UK HIGH SPEED BROADBAND ISSUE.

[Diguelo]

Ok, I feel this has to go out there to all persons especially in the UK who have joiined the network of SUperfast Broadband ISPs,

On signing up your fitter will install for you a line to a telegraph pole outside your property, no issue there. Then is where the problems come out of the box you had mailed to you previously.

On setting up your router the person (gender corrected) will say there you go, your all sorted now just link to the Wifi or plug in your cables and your good to go.

OH ARE YOU ????

Wifi on the Superhub may only be wifi 5 or 6 (september 2025) the new wifi 7 ah thats going to cost you extra. Difference is the speed on the wifi. Turned mine off and used cables. Thats sorted it !!!

NOPE IT HASNT

Then I start looking at what was actually provided in the original box you had sent and came across a startling fact.

Let me illaberate on this. I have a desktop awesome machine, programming, gaming, playing solitare (OH MY GOD OH WELL ITS OUT THERE NOW) anda couple of Laptops, wel 8 actually in various flavours, WIndows, Linux, Ubuntu, OS2 (Dont ask, its old and I felt sorry for it) anywho. I also have these connected up using Cables to the ISP Router and then I start to see wierd coming into things.

YouTube vids stuttering, Amazon Prime downgrading the image to make it playable (what should be 4k is down to DVD quality) same with Netflix.

I have a reasonable speed of 150Mb per second or I was supposed to have

In comes the speedtest software and I find speeds hitting the worst side of 80 Mb/s barely half of what it should be.

I contact the supplier who calmly says "Oh yes, I can see here your router is getting the full 150Mb/sec. " So i sent him screen shots from all my machines all showing the pretty crap 50% signal loss. to which I got the answer "Your equipment must be faulty" , So having slammed the phone into the house next door, I set about checking all my gear.

Nope nothing wrong with any of it. Then I had an epiphony, what did they actually send me in the box. Then I find out. The cable from the wall socket to the router is a Cheap as chips CAT 6 cable, The cable to my Amazon / Netflix fircube they sent is a CAT 5, the other one sent me was also CAT 5 and my grandkids could have made a better job of the cable manufacturing no doubt involving a lot of Chinesium in their construction.

SOOOO what "I" did was unpack my CAT 8 cable box and the accompanying connectors and changed the lot over from WAN (Wide Area Network, cable from wall to their filter/router), next Cable from router to Amazon Cube agian CAT 5 to CAT 8 swap. Next the important switch for the laptops. The switch to the Latops then the router to my PC.

All changed over to CAT8. Now again ill point out I DONT USE WIFI apart from my phone which is on a set IP address and port configuration. Paranoid. maybe but I work with other peoples gear and safety is a price that can get stupid.

And so once the network is fullt CAT 8 cabled, the speed is indeed now permananetly at 149.7 Mb/sec 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

Then I get a call from the ISP "Your using too much data and its causing issues, my reply "Oh really I cant think why, can you test my connection for me while im on the line and ill check it for degradation my end too?" <Silence> "Erm I will pass you to my manager, please hold." <Silence> "Hello we have run tests on your line and can see you are indeed getting 150Mb/sec you have contracted too, good day to you" <Phone goes down.

So please be aware that the box you get sent may indeed be High Speed, but the cables sent with it can throttle the speeds to individual devices.

Cat 8 will outperform Cat 5e by a significant margin because Cat 8 offers speeds up to 25-40 Gbps over shorter distances, while Cat 5e is limited to 1 Gbps. (supplied by Microsoft)

So they introduce throttling by cable instead of by controlling your data. Now I enjoy max speeds all the time.

SO where do i get CAT 8 cables from and what do I actuially need?

The cable with the red plugs on it thats usually a CAT6 or 7 but the rest, well

CAT 8 cables are available from most online suppliers EXCEPT ALIEXPRESS and TEMU and all the other companies that sell on others stuff. Check out yor local PC supplier to obtain them.

I make my own because I can and Ive been making them for decades to my lengths, longest is 8.5 m and i get zero length degradation.

SO if you want to get the system you are paying for then well its entirely up to you

Forgot to add in my Xbox, sorry, thats also stutter free now.

Distance from here to where these reults are is a little over 25 miles.

 

[DVDR_Dog]

Cat 8 is WAY overkill for a home Internet connection. Cat 6e is more than enough. You have the cable ISP blues. Asymmetric lines are a problem. Businesses will use them only as a last resort although I have seen come very sad broadband availability in the Middle of the US. I used to provision VoIP network hardware for nationwide customers. You have many customers sharing the same node. The node is the last end for fiber and it's copper distributing that one fiber line to as many as 8 households.

 

[Diguelo]

Youd think so wouldnt you. However.....

I have CAT cable 5e through to 9 in rolls that I make bespoke cables up as needed for clients.

I makde experimental cables up in each before making the ones that are needed. CAT 8 may be overkill, BUT all the other cables did not help the ISP to identify my in home issue of slow speeds. They have a pretty map they send out to people that complain about bad speeds at peek times. In the UK its a regular thing with all ISP, they say

"Ah, the speed you are promised and are paying for is an Estimaed speed. You may find the speed during peek hours may be reduced. As this is something beyond our control we attempt to provide the best speed possible dirung this period."

Just about every ISP does this to you. Ive come across this issue a lot in my time as a Technician installing cables in factory's and Warehouses where in some cases the prescribed max length of 50m in Cat 5e just isnt any good. So upgrade the cable helps. Higher the Cat or Capacitance Attenuation value is lower C At Cat.

SCience bit:

WIres in cables cause capacitance, like the Tone control or Treble control on your Hifi or home radio, the shorter the cable and tha lower the capacitance the sharper and clearer the signal. Longer the cable its like turning the treble all the way down the sound moulds together and becomes less distinct. Other stuff affects it too like the metal in the cable. Copper maintains a good signal, Aluminium is cheaper but doesnt and is more prone to breakage.

So back to the experimental cable, I made one of each 2m in length and put my laptop on the end and theother end into the router, Using the OOKLA speed test software I did a series of 10 checks on each cable at peak times, Family in from work, school college etc TV streaming Netflix and god knows what else coming over lines running at today Sep 2025 2Gb/sec (and you call cat 8 excessive. Anywho ,

With all this going on, Cat 5 wouldnt stand a "Cat in hells" (pun intended) of coping with all that bandwidth. The ISP will provide you with a Cat 8 1.5m cable to connect your router to the outside world, BUT they only give you a Cat 5e cable as well as throttled WiFi so you want to pay more to get a better signal for all your gear. Seeing as Cat 5e handles 100Kb/sec before it starts to hit harmonic resonance (Dont get me started) and the signal starts to degrade. Little Johnny gets screaming at his sister for listening to music while shes podcasting and watching the Kadasheins or whatever on TV while shes using her webcam and phone to stream to all her friends and Johnny gets splat in Fortnite because his commands dont get through. Dad and mum are watching the latest shows the everyone else is watching so the signal coming in it getting a slapping from the servers trying to cope with it. Cat 5e on peak times is a great way to start family internet wars.

Go on tell me this doesnt happen in your house.

Anyhow back to the cables. I have a 150Mb/sec fibre connection. Fibre itself can handle around 3GB/sec which is 8 times faster than the 3Gb/src youll get sold as "The fastest on the planet."

So off peak I got 142 avg over the 10 tests, done at 2am uk time when everyones in bed and theres nothing but junk on TV.

Peak Off Peak
Cat 5e 92 142
Cat 6 100 142
Cat 7 115 143
Cat 8 145 149

Now in the UK, we have laws that prohibit the THROTTLING of internet speeds during the Peak times so ISP's make use of the bad cabling or poor quality cable and in some sneeky cases a bit of hardware coding in routers/filters/wifi tehy of course will absolutely dent any of this. So to get the best out of my gear I use Cat 8 because I can and because they cant control what gets connected to their router in the home.

Ive already come across one issue with doing this and that is that the power supply they provide with the Router is rated sooooooo close to the router power rating that it blows if its run oon full throttle all the time. After blowing two of them in the first year of this fabulous speed, I checked the wattage used on my router at full speed and it was close to 26 Watts @ 12V meaning the power supply needs to be rated at or above 2.2 Amps and they provide one with just over 2.1 Amps @ 12V DC. So I built one of my own from an old Power supply I had hanging around and gave it a 60W @ 12v DC output, Hasnt blown in 6 months and the nets been superbly stable morning peak and night.

Ive already had my ISP complaing that my signal is constant all day and as I told them, and the engineer they sent round "I am using just the equipment you sent me and nothing else." apart from my own power supply of course.

So this along with the MTU optimisation I incorporate is why I use Cat 8, I have WiFi 6 on this router and even that gives me a flat response on speed all day and night.

So Mr Dog, you are correct in the excessive part and I do appreciate it being pointed out to me and I thank you. But to put it in a more easy way to understand if you bought a car with 500 HP and the best acceleration it could get was about that of a pedal cycle starting off due to having a restricted exhaust system, you would go out and get the exhaust changed. AM I RIGHT ????

{Rant over he walks off down a dark corridor. In the distance you hear a door shut}

 

[DVDR_Dog]

I would find a more robust power supply for your router, set it to pass-thru giving it only modem duties (I use modem with tongue in cheek). Usually ISP supplied stuff is marginal at best. Get a decent manageable switch and a separate access point.
That setup allows you to maximise your wired connections with a run as short as possible from the modem and also allows you to locate your wireless transceiver in an optimum location for your household's wireless devices. It also allows you to update wireless equipment while not having to scrap your other existing hardware.
CAT 6e cabling is more than adequate for a home network as long as you don't live in a castle and have very,very long cable runs

As far as your auto analogy, if you installed a 500 HP motor into a vehicle, the exhaust system is your last worry. Many car owners in the US it appears equate a noisy exhaust system means more power. Without other modifications, you may damage the performance of the engine. Other absurd modifications you see are huge tire and wheel combinations and equally idiotic suspension modifications. These are the same folks who would clip playing cards on their bicycle frame to contact the moving spokes ad make noise. To take it a step further one US auto maker is contemplating adding a PA system to their electric vehicles to mimic a revving engine in their high performance e-Cars. Nuts, right?
You sir as a Brit are well aware of what it takes to make a practical fast automobile, not just fast for a blink of an eye over an extremely short straight line. Colin Chapman, a genius, comes to mind.
Hey you started it. I was a professional WERA, SCCA and IMSA trained and certified racer in my youth and it was my first passion..

 

[Diguelo]

I would find a more robust power supply for your router, set it to pass-thru giving it only modem duties (I use modem with tongue in cheek). Usually ISP supplied stuff is marginal at best. Get a decent manageable switch and a separate access point.

Marginal, hmm, well, erm, modem, hmm nope.
Im on an optical fibre connection, so basically this thing is a filter/ light sicnal processin RX/TX thing.

As for able to set it? You assume they let you play around in these things, set up port forwarding, adjust MTU and other settings. Well if I could enter it I would. No browser access, yet, for some reason its there but firewalled off the internal system so they all greyed out.

Ive got a better Optical system on its way now ive worked out the kinks in this system. I doubt it will actually make a better job of connecting seeing as im on just about the maximum speed i pay for, but id like some port handling for some of my older programs that still use TCP not UDP. Ill keep you informed if and when it arrives and goes back

As for the power supply at 60W its barely using half of what its capable of so it runs cool.

 

[DVDR_Dog]

So cable supplied Internet access is fiber to the premise? Kind of defeats the term cable then. When I used the word modem I did mention it was just a antique term. I have had to used that term describing broadband hardware to get an understanding by end users. Anything else confuses a lot of them otherwise.
Somebody somewhere, a disgruntled tech? has to have leaked the way into your existing hardware.

 

[Diguelo]

Ok, socket on the wall WAN socket and the WAN socket on the router has a supplied Cat 8 cable. The ones they supply for connecting to other equipment, TV Computer etc are Cat5e and terrible quality

 

[DVDR_Dog]

Ok, socket on the wall WAN socket and the WAN socket on the router has a supplied Cat 8 cable. The ones they supply for connecting to other equipment, TV Computer etc are Cat5e and terrible quality

Can you PM me your ISP? Nothing like you portray exists from cable providers in the US that I know of. Optimum On-Line is considered the the leader of Cable ISPs and they don't offer what you describe.

 

[DVDR_Dog]

Obviously your ISP must have boxes and boxes of premade Cat 5 cables lying about. I would guess they would be adequate for a typical Internet access account tier.
One question I have been begging to ask.
First I qualify the question. I have yet to find a VPN that will allow speeds close to 1Gb/s let alone higher speeds. I subscribe to a newsgroup provider that struggles to provide 1Gb/s downloads and this provider is considered one of the fastest in the sector. I can't think of another site that might match your download capabilities.
So other than multiple very heavy bandwidth users on the same network, other than bragging rights, I can't justify the cost of a 2Gig Internet line even though my ISP offers a symmetrical 2Gb/s fiber to the premise line.

 

[Diguelo]

As far as I know, the UK has speeds up to 500Mb/S at the moment there is a company offering 1Gb which is barely reachable.
Uk Fibre net is still in its infancy here with just major towns and cities able to reep the benefits of it. There are huge parts of the country that still dont have dialup internet and no mobile service to speak of either. Personally I dont see a need for 1Gb/s speeds, I ran a TV and PC very well on 100Mb service.
Im sure if you have the need for 1Gb then someone will provide it.
As for the Cat 5 cables, they also provide at extra cost of course wifi boosters. But a well placed intranet of cat 8 and one or two switches does a way better and more consistent job.

 

[DVDR_Dog]

I have been seeing ads for a cable company in the Allentown, PA (same place as the Billy Joel song) for $40 USD locked in forever. They claim to be able to deliver up to 5 gig service.
I dunno, I come from a time when have a 128k modem was the shite. Early broadband sucked eggs and I went thru all of the forms: cable, DSL and the speeds were shameful given today's specs. I have a 1gbs symmetric fiber (24/7) to the premise line and I don't need any more speed. I am hard pressed to find download sites that can deliver even close to my line speed.

 

[Diguelo]

Cat 8 is WAY overkill for a home Internet connection. Cat 6e is more than enough. You have the cable ISP blues. Asymmetric lines are a problem. Businesses will use them only as a last resort although I have seen come very sad broadband availability in the Middle of the US. I used to provision VoIP network hardware for nationwide customers. You have many customers sharing the same node. The node is the last end for fiber and it's copper distributing that one fiber line to as many as 8 households.

OVERKILL.

Hell I wouldnt be me if I didnt use OVERKILL frequently.

The reason being that I was receiving reports that cables on my side of the router were wofully inadequate so being me, cat 5 tested, 6 tested and so on.

Cat 8 though it has to be said im months into this with my Supplier and even they have said that their own diagnosis of my system is OVERKILL. What they mean is they "Want to sell you a line with speeds only around 50% of those promised from the router to your equipment to enable everyone in the property to achieve a FAIR distribution of speed"

So here we are, I pay to receive a 150MB/sec signal but according to their rules im not allowed to have access to the full speed at any point of my equipment, why, simple

So far Ive blown out 4 of their router power supplys because they are cheap junk. So Ive modded up an old PC power supply to provide the correct voltage and way more current than is needed to make the router run its little whatsits off constantly to my PC, Laptop, TV, Phone, and somewhere in this is the washing machine.

So rather than having 150MB/sec split between all of these they all get 150, whereas if i use Cat5 they all get 60 ish

Router does get a tad warm, but hey what the hell .