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Forum Discussion
Old RBK50 wifi faster than new RBK852
Hello everyone, I have a 1 gig fios internet speed and we have a older Orbi RBK50. My wife does a lot of telahealth from home now and we have a few wifi 6 devices so I thought it was a good ...
Capth4u wrote:This old unit has worked good for the last 5 years or so but Im not getting the wifi speeds I want. For example on my coffee table my average wifi speed was 512mbps. If I hardwire my wifi 6 macbook to my modem ill get about 880mbps up and down. So the new 852 came and I installed it and let it updated its firmware to the latest (V4.6.3.16_2.0.51). I then ran the same test from the coffee table. I got an average of 376 mbps.
You may be chasing down expected wireless speed differences if you are comparing 512 Mbps vs. 376 Mbps. Realize that wireless devices will never get to the same wired speeds due to wireless speed limits, so don't compare to your wired speed of 744 Mbps.
Youur wireless device can connect to your Orbi via 2.4Ghz, 5Ghz AC, or 5Ghz AX. Each of these have different inherent wireless maximum limits: https://kb.netgear.com/31211/At-what-speed-and-bandwidth-can-my-Orbi-system-transmit-data. Even that 866 Mbps is a theoretical max number that may not account for encryption overhead (we all turn it on) and other factors. In my experience, the best 5Ghz devices using WiFi 6, e.g., iPhone 11 or later), reach 500-600 Mbps. AC devices that using 5Ghz will see less and 2.4Ghz devices even lower.
There are also many environmental factors that will cause your wireless speeds to fluctuate during the day (using the same router, same channel, same device). I will often see lower speedtest numbers due to traffic, channel competition, etc. 400+ Mbps is pretty good for my best devices using WiFi 6.