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25-10-2023 04:11 PM
Hey guys,
I've recently got a Meta Quest 3 and was looking to get 6E WiFi to use airlink at its best performance.
I currently have the older black Vodafone router with the WiFi 6 booster.
I could upgrade to the Pro broadband II to get the ultra Hub 6e router and 6e booster but it will end up costing me about an extra £10 a month and then obviously be subject to the yearly percentage price increase.
I can see people sell the ultra hub routers and the 6e boosters on ebay for a lot cheaper than the overall cost of upgrading my whole contract for 2 years.
My question is, could I purchase the 6e ultra Hub router and just swap it out with my current router and have no issues? Or even purchase the 6e booster and plug it in via ethernet to my current router? Is there any reason why this wouldn't work?
Thanks in advance for any help guys!
09-11-2023 02:46 PM
@Testinglad wrote:So in your post you only mention the booster, what about when connected to the router itself?
When I tested without the booster I was connected to the router itself. Sorry I thought that had to be obvious unless I've misunderstood
09-11-2023 03:18 PM
When you said the without the booster I had assumed you were using the old router due to the fact the speeds were far slower, very odd that the 6E router would get slower speeds than a booster which would be using an extra hop...
09-11-2023 03:23 PM
I don't know much about how the magic happens.
I'd expect worse latency, but not 3x worse.
I guess the speed difference was just due to less packet loss.
09-11-2023 11:01 PM
The frequency that 6E to broadcast doesn't travel as well and in many cases walls and furniture can interfere with it and as a result carries less data over distance. If you're not in room where the router is placed you might experience slower speeds compared to what you're used to on your current system. That said if the router is in the room you're going to use the Quest then you could be OK.
Personally, I had a relatively expensive Linksys 6E mesh system and in the last few days I've gone back to my old Orbi 6 mesh because the speeds and latency across the house were much better / more consistent on the older system. No point getting 940 down in one room and 200 in the next and even slower speeds elsewhere when the old system gives me a consistent 600Mbps and a low ping everywhere!
Useful article here if you want to read up on 6E before you decide: https://uk.pcmag.com/networking/131082/what-is-wi-fi-6e
It should work unless Vodafone do anything funny like restricted the routers to a specific ONT (Fibre modem) but I doubt it. If that's the case you would be able to return it based on eBay's return policy because the product doesn't work. Buying off eBay is sometimes difficult because you might not have the opportunity to return if it doesn't work out (if you don't get the speeds and latency you hope for). If it does work it might need a bit of configuring to work with Vodafone, likelihood is that you'll need your PPoE credentials which you should be able to get by contacting customer service.
Surprisingly the Vodafone router has a decent spec, if it's cheap enough could be worth a try.
Good luck! 😀
11-11-2023 10:27 PM - edited 11-11-2023 10:28 PM
I've recently upgraded to this router & package and use a Quest 3.
In my so far limited tests, I really would not bother using the Booster.
Without the booster, I was getting 1400Mbps with latency of 45ms.
And as of tonight, with no changes whatsoever to my tests above, I'm now getting (without booster) 1400Mbps with latency of 100 ms. And I've no idea why!! But the Quest 3 is unusable like this.
In total there's only 4 devices in the household that can use the 6GHz band.
I cannot recommend this router to anyone. Absolute sh1te.
13-11-2023 11:07 PM
After some more testing, on the 6GHz band the latency is typically 70-100ms which is unplayable.
I thought I'd solved it as managed to get the latency down to 40-45ms. Then I noticed that this was on the 5GHz band.
So I can only conclude that my first test with this router and the Quest 3 using Virtual Desktop (which was new to me so I probably missed the info in the debug overlay) is that I must have been connected to the 5GHz band.
14-11-2023 10:08 AM