Lots of people complaining about wifi speed, based on my experience any problems you encounter are almost certainly due to your ISP or your local RF environment.

I've got a trio of M5's distributed throughout an old 2000 sqft house with many thick plaster walls and solid floors (and tiny rooms throughout). That means lots of signal attenuation and a demanding challenge for wifi gear.

Previous to the Deco solution I had a single dual band AC1300 MIMO unit with capabilities similar to a single M5.

The coverage was great centrally but at the edges of the house really struggled with low transfer speeds (5-20mbit), frequent dropouts, and high latency. It was impossible to use my WAN for Voice or Video calling unless I was very close to the AP.

After implementing three Deco's I got 150mbit/150mbit at the farthest reaches of the house (close to the practical limit of AC1300 on 2.4 GHz -- the backhaul is only 2G due to signal attenuation and AP placement).  Latency is very low and audio calls work everywhere.

The central location (no WiFi backhaul) easily reaches 300-500mbit synchronous speeds (again, close to the practical limit on AC1300 5GHz).

And FWIW the "backhaul" port of the Deco easily supports throughput both ways at or above 900mbit observable (I was pretty happy with that since we're not running jumbo frames). I use this to hardwire my desk.

Keep in mind I'm on a gigabit fibre WAN (lucky me after fighting with 1.5mbit DSL for the last 15 years).

So, the M5 antennae design and wifi radios easily reach the practical limitations of AC1300, support 802.11k/v/r for cellular roaming, and the system-on-chip router supports wirespeed gigabit throughput.

@mfisch 

ps all -- WiFi doesn't like to penetrate through "Stuff". I've been using this general guideline for years (solely informed by me, regardless of equipment or WiFi protocol).

Always think about what's between you and the AP, the inverse square law does apply and thus distance matters, but in most residences distance is barely a variable.

• 0 walls/floors: expect theoretical max performance
• 1 wall/floor: excellent performance at 2.4G, good at 5G
• 2 walls/floors: good 2.4G, poor 5G
• 3 or more walls/floors: poor 2.4G, no 5G

AND

1. Adjust for distance of course if you've got humongous open spaces, and don't forget the "things" inside the rooms that can attenuate signal like walls.
2. Consider the impact of neighboring WiFi networks, your average suburban neighborhood or low density shopping area can add enough noise to add a "floor or wall" worth of interference.
3. If you're in a downtown area or any city: your RF environment is like a loud restaurant. Hardware AP's into every room and don't expect magic.

And for the geeky among you:

Did you know devices with poor signal or older wifi gear will use up the timeslices at low speed and damage the performance of equipment with better RF environment or radios? If that's your problem consider backhauling with hardlines to each mesh endpoint (which will half the spectrum usage at one hop away and increase the overall number of available timeslices).

@mfisch well nice and all.. but I'm not even referring to throughput in my latest post. When sitting physical next to router and turning on wifi the CONNECTION speed goes from 400+ Mbs to 72 down to 65 Mbs !. A few minutes without doing anything on my phone. So there is something fishy with the handshake/communication between the client (phone) and the router. ISP internet connection is more then file 250MBs though cabled connections so don't start with ISP issues.

All used to be fine months ago but with one of the updates the issues started

Hello All,

I've the same issue here @ home !

I've got 2 M5 on the same floor. The main M5 is connected on my cable box. I never had this kind of promblem before ! It appears some couple of months now !

My ISP in Belgium is Telenet and gives me a speed of 1 Gbps in download. When I launch a speed test on wired connection I have more or less 850 Mbps in download.

My M5 gives me a full speed during some days or sometimes some weeks.... In 5 Ghz it's always about 500 Mbps.... And for unexplicated reason it falls at 50 Mbps or 60 Mbps !

I must reboot or switch between AP or Router Mode to have full speed back again !

I tried to switch off DHCP and choose static IP.... I tried AP mode and Router Mode.... I tried to change default DNS by Google DNS.....

It works during some days or some weeks and after fall to 50 Mbps or 60 Mbps.... And of course my wired test gives me 800 or 850 Mbps in download....

What's wrong ???????????

Many Thanks,

Micael from Belgium

I have recently have been having similar issues.  Network speeds were fine for a year with my Mesh network.  Now I am typically 10% of the speed I used to get.  Was there an update that caused this?   My firmware is 1.5.1 Build 20201022 Rel. 66804

Hi all.

@TP-Link_Deco 

I bought Deco M5 on 15 Dec 2020 (3 units/pack). At first, the wifi speed is achievable thru out the usage at ± 200 / 190 Mbps (Download / Upload). But then, all of a sudden, the wifi download speed dropped below 70 Mbps. I run "Test Internet Speed" in Deco Apps and the internet speed can achieve 810 / 225 Mbps. I rebooted the Deco using web GUI and then run "Network Optimization" to clear any wifi congestion that might occurred. Still, I cannot achieve the reasonable speed when using Deco M5 even when I standing about less than one meter to the Deco Slave unit.

Any help much appreciated. If not, may be need to send to technical support centre and have to wait for about 3 weeks for checking/repair.

1. Please provide your detailed network diagram, how many Deco M5 do you have in total and how are they connected to each other, the main Deco is working as a router or an Access Point, etc. -> Pic 1

2. Who is your internet service provider? And what's the bandwidth you pay for them? Please connect your computer to the ISP modem/router directly and test the speed you can get from it and show us a screenshot of the speed test result.

    - TM Unifi (Malaysia)

    - Download = 800 Mbps :  Upload = 200 Mbps

3. Then connect the ISP modem/router--the main Deco--the same computer,  run the speedtest again and confirm the speed again, show us the test result.

4. Connect a laptop or smartphone to the main Deco wireless network, test the wireless speed again, please verify it is connected to the 2.4GHz or 5GHz network and how about the link speed as below:

https://www.tp-link.com/support/faq/2265/

Pic 1 = Network Diagram

Regards,

@Miezarnd @TP-Link_Deco 

Dear TP-Link,

I recently purchased this Deco M5 (3 units) in June and only after 3 months I am experiencing the same issue as @Miezarnd .

I am also located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. ISP is from Malaysia-TM Unifi. My subscribed internet speed is 300mbps - download; 50mbps - upload. But my Deco is only able to transmit 60mbps download. Few days ago I tried a total reset (deleting internet profile on Deco app and re-establishing the internet connection). My Operation Mode is Router.

A screenshot to show my past speed test via Deco app:

Please have a solution for this, thank you.