Fibre speeds

We had fibre installed last year with speeds of 500 mb up and down. In the autumn Orange increased download to 1gb at a cost of 2€ a month. I have tried a few different speedtests and we never get more than 500 download and frequently only 300. Upload is a pretty steady 500. It is obviously not a problem as everything works very quickly, but wondered if anyone else has anything similar. I have spoken to Orange who say that we have 950 and apart from suggesting devices might be too close to the Livebox (they aren’t) they couldn’t come up with any reason. I am very happy with fibre after years of 1.5mb on a good day, but would like to know why we are not getting the speeds we should.

How are you measuring your speed, and are you doing so over a wired Ethernet connection or over Wi-Fi?

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I am using Speedtest, but have tried others. Everything is wifi and am getting similar speeds with ipad, iphone and Macmini, all of which should cope with 800.

If you install the Ma Livebox app you can run a speed test directly from the router, so you’ll know what your line speed is versus any potential bottleneck between your router and your device

PS - welcome to SF :slightly_smiling_face:

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I agree with Gareth - the first thing to do is eliminate Wi-Fi - although the Livebox 4 claims   1732Mbps on it’s 5GHz channel real world speeds will typically max out at half that - 500Mbps is actually pretty reasonable.

Either install the speedtest app on the Livebox, or temporarily hook a laptop or desktop PC up via an Ethernet cable and repeat the speed test.

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You should certainly check there’s nothing on your side that will slow speeds.

Two possible causes from the provider’s side are throttling of your connection, and issues with your house connection to the provider’s cabinet.

You can try a speed test over a VPN as providers can manipulate speed test data. They may well confirm your line is capable of the higher speed and won’t be lying if they say so, but if they’re throttling back due to capacity issues, you won’t get those speeds. Test at different times of day to see if it varies.

Sometimes moving provider can make a difference. However, if you’re a long way from the provider’s cabinet, physical issues can limit speed, though I suspect not in this case.

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Thanks all, will have a go!

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Also check that you haven’t got any older and slower routers, WiFi access points or WiFi range extenders,

Lots of entry level WiFi kit is 300Mbps. Wasn’t a problem with ADSL, but could be bottlenecking 1Gbps fibre connections.

No extenders or other routers. According to Ma Livebox debit is 953 from Livebox 5 and 481 from ipad mini5 (which I think should be capable of 800). I am about 2 metres from the Livebox.

Have you tried changing channel’s on the WiFi.

If it makes you feel better, I have worse WiFi performance than you :grin:

It doesn’t really bother me though as my mobile devices and laptops aren’t often used for downloading large files, and my NAS is connected to the router via ethernet.

So you have 1Gbps.

I presume “capable of 800” means 802.11ac on a 40/80MHz channel - if you are getting 481 out of that you are doing well.

Wi-Fi never runs at the “theoretical” speed in the real world.

Usually, somewhere burried in the small print will be the observation that the advertised speeds pertain only to wired connections.

You might, if you need it, get better Wi-Fi speeds by turning the Livebox Wi-Fi off and buying a Wi-Fi 6 AP - especially if the Livebox position is less than optimal.

Oh that’s a point. Orange do sell a WiFi 6E router now, conveniently called Livebox 6. I’m still on the old v5 of the Livebox however.

Thanks everyone that has been really helpful and will continue to pay the extra 2€. Will wait for a granddaughter visit with Macbook Air to check ethernet speed, but in the meantime be grateful for what we have. :joy:
When we first came in 2004 we didn’t even have ADSL. Then years of 1.5mb ADSL, satellite with a very lengthy ping , wonky 4g boxes and finally fibre. As the telephone line was buried under the house it cost large sums of money to dig a trench across the courtyard for a new connection and drill through the stone walls.
Thanks also for the welcome to the forum. I have been on lots of them over the years; good to find one that is still active. :blush:

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You must be doing some serious interactive computing to need 1000Mbs, let alone notice the difference between it and 500Mbs :rofl:

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:joy: It is the principle of the extra 2€ a month.

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Taliking with an estate agent only yesterday, he bemoned losing out on a sale of an expensive house locally due to one reason: lack of fibre! The buyer is a trader on some market or other, relocating with the top requirement of having 500mbs internet!

I am fortunate in having 45mbs, and marvvel at how quickly my screen re-acts to my fingers when surfing ebay - I cannot comprehend what it must be like with 500 :rofl:

It’s increasingly important these days.

I have 500 at home, back in the ADSL days we were very late to the party so the 3Mbps I squeezed out of the 5.5km long line back to the exchange seemed fast compared with 64kbps ISDN, when VDSL arrvied (again, after just about everywhere else in the country) we rocketed up to 50Mbps - which, again, felt hugely fast compared with what had come previously.

For “reasons” I kept the 50Mbps connection when we had the fibre installed - is there much of a difference between the machines that are connected via the fibre line compared with the VDSL line - I wouldn’t say so to be honest.

Where it *really* shows though is downloads, especially for OS updates - which tend to be frequent on Linux and the speed that they are arriving is readily apparent.

Games or game updates (my son more than me) are another thing which are the real killer on a slow line though - they can be nearly 100GB (I think the largest was 80GB) - on the 50Mbps connection that’s 5 hours downloading the game or a large update compared with half an hour on 500Mbps and 15 minutes on 1Gbps - if you are impatient to start playing even the 15 vs 30 minutes is significant.

Chez nous en France we have VDSL but I don’t feel my style is *too* cramped at 85 down 15 up.

We live in the middle of nowhere, over 1km up a track through the forest. I was quite surprised this morning to see 3 engineers at our door telling me they are going to install fibre right up to the house.

They apologised for saying they would have to shut the track for a couple of days while they dig it up to install underground, just for us.

If we’re going to get fibre I imagine everyone will eventually

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Here in the UK I ditched my landline 10 or more years ago due to pathetic speeds which weren’t going to get any better due to distance from exchange.

BT originally, discovered they were throttling the connection, switched to Plusnet, got better though still dire, discovered my available mobile network was way faster. Fibre is supposed to be available now, but depends how they would get it to the house. Can do all I need via mobile network for £14 per month, probably not worth another £30 per month for fibre.

Sounds like you’re doing OK with what you get over there!