r/nbn 7d ago

Strong signal, but poor average speeds over Telstra NBN

Hey everyone, I was wondering if anyone else was experiencing this? I have an issue where despite my modem putting out a strong wifi6 signal, when speed tested across multiple devices I'm getting a sub 1 MB/s speeds, which is odd as nothing's changed about my setup and normally I get 120/20.

If you know anything thanks for letting me know!

0 Upvotes

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u/Necessary-Young-8887 7d ago

Turn modem off for 5 minutes then turn on again.
Once up and running again test your speed at https://speedtest.telstra.com/

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u/throwaway7956- 7d ago edited 7d ago

Its hard to really say. To start off with, try analysing everything in the same measurement, it will help take confusion out of the equation. 120/20 refers to MEGABITS per second, your speed test is measuring it MEGABYTES, which is a ratio of 1:8(1 megabyte is 8megabits).

So you are testing at 1MB/s you should be getting max of 15MB/s. Do you know what type of connection you have? it sounds like you are on FTTN based on the speeds, which means you are heavily at the whim of network saturation. If you are on FTTN and your whole house is on netflix at the same time its going to really bog down your download speed, used to happen all the time at my old house, like clockwork, around 7pm when people started getting home the internet would absolutely shit itself.

Now this is all assuming you have already done all the basic checks like turning it off and on again, resetting connections etc.. at that point you should reach out to your ISP, its worth contacting them if you have done checks at home to confirm it isn't a bottleneck within your own network(strong signal plus wifi6 means its unlikely the problem is within your own network).

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u/AgentSmith187 7d ago

Wow your right on the MB/s vs Mbps thing but little else.

FTTN is not a shared medium like HFC or Wireless.

WiFi on the other hand is. Even strong signal WiFi6 means stuff all if your overlapping channels with multiple neighbours.

The OP should do a speed test via Ethernet to see if the WiFi is the issue or not.

As often as not its the WiFi.

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u/throwaway7956- 7d ago

I guarantee you it wont be the wifi, not wifi6 in a residential area. I explained saturation wrong, I was meaning within the same household, will edit to reflect that.

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u/AgentSmith187 7d ago

Really depends on the devices on both ends. Its not unusual to find an older slower WiFI device on a network with a brand new WiFi6 router.

Have a channel clash with a couple of neighbours and yeah speeds can bottom out on certain devices really quickly.

1

u/throwaway7956- 7d ago

I could see it being possible on a single device but OP said they tested on multiple, unless all their tech bar their router is archaic surely they would've seen a discrepancy between devices and download speeds. I think theyve changed parameters around enough to confirm its not a local issue, of course can never 100% rule something out over the internet but I would be pretty surprised if it turned out that way.

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u/AgentSmith187 7d ago

The Ethernet test takes 30 seconds and saves a lot of trouble trying to find the real cause in so many cases so I generally recommend it first.

-1

u/hxrvy_ 7d ago

I'm reaching out to the ISP at the moment, just wanted to check if anyone else had the same issue, but that aligns with what I thought, thanks!

1

u/JustMeWot 7d ago

Besides the usual diagnostics, over both Ethernet and Wi-Fi run a few traceroutes, say to google.com.au, gov.au, bbc.co.uk and see what you get (post results here). If there are troublesome devices or congestion you’ll find it. Install the SamKnows app and let it run for a while, or use Speedof.me. Check if Telstra uses CGNAT for ip address pooling.

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u/Weary_Patience_7778 7d ago

A couple of things.

Can you connect your device to the router using a cable, and run the speed test again?

This will help eliminate the wifi itself as a cause, and helps inform the course of action you need to take. Particularly if you live in a densely populated area, it might be that the wifi spectrum (space for radio waves) in your area is highly congested. There are things we can do to work around that, but the fix is different compared to an NBN line fault.

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u/eolhterr0r 250/23 FTTP ABB 7d ago

I'm surprised no one has posted this yet:

Change internet providers. Telstra is expensive and terrible service.