Google Wifi is the bottleneck of my whole network

[Hop5uk]

I recently managed to subscribe to a new shiny fibre connection with 1GB upload speeds and 1GB download. There was actually 2 GB available, but i did some research and realised that i would be capped by speeds of apple devices and google wifi and so why spend the extra money. It is fiber all the way into my house and terminated in an ISP supplied modem. I have a CAT6 patch lead from the 10GB port on the modem into my google wifi. The ethernet output from the google wifi feeds into a brand new laptop.

 The speeds coming into the house have been measured using both the google home app and also independent speed testers and they indeed do come as advertised with limits of around 900 GB in both directions. Unfortunately that is not even close to what i get out of the google wifi when any of my devices are connected wirelessly. On a good day i will get half of the speed coming into the house. On a bad day it can dip down to around 20-30 Mbps.

I have read alot about these problems on the forums and tried all of the relevant fixes but none of them have worked and i have yet to read about anyone having any success in getting the specified speeds and so that leaves me with one simple question:

Is this just something that i have to live with when using the google hardware version that i have?

Model AC-1304

SW Version 14150.376.32

The specs tell me that 1 GB should be supported but is this a bit of a pipe dream and should i consider upgrading?

[elijahwan]

i have the same issue.  The google wifi is maddeningly slow, to the point that I am switching to something else.  I ended up just wiring everything that needs speed in my house.

However, i think you might have your GB/MB and Gb/Mb mixed up.  The capitol "B" stands for Byte, while the lower-case "b" stands for bit.  Most internet speeds and all network speeds are measured in mega/giga bits per second as Mbps/Gbps. 

a 10 gig port on a modem would mean 10 gigabits, just like the 1 gig port means 1 gigabit.

1 gigabit (Gb) = 1000 Mbps.  1 gigabyte (GB) = about 8000 Mbps, as there are 8 bits in a byte.  I don't know of an ISP that offers those speeds but hey maybe you DO have that. 

[jxbotx]

I am having the exact same issue. Called Google support and they were no help. Going to buy an Asus router to replace my Google Wifi. I pay too much for Internet to have it bottleneck to such terrible speeds.

[olavrb · Accepted solution]

Just a few things you can do.

1. Make sure ISP equipment in front is in bridge mode / bypass mode / IP passthrough mode. Else you might have double NAT, which Nest Wifi is known to struggle with. It can affect reliability and speed.

• https://dongknows.com/double-nat-vs-single-nat/
• https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/6277579?hl=en

2. Disable all preferred activities.

• https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9541371?hl=en

3. For Wi-Fi performance: Have the right amount of Nest Wifi units, and place them for best performance. More units isn't neccessarily better, as it introduces more overhead and wireless interference.

• https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7182840?hl=en
• https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/7183150?hl=en

4. If wired is capped to right under 100mbps it's worth checking cables and ports. This indicates that gigabit ethernet speed might have been downgraded to fast ethernet (100mbps).

5. Avoid switches with loop detection/prevention (such as STP, spanning tree protocol), as this will interfere with the loop detection Nest Wifi has.

• https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/6274262?hl=en

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I have two Nest Wifi router (AC2200) in wireless mesh. I get close to gigabit speed from the main unit with a Netgear GS108 switch, and around 600/600mbps when wired to the wirelessly meshed 2nd Nest Wifi unit.

[Hop5uk]

Checked everything as Olavrb suggested and had no joy.Unfortunately the google wifi is fed directy from the fiber modem and i have no access to it but it is a modem only so i dont think that bridge mode will even be an option.

As it was Amazon prime day yesterday i bought the new google wifi nest Pro. it has improved the ethernet port speed to 979 down and 630 up. this is a good thing as it was my main grumble but the wireless speed is st                ill low. Last test was 286 down and 267 up . Will probably end up returning it as over $200 is not really worth it. I just think that  google wifi is a great product when you have internet speeds of a few 100Mbps but when you get to the fast fibre speeds it just cant handle it , although olavrbs comment about his speeds would tend to disprove my theory. A slight hint is that they have kept the ethernet port at 1GB which suggests that is the top speed that they are going for.

I can also see that my devices are not connecting to wifi on the 6E band. They are all using 5ghz.

I guess i will just have to wait until the price of the really top end mesh systems comes down a bit. Not prepared to spend $2000 on an Orbi at the moment.                                                                                            

[jxbotx]

I checked all this as well and no improvement. I just bought a Asus router and I'm getting the expected speeds now. It's a bummer but I couldn't keep working with poor Wi-Fi speeds. 🤷🏽

[Inwoodite]

I spent hours on something like this with many Google tech reps on the phone, email, etc.  Super frustrating.  Strong signal, strong mesh connectivity, diagnostics show very high incoming internet speed as do any hardwire tests, but speedtests over wifi show only moderate speeds of 60-130 Mbps.  I had one Google rep actually try and convince me that all the various speed tests were wrong because they were not Google products and I was only imagining slow speeds.  i.e. Speedtest.net said 60 Mbps but I probably was getting 300 because the router was probably fine and Speedtest.net was third-party.  What?

Bottom line is that Google Wifi has some sort of unsolvable technical issue they know about (just look on these boards, there are dozens of posts) but won't admit.  You can do every step they give you including 30 min ping tests and factory resets but nothing will help.  No matter how fast your internet is the system seems to produce wifi only at 60 Mbps on older devices and maybe 100 to 130 Mbps on newer ones.  Resetting can help but the effect won't last.

I finally threw it out and bought an inexpensive Azus ZenWifi network.  Speed immediately jumped to ~250 Mbps for all but the oldest of devices. Problem solved.