Gigabit Fibre Internet with 4 Boosters Randomly drops to sub 2Mbps speeds on Wifi - HELP

[ryangeek]

I am having some super annoying speed-dropping issues with my gigabit internet.  I have spoke with at least 4 different techs who all provide random advice (conflicting at times) but nothing seems to fix it.  Coming here where I think the real experts are in hopes of getting it all straightened out.

The short version is that on wired internet I consistently get 950-1Gbs on my desktop.  On Wifi, I will get 200-400Mbps on most tests, and then out of nowhere, the device I‘m using will slow right down and my speeds will drop to between 0.5 and 2Mbps.  It will remain like that until I turn off and on the wifi on the device, and then the speed will instantly be back up at 200-400Mpbs. 

SETUP

• Telus Wifi Hub (v1.00.08)
• 4 Wifi Boosters  (v1.32.27 build 12) - 2 hardwired; 2 wireless.  All “good” connections
• One of the wired boosters is in the same room as the Wifi Hub
• Only a single wireless network is being broadcast… all devices connect to it,
• Optik TV with 3 TVs - all wireless
• At any given time there are 30-45 connected devices (according to Telus My Wifi app).  But then when I look at the 4 boosters in the app, it only shows 3, 9, 2, and 1 devices connected.  So I would assume that means the rest of them are all connecting to the main wifi hub??

I had one rep tell me the hub does not support that many devices, but I haven’t found anything that supports that online.

I’m wondering if the Boosters are putting out a different network than the Wifi Hub (even though they are the same name) which is causing devices to flip back and forth and drop speeds???  Based on a suggestion from one tech I was told to disable the 2.4Ghz/5Ghz Low/5Ghz High radio signals from the main Wifi Hub, but that prevented the Optik TV from working (even though the tech said it wouldn’t). 

I asked one rep about having my boosters firmware upgraded to 1.32.28 which I read about online, but he said I had the most current version (although a new version would be released in the next few weeks) so his advice was to wait and see if that helped.

90% of the time, tbe internet speeds are great, but it is getting annoying to randomly get crazy slow downs and then having to flip the wifi on and off to get back to real speeds.

One other random thing.  Under the “WiFi Recommendations” in the My Wifi app, it shows a Nintendo DS as “Slow Connectivity Detected.”  In the description, it says connection to this device “could actually slow down your device as a whole.”  I’ve never seen anything like this before and find it hard to believe that device could tank network speeds so dramatically, but could this be the cause of the issue?

Could really use some expertise on how to get my system consistently running at speed and not get these speed drops.  If you need any more detailed information on my setup, I'm happy to provide that. 

[nvv6 · Accepted solution]

I don’t have a great suggestion for you, (I use eero) but yes it is possible for a misbehaving device to tank network speeds. Sometimes this can happen even if the device doesn’t have your wifi password. For example there is an IoT chipset that will sometimes try connecting to a nearby network for which it doesn’t have the password. It does this so quickly it effectively causes a wifi authentication attack, blocking service for legitimate clients.

If I were you I’d turn off one of the boosters and leave it off until it happens again. If you get the slow speed, try turning off a different booster. Turn off as many clients as possible too and see if you still have the problem. This is probably not going to be too fun if it’s a rare problem.