?

You never mentioned USB adaptors until now, unless I missed it.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

You never mentioned USB adaptors until now, unless I missed it.

Only this once it seems. Again with the 500/100 connection I didn't notice any issues and things like iperf3 suggested it was working as expected so it didn't even consider it.

My speed tests are all done wired.

So, the ONT box is an Adtran with a 10Gbps LAN port and I'm using a TP-Link AX72 router (which only has 1Gbps WAN and LAN ports). There is a new firmware for it though, which I'm tempted to try.
Wildanet sent me an Adtran 854-v6 router which has a 2.5Gbps WAN port but 1Gbps LAN (how does that make sense?), so I might give that a try and see if it at least help the stability. I tested at lunch time and got speeds between 900Mbps and 500Mbps.

I've tried 2 different PCs, one with a 2.5Gbps USB ethernet adaptor and a Gigabyte B650 Gaming X AX V2 with onboard 2.5Gbps port. Using iperf3 both seem to be able to achieve over 2Gbps.

 

[sandys]

No, but I'm thinking I should. Are there generic drivers or do I have to find something specific? (I don't usually update network drivers)

Assuming it is realtek then it is these

Realtek

www.realtek.com

With these ~2.5G up/down is no bother, with the windows drivers it was a struggle. Shame I can't get better drivers for my phone as this 2.5 adaptor only does 400Mb on my phone whereas my 1Gb will do 1Gb.

 

[DIABLO]

OP you’re spending way too much time messing with this, you will not get 1Gb nor a consistent speedtest. You’re worrying about a thing that will sit idle 75%+ of the time when you’re at work or outside, asleep.

You will also get nowhere complaining to Wildanet, with the tests you have shown.

 

[Avalon]

So you've complained you aren't getting what you paid for, suggested suing your ISP twice (genuinely hilarious), demonstrated a total lack awareness of how a IP based network works and it's overheads (2.5Gb is irrelevant, you are profile capped at 1Gb WAN *including* overheads and the only way of getting more is a new router or using wifi, at least in theory), ignored people explaining to you that you were mistaken and why, argued that your ISP was cheap by providing you with a router that only had 2.5Gb WAN when you only pay for a gigabit connection, and only when you used said router begun to consider that the issue was your end, and finally seem to have accepted that an on-network speed test is the only one that maters/your ISP has any control of, overheads exist, and as soon as your data leaves the ISP network it's at the mercy of routing/peering/3rd party servers and the loading of them, browser based speedtests tend to vary quite a bit more than other options and that actually, it's not your ISP at all, but your own equipment.

That was quite the journey, you've learnt a lot and been refreshingly honest, I almost cheered at the end, then you went back to hating on the ISP who gave you exactly what you paid for, and a better router than you deserve

 

[Ad_Augendae]

I think as already stated across a Lan you are only going to get the following with a 1GB port

With correction even less!

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

So you've complained you aren't getting what you paid for, suggested suing your ISP twice (genuinely hilarious), demonstrated a total lack awareness of how a IP based network works and it's overheads (2.5Gb is irrelevant, you are profile capped at 1Gb WAN *including* overheads and the only way of getting more is a new router or using wifi, at least in theory), ignored people explaining to you that you were mistaken and why, argued that your ISP was cheap by providing you with a router that only had 2.5Gb WAN when you only pay for a gigabit connection, and only when you used said router begun to consider that the issue was your end, and finally seem to have accepted that an on-network speed test is the only one that maters/your ISP has any control of, overheads exist, and as soon as your data leaves the ISP network it's at the mercy of routing/peering/3rd party servers and the loading of them, browser based speedtests tend to vary quite a bit more than other options and that actually, it's not your ISP at all, but your own equipment.

That was quite the journey, you've learnt a lot and been refreshingly honest, I almost cheered at the end, then you went back to hating on the ISP who gave you exactly what you paid for, and a better router than you deserve

It was disappointing that with my previous contracts I always received slightly more than the advertised speeds but with 1Gbps I was receiving less. I think I'd have been similarly annoyed if I'd signed up for 400Mbps and the router had had 4 100Mbps ethernet ports. I don't think they should get to dictate how I split the speed within my own network.
I'd still rather they advertised as 900Mbps and over provided, it just feels better (IMO) if you get more than you expected rather than less. EDIT: It might actually be 1000Mbps if not limited by a Gigabit Ethernet port.
But really the biggest issue I had was getting 375Mbps, 475Mbps and the 550Mbps or even 700Mbps speed test results. If they "guarantee" their speeds and the only one they ever state in any of the documents I have is 1000Mbps, then I wouldn't expect 375Mbps. I guess that's just me though. It does now seem that that was on me though and I owned up to that.
People did seem to think that was acceptable speeds though. Like I say they say they guarantee their speeds and the only speed they mention is 1000Mbps. So if that's not the speed they're guaranteeing shouldn't they state what the guaranteed speed is?

And this is why I have issues with Wildanet. Stuff like that, their website in general is useless, you can't log in, there's no account management, you can't raise tickets for issues all you can do is get a phone number. Then you ring that phone number and you can't get through. I found out recently that their cancellations and adjustments department is run by 2 people that don't appear to work full time and only work 9-5 (I think they're entire phone service is only answered 9-5 Monday-Friday so getting hold of them while working full-time is awkward.

When I signed up with them it took them 6 months (or something like that)_ from when I signed up to them actually providing a service and in that time they didn't contact us. I knew other people in the village that has signed up and we all constantly asked each other if they'd heard anything and nobody had. The only time we got anything like some info was if we phoned them and managed to get to speak to someone (or got an e-mail answered) and even then they didn't really tell us anything. We did eventually get set up though. They provided us with this horrible Adtran router and didn't even supply the password, hence why I use my own. Then about 12 months in I lost connection and the ONT box seemed to get itself stuck. I called up and they sent out an engineer eventually and then after about an hour of trying various things the engineer said it just started working again and left. I then had intermittent issues for a few more month until the ONT box had an issue again. Eventually got an engineer out who replaced the box and gave me a new router (the one with the 2.5G WAN port) and so far that's seemed to help (other than when their whole network goes down, at which point they don't communicate with you at all, their website doesn't have any sort of status section). The only thing they do do promptly is charge my account each month.
So yeah, my distain for Wildanet is based on more than just this recent issue (that was in fact my issue).

 

[ChrisD.]

You should set up your own small ISP, show them how it's done.

 

[Caged]

I'm not sure anybody is criticising you for having expectations that your ISP can deliver what they advertise (though we have since established that they are in fact doing that), the bit that I was chuckling at was that your first idea about how to resolve it was to sue them for false advertising.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

You should set up your own small ISP, show them how it's done.

Na, that seems like it'd be really difficult!
(That by the way is how easy it is NOT to set up a **** ISP)

I'm not sure anybody is criticising you for having expectations that your ISP can deliver what they advertise (though we have since established that they are in fact doing that), the bit that I was chuckling at was that your first idea about how to resolve it was to sue them for false advertising.

Yes, I think I was just very frustrated by this point (as mentioned it wouldn't have been the first issue I had with them). Honestly I'm not even sure I know where to start with suing a company for false advertising.
And it very much seemed like people were criticising me for expecting better than 375Mbps from a 1Gbps package.

On the plus side I believe Openreach are supposed to be doing this area in 2026. I imagine as Openreach rollout the upgrades to more and more areas Wildanet will find it harder and harder to get customers. I've heard they're already not doing so well, imagine how hard they'll find it when there's competition from the likes of BT, EE, Plusnet, Sky, etc.