@David-TP  Thank you David. I did all the above mentioned checks. The home WiFi mesh network seems to work great.Getting good on wireless clients - Tx rate shows 780 mbps.

The problem is I am getting about half the download speed promised by my ISP when checking with a direct ethernet lan from the modem - x20-dsl, to mt laptop. I am waiting for someone from my ISP to come over and check the phisical connections on my phone line. I will update if the problem will be solved.

Great forum!

  @David-TP So the ISP technician came over, checked the phone line, connected his own modem that showed a speed of 185 down and 22 up, which is exactly what I am showing on my x20-dsl webpage. however, he could not connect his modem to my iMac to check speed test. It seems as if the modem is getting the full speed promised, but for some reason the x20-dsl lan ports are limiting the output, so when running speed test on my iMac, connected directly to the modem, all I am getting is 98 down and 3.5 up.

Is there anything else I can do, other than giving up on my x20-dsl as a modem?

many thanks.