# AT&T fiber speed over WiFi6 is pretty nice



## xkm1948 (Jul 9, 2021)

Switched from Comcast cable to ATT fiber. Kinda surprised that ATT's newest gateway no longer needs 2 separate boxes. Optic fiber directly goes into the optic gateway and then optic gateway to router. I got the 1Gbps speed tier. Really sweet to see WiFi6 and the 2.5Gbps port able to break that 1Gbps theoretical threshold. For the first time WiFi6 actually faster than ethernet. Router is ASUS AX-11000 and client running off Intel AX200


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## Space Lynx (Jul 9, 2021)

Yeah, only issue is they only offer it in very small areas still. Very slow rollout for most ATT customers as far as availability goes... you one of the lucky ones.


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## Rithsom (Jul 9, 2021)

lynx29 said:


> Yeah, only issue is they only offer it in very small areas still. Very slow rollout for most ATT customers as far as availability goes... you one of the lucky ones.



Exactly. At our home we're still stuck on 13 MbPS AT&T satellite internet... o_o

Starlink is looking like a really appealing option right about now...


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## xkm1948 (Jul 9, 2021)

lynx29 said:


> Yeah, only issue is they only offer it in very small areas still. Very slow rollout for most ATT customers as far as availability goes... you one of the lucky ones.



Yeah I jumped on it as soon as AT&T send out invites to join. Even houses in the next block does not have fiber junction box set up yet. 

Symmetrical download/upload is great for managing huge files transfer.



Rithsom said:


> Exactly. At our home we're still stuck on 13 MbPS AT&T satellite internet... o_o
> 
> Starlink is looking like a really appealing option right about now...




Have they solved the overheating problem?


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## Rithsom (Jul 9, 2021)

xkm1948 said:


> Have they solved the overheating problem?



You mean the overheating problem with the Starlink dishes? Probably not yet.

As bad as our current internet service is, I'm used to it. It's good enough for most things. Of course, I avoid streaming 4K videos and using game streaming services. And sure, downloads take forever (~24 hours for 100 GB). However, we'd rather not switch over to Starlink while it is in beta. We've waited this long for better internet, so we can wait a little longer for all of the issues to be resolved.


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## 1freedude (Jul 9, 2021)

Congrats, and welcome to the club


This gives me an idea...I have Fios, and the max speed is slower than yours, but I've only tested on GigE, not 802.11ax, as I dont have any besides router.  I wonder if ax will be faster on my system than 1gbps.  Obviously, the link speed should be higher, but internet throughput, maybe.

Are there any wifi6 usb dongles or adapters you use that you can recommend?


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## xkm1948 (Jul 9, 2021)

1freedude said:


> Congrats, and welcome to the club
> 
> 
> This gives me an idea...I have Fios, and the max speed is slower than yours, but I've only tested on GigE, not 802.11ax, as I dont have any besides router.  I wonder if ax will be faster on my system than 1gbps.  Obviously, the link speed should be higher, but internet throughput, maybe.
> ...


Your fiber gateway and router should have at least 2.5Gbps port and linked with cooresponding speed cables to go over that 1Gbps speed.

As for WiFi6 dongles I have not used any. Only been using Intel’s AX200 on all the clients.


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## xrobwx71 (Jul 9, 2021)

xkm1948 said:


> Switched from Comcast cable to ATT fiber. Kinda surprised that ATT's newest gateway no longer needs 2 separate boxes. Optic fiber directly goes into the optic gateway and then optic gateway to router. I got the 1Gbps speed tier. Really sweet to see WiFi6 and the 2.5Gbps port able to break that 1Gbps theoretical threshold. For the first time WiFi6 actually faster than ethernet. Router is ASUS AX-11000 and client running off Intel AX200
> 
> 
> View attachment 207174
> ...


Wow, that's your wireless speed, not the wired speed? Sonofa.


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## xkm1948 (Jul 9, 2021)

xrobwx71 said:


> Wow, that's your wireless speed, not the wired speed? Sonofa.




wired speed is slower, only have gigabit internet interface on the X99 which caps out around 950Mbps


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## 1freedude (Jul 9, 2021)

xkm1948 said:


> Your fiber gateway and router should have at least 2.5Gbps port and linked with cooresponding speed cables to go over that 1Gbps speed.
> 
> As for WiFi6 dongles I have not used any. Only been using Intel’s AX200 on all the clients.


I wish.  The only wired interface capable of greater than 1Gbps is moca, at 2.5Gbps.  Even then, I dont have any machines with more than 1Gbps interface.  My servers might be able to aggregate 2 1Gbps cables....not sure if the router can do it though.  And, the ONT, what you are calling the fiber gateway, does not have >gig.  Im gonna do a bit of searching, but I think the unit on your wall is just a jack, no electronics involved.  The clue is the transceiver the fiber plugs into, in the router.


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## dragontamer5788 (Jul 9, 2021)

Rithsom said:


> Exactly. At our home we're still stuck on 13 MbPS AT&T satellite internet... o_o
> 
> Starlink is looking like a really appealing option right about now...











						SpaceX Starlink speeds revealed as beta users get downloads of 11 to 60Mbps
					

Ookla tests aren't showing the gigabit speeds SpaceX teased, but it's early.




					arstechnica.com
				








Starlink isn't much faster than your 13Mbps yet. In fact, its barely comparable against Viasat  or Hughes... except Starlink's dish overheats and is unreliable right now.


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## DeathtoGnomes (Jul 9, 2021)

I recall a court fight, in/around detroit, to stop the installation the fiber cable underground about 25 year ago, so I think that would still need completing. I never did keep up with that story since I moved out of that area.


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## dragontamer5788 (Jul 9, 2021)

1freedude said:


> Congrats, and welcome to the club
> 
> 
> This gives me an idea...I have Fios, and the max speed is slower than yours, but I've only tested on GigE, not 802.11ax, as I dont have any besides router.  I wonder if ax will be faster on my system than 1gbps.  Obviously, the link speed should be higher, but internet throughput, maybe.
> ...



Unlikely.

1. WiFi 802.11 ax is simplex, while GigE is duplex. That is: 802.11 works like a walkie-talkie: when one device is talking, no one else can talk. While GigE is such that everyone can talk at the same time. 3.5Gbps on 802.11 ax theoretical is really more comparable to GigE 4-port (All 4 ports can be talking 1GbE at the same time for 4Gbps aggregate bandwidth).

2. If there's older equipment (ex: someone talking on 802.11b or some other slower, older protocol), the channel is used up and your 802.11ax packet has to wait. This is good for backwards compatibility, but its yet another thing slowing you down significantly. Its like a walkie talkie: if something is 802.11b talking at 54Mbps, no one else can talk and you've effectively lost some bandwidth.

3. The full 3.5 Gbps is assuming no noise at all. Turn on the microwave, have a few walls in the way, or your neighbor runs by with a bluetooth headset, and suddenly the 2.4GHz or 5GHz spectrum is effectively jammed. (Remember, its like a walkie talkie). If someone else (even your neighbor) is talking over the channel, you cannot talk. This cuts into your bandwidth yet again, especially if you live in an apartment or townhome. You can't control how your neighbors work with their radio connections.

4. Other devices you install to make things work will also conflict. Range extenders, Mesh Routing, etc. etc. All of these things you do to improve your WiFi connection trades off with bandwidth (more things are talking with each other, which improves reliability. But its not free! All that communication behind the scenes costs you some of that aggregate bandwidth)

5. Back to the Microwave (and other sources of electrical noise). Microwaves emit 2.4GHz noise, just in the same band as a lot of WiFi. You can still communicate during microwave noise, but your device will automatically slow down. Think about it as "talking louder and slower" when a Walkie-talkie gets noisy: by talking slower, its easier to understand the messages. But you're no longer getting the full 3.5Gbps theoretical bandwidth. This is especially true in the "corners" of your house, which may have worse radio connections due to length and/or walls in the way: devices will automatically have to "talk slower" and eat up the aggregate bandwidth of your whole network.

--------

The same is true for Fiber-optics and GigE by the way. However, Cat5e cables are "Twisted pair" (any noise that enters one cable will come out as the opposite on a 2nd cable, and then the computers do some math to cancel out most noise). Cat6 are shielded AND twisted pair (an electrical shield to ground surrounds all cables, cutting down noise significantly). Fiber-optics are light and therefore are immune to electrical noise (and I don't think anyone goes into your walls, cuts open the Fiber and shines a flashlight into them: so you're unlikely to see optical noise over Fiber-optics).

But yeah, under noisy conditions, Ethernet will slow down as well. But its much less common for noise to enter well made Ethernet or Fiber-optics cables. In practice, as long as you stripped the wires correctly (do not undo the twisted pair too much at the ends. Or if you're on Cat6, ensure that the shield extends as far up into the connector as possible while making the cable), you can achieve the full 10Gbps  or 1Gbps bandwidth more reliably than the 3.5Gbps bandwidth of 802.11ax.


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## xkm1948 (Jul 9, 2021)

1freedude said:


> I wish.  The only wired interface capable of greater than 1Gbps is moca, at 2.5Gbps.  Even then, I dont have any machines with more than 1Gbps interface.  My servers might be able to aggregate 2 1Gbps cables....not sure if the router can do it though.  And, the ONT, what you are calling the fiber gateway, does not have >gig.  Im gonna do a bit of searching, but I think the unit on your wall is just a jack, no electronics involved.  The clue is the transceiver the fiber plugs into, in the router.




Yes the one on the wall is just for the fiber to pass into the house. The ATT gateway / modem BGW320-505 is the one that takes fiber optic input. It has 4 RJ45 output jacks. One of the jack is a 5Gbps port. Using that gave me the speed


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## 1freedude (Jul 12, 2021)

dragontamer5788 said:


> Unlikely.
> 
> 1. WiFi 802.11 ax is simplex, while GigE is duplex. That is: 802.11 works like a walkie-talkie: when one device is talking, no one else can talk. While GigE is such that everyone can talk at the same time. 3.5Gbps on 802.11 ax theoretical is really more comparable to GigE 4-port (All 4 ports can be talking 1GbE at the same time for 4Gbps aggregate bandwidth).
> 
> ...


Actually, no, wifi access points are not like portables, or HTs, or walkie-talkies.  Wifi uses a phase modulation that does not have the same issue as frequency modulation.  "FM capture" is what you are describing, and it only happens to the receiver side of the radio.  Two transmissions can happen at the same time, and depending on the multipath and propogation conditions, two different receivers will "lock onto" one or the other transmission, regardless of RSSI or s-meter readings.

Phase modulation can be tuned in to multiple transmissions similtaneously.  This is just like UDP traffic.  All non addressed transmissions are ignorned if they dont have the right code.


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## eidairaman1 (Jul 12, 2021)

Good ol uverse ftth and not fttn...


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## plastiscɧ (Jul 12, 2021)

xkm1948 said:


> Switched from Comcast cable to ATT fiber. Kinda surprised that ATT's newest gateway no longer needs 2 separate boxes. Optic fiber directly goes into the optic gateway and then optic gateway to router. I got the 1Gbps speed tier. Really sweet to see WiFi6 and the 2.5Gbps port able to break that 1Gbps theoretical threshold. For the first time WiFi6 actually faster than ethernet. Router is ASUS AX-11000 and client running off Intel AX200
> 
> 
> View attachment 207174View attachment 207175View attachment 207176
> ...








*i am sooooo jelly af. what the heck my eyes must see?*
congratz mate

1000MB/s to 30MB/s down....  what a difference... jesus.


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## R-T-B (Jul 12, 2021)

dragontamer5788 said:


> SpaceX Starlink speeds revealed as beta users get downloads of 11 to 60Mbps
> 
> 
> Ookla tests aren't showing the gigabit speeds SpaceX teased, but it's early.
> ...


I mean, that's LA.  Starlink has better pings at higher latitudes I understand.  PNW does pretty well.


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## xkm1948 (Nov 28, 2021)

Pretty happy with ATT fiber after almost 5 months. Very stable and speed is amazing. Quite unreal to have Cyberpunk downloaded in such a short amount of time


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## Space Lynx (Nov 28, 2021)

xkm1948 said:


> Pretty happy with ATT fiber after almost 5 months. Very stable and speed is amazing. Quite unreal to have Cyberpunk downloaded in such a short amount of timeView attachment 226852



I have this same speed for my steam downloads and agree, its really next level. Feels weird everything being so fast, when for so many years had to wait over night for downloads.


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## sean8102 (Dec 16, 2021)

AT&T has been trenching fiber like crazy in my town, they started around spring this year and I'm still seeing them all over the place. 

They did some work on my street including right in my front yard. A large grey "vault" was buried in my front yard close to the road along with a few smaller green "vaults" at the entrance to each of the dead end streets that connect to the main road.

At one of my aunts neighborhood, they were trenching fiber as well and I saw they put in a PFP cabinet. From what I understand basically the cabinet where every customers fiber line runs back to (I attached some pics of what they look like). 



http://imgur.com/HOXYHQd




http://imgur.com/xpTAGFc


I know it will probably be 6 months to a year before I can actually order the service, but I can't wait! Currently we can get cable, but we have a fairly small regional cable co, they operate in ~10 different locations, and their prices are crazy. And we can get AT&T Internet (what used to be called U-verse) FTTN VDSL2. Thankfully we are close to the VRAD so we can get the 100 Mbps down 20 Mbps up tier which is super slow comared to fiber but It's $55 a month total and includes unlimited data so we have decided to stick with that until AT&T Fiber goes live at our address. 

The cable co here is just too overpriced. They just now are starting to offer a gigabit tier but it's only available in the downtown area and won't be available to all the houses they cover until end of 2022. Which is weird to me because I confirmed with them it's still DOCSIS (they are upgrading from DOCSIS 3.0 to 3.1) and not FTTH except in greenfield deployments. I guess they are a bit nervous to FINALLY have some real competition coming and wanted to be able to say "see we offer gigabit speeds also" ASAP. 

Thing is their gigabit tier is $130 per month, and has a data cap (3TB which even for us would probably not be a problem but still, I don't want to have to think/worry about data usage) and they charge $40 more for unlimited. So $170 for 1 Gig down 50 Mbps up if you want unlimited data!  

Compare that to AT&T Fiber and their gigabit plan which from what I've found online after the first year the normal price is usually ~$90 total including the $10 equipment fee for the gateway. It can be $80 or a little lower in areas where they face more serious competition (like the few markets where AT&T Fiber and Google Fiber compete). But once their service goes live here, I don't see why anyone would stay or pick the cable co over AT&T Fiber for the areas that get it. Which like I said, I see them running fiber all over town, pretty much every time I go into town, I'll see them running fiber somewhere.

Also if you look at the U-verse forums on dslreports website AT&T has started offering a 2 Gbps and a 5 Gbps tier in parts of North Carolina, they have been trialing those speeds for a while but they are starting to go live and roll out.


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## eidairaman1 (Dec 16, 2021)

sean8102 said:


> AT&T has been trenching fiber like crazy in my town, they started around spring this year and I'm still seeing them all over the place.
> 
> They did some work on my street including right in my front yard. A large grey "vault" was buried in my front yard close to the road along with a few smaller green "vaults" at the entrance to each of the dead end streets that connect to the main road.
> 
> ...



Ive noticed the new vRADs being installed for FTTP installs right next to the VDSL VRADs/DSLAMs.

Until the encapsilated terminals fail this house will be on copper probably for 40 more years lol.

I used to work for AT&T so i know about copper and fiber plant.


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## INSTG8R (Dec 16, 2021)

I have to say that is pretty impressive! on a totally pure fibre setup, basically I could have 10Gbit if I paid for it but I had (500/500) but my ISP had a deal to double my speed if I bought an Xbox S that came with 2 years of Gamepass and I managed to talk my landlord into it(my internet is included in my rent but I have paid for this plan myself for years before moving here) Anyways he agreed I will just add a couple extra bucks a month to my rent for it. My connections is wired Cat6 but this is about the best I can do(and I am definitely not complaining either)But I am little jelly you are "crossing the line"


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## R-T-B (Dec 16, 2021)

Meanwhile I'm still stuck on shitty DOCSIS gig down 40mbps upload laughable symmetry...

It costs...  a lot, too.


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