Poor bandwidth on XE75 Pro when connected to wireless node

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Poor bandwidth on XE75 Pro when connected to wireless node

This thread has been locked for further replies. You can start a new thread to share your ideas or ask questions.
Poor bandwidth on XE75 Pro when connected to wireless node
Poor bandwidth on XE75 Pro when connected to wireless node
2023-11-08 09:41:34
Model: Deco XE75 Pro  
Hardware Version:
Firmware Version: 1.2.4 rel 69546

Hi,

Just recieved the XE75 Pro and not pleased so far with it's performance.

 

Here is my setup 

 

3x XE75 Pro:

2x connected via a 1gbit wired backhaul

1x connected via wireless backhaul (Have selected 6Hz for backhaul only) located about 15meters away from the main node with a drywall/wooden floor and a stud wall inbetween.

 

Internet connection : 267Mbit/s

Test device : iPhone 14 Pro

 

When i'm connected to one of the two wired nodes and doing a speedtest, I can usually top out the connection speed, but does a few seconds to get to peak BW. However, the problem seems to be that when connected to the wireless backhaul node, I can get no more than around 110-120Mbit/s.

The signal quality stated in the app is "Medium", but I don't particularly big house and using my previous BTWholeHome Wifi system in exactly the same setup, I was able to max out the speed even when connected to the wireless backhaull node.

 

I'm currently thinking of returning it as my previuos 5yr old system is better (and it;s not even wifi 6E). Any thoughts on what can be done to improve this ?

 

Thanks

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#1
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9 Reply
Re:Poor bandwidth on XE75 Pro when connected to wireless node
2023-11-08 14:56:07 - last edited 2023-11-08 14:56:44

  @Dilby2k 

 

For speed testing, disable 2.4GHz on Main Network, to make sure Deco does not push your smartphone to 2.4GHz.

 

 

Then, try speed tests again.

 

 

Also, make screenshot of top part of Satellite Deco info page in Deco app, the one that is on WiFi backhaul, and share it here. I am looking for the following info:

 

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#2
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Re:Poor bandwidth on XE75 Pro when connected to wireless node
2023-11-09 00:58:39

Dilby2k wrote

Hi,

Just recieved the XE75 Pro and not pleased so far with it's performance.

 

Here is my setup 

 

3x XE75 Pro:

2x connected via a 1gbit wired backhaul

1x connected via wireless backhaul (Have selected 6Hz for backhaul only) located about 15meters away from the main node with a drywall/wooden floor and a stud wall inbetween.

 

  @Dilby2k The range of the 6GHz band is less than that of th 5GHz band. I suspect 15 meters is too far to expect a good connection and walls will just make things worse.

 

Things might improve for the allowed wireless broadcast strength(and so improved range) with WiFi 7 but that's a way off yet.

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#3
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Re:Poor bandwidth on XE75 Pro when connected to wireless node
2023-11-09 09:29:59

  @raven-au 

 

Thanks Raven. 15m doesn't seem that far especially for a mesh network.

 

What you're saying with range seems to make sense ans when I switched of dedicated 6Ghz backhaul, it seemed to get faster. I assume it's now using a backhaul across 2.4Ghz, 5ghz and 6Ghz ?

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#4
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Re:Poor bandwidth on XE75 Pro when connected to wireless node
2023-11-10 05:25:34 - last edited 2023-11-10 05:30:12

Dilby2k wrote

  @raven-au 

 

Thanks Raven. 15m doesn't seem that far especially for a mesh network.

 

What you're saying with range seems to make sense ans when I switched of dedicated 6Ghz backhaul, it seemed to get faster. I assume it's now using a backhaul across 2.4Ghz, 5ghz and 6Ghz ?

  @Dilby2k I'm fairly new to Deco so I'm not entirely sure how backhaul is selected.

 

The higher frequency means shorter range and IIUC there are some restrictions on signal strength (more so than on 5GHz) so a number of reviewers say it's a problem (eg. DongKnows says 10m is about as much as you can expect) but for me it's just something to be aware of.

 

I assume the Deco simply retransmits via the band it's communicating on so you take a penalty on that but the sync rate on 5GHz is usually enough to cope with it, 2.4 GHz might be a bit more problematic but I didn't see problems with IoT devices so I didn't care.

 

Generally the XE75 worked pretty well when I was using it but seemed to suffer a slowdown in the evening over about an hour every night, very odd really.

 

I used it with and without dedicated backhaul with my two nodes roughly between 7 and 9 meters away with a wall to the further one, sometimes with the door closed.

I'm pretty sure I paid a high penalty for that longer distance but it handled what I wanted it to so it was ok.

 

Note that I did have a number of problems with it such as errors with the client list, HomeShield not working properly (mainly parental controls) and some odd disconnection problems, eg. I couldn't use a commercial VPN without the connection dropping out every few hours but my work VPN worked fine (although it survives router reboots so that nothing special).

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#5
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Re:Poor bandwidth on XE75 Pro when connected to wireless node
2023-11-10 16:24:15

  @Dilby2k 

 

Answering question "what bands Satellite Deco uses for backhaul?"

 

You can find that in Satellite Deco info page in Deco app. In an example screenshot I provided Deco M9 Plus uses 2.4GHz, 5Ghz and one more, dedicated, 5GHz for WiFi backhaul.

Check what you see in Deco app for your Satellite Deco and if there is 6GHz, it means Satellite Deco does use it for backhaul. If not, that could mean Satellite Deco is too far from Main Deco to use 6GHz.

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#6
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Re:Poor bandwidth on XE75 Pro when connected to wireless node
2023-11-11 00:34:35

  @Alexandre. Thanks but I'm already aware of this.

 

The tricky thing is answering the question of "how do you know what is used for backhaul when dedicated backhaul is enabled" since all the bands available are listed in the dialog you mentioned regardless of the setting and rebooting the decos doesn't change it.

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#7
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Re:Poor bandwidth on XE75 Pro when connected to wireless node
2023-11-11 00:42:41

raven-au wrote

  @Alexandre. Thanks but I'm already aware of this.

 

The tricky thing is answering the question of "how do you know what is used for backhaul when dedicated backhaul is enabled" since all the bands available are listed in the dialog you mentioned regardless of the setting and rebooting the decos doesn't change it.

  @raven-au 

 

My understanding is, if Satellite Deco X75 is too far from Main Deco X75 to use 6GHz band for backhaul, it will not be listed there. 

 

Also, there are just two settings in X75 in regard to 6GHz band: use it just for backhaul or use it for both backhaul and clients. Which means, as long as Satellite X75 is close enough to Main X75 to establish connection over 6GHz, you should always see 6GHz in Satellite info page. 

 

There is no option for X75 to not use 6GHz for backhaul.

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#8
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Re:Poor bandwidth on XE75 Pro when connected to wireless node
2023-11-11 01:57:41 - last edited 2023-11-11 01:58:04

Alexandre. wrote

  @raven-au 

 My understanding is, if Satellite Deco X75 is too far from Main Deco X75 to use 6GHz band for backhaul, it will not be listed there. 

 

Also, there are just two settings in X75 in regard to 6GHz band: use it just for backhaul or use it for both backhaul and clients. Which means, as long as Satellite X75 is close enough to Main X75 to establish connection over 6GHz, you should always see 6GHz in Satellite info page. 

 

There is no option for X75 to not use 6GHz for backhaul.

  @Alexandre. right, this is more or less what I'd assumed.

 

I hadn't thought about the band not showing if it's signal isn't strong enough, that's new to me and makes sense.

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#9
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Re:Poor bandwidth on XE75 Pro when connected to wireless node
2023-11-13 17:13:38

I ended up returning the whole kit as overall the system was worse than my 5 year old BTWholeHome Wifi (802.11ac) setup. It was setup in an identical manner with wires and wireless nodes all in the eactly the place. The app also reported the single wireless node was using all three (2.4, 5 & 6 GHz) bands.

 

Here is a summary of my conclusion (using iperf internally for my network BW measurement) :

  • The drop-off with distance is significant. Using a WiFi6 device (iPhone 14Pro), sitting next to the router allowed me to get a speed of close to 600mbit/second. Moving to aorund 5meters away with a single wooden door in the way, reeduces to 400mbit/s (Old system this was 500mbit/s
  • On the wireless backhaul node, SItting next to the node i was able to get similar performance to above (i.e. 600mbit/s), reducing to around 250mbit/s through two stud walls (comparable to my previuos system)
  • Outdoor performance in my garage on 2,4Ghz averaged 10mbit/s (vs. 20mbit/s on my old system)

 

 

Overall, in close proximilty the kit performed as expected, but didn't offer anything meaningfull over what I had already. For longer range performance, it was much worse,

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#10
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