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I have a 400Mbps (download) internet speed which I have confirmed by connecting my modem directly to my computer without a router in between. This was confirmed with a speed test (Photo of 400Mbps speed test connected directly to modem).

When the router is connected I am getting a maximum download of 100Mbps over WIFI and Ethernet. When I check the Wi-Fi status of my connection on Windows 10 it is showing between 460Mbps to 866Mbps (Photo Here). However, when I run a speed test through LAN or WAN (both wired and wireless) it is giving a max download speed of 100Mbps (Photo Here). I know the router is the issue because the speed tests are throttled to 100Mbps on multiple devices.

My router is a Netgear R6080 AC1000 Dual Band WiFi Router (Link to spec sheet). It is advertising WiFi speeds up to 300+700Mbps. It has five 10/100Mbps (1 WAN and 4 LAN) Fast Ethernet ports which indicate a 100Mbps limitation over Ethernet. But shouldn't the WiFi be able to handle speeds up to 400Mbps? I am unsure if my router is throttling my connection or if I haven't set it up correctly.

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  • Are you able to drop your internet plan to 100 Mbit? No point buying more than you can actually use.
    – Criggie
    Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 4:30

3 Answers 3

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You've got a 400Mbps fire hose from your modem to the Internet and a 700Mbps fire hose from your router to your wireless clients, but you've only got a 100Mbps drinking straw between the modem and the router. That drinking straw in between can't keep either fire hose full. Upgrade to a router with gigabit Ethernet.

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    +1 - my initial reaction was that with those WiFi specs surely the router is gigabit capable but no - netgear.com/home/wifi/routers/r6080
    – davidgo
    Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 0:43
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    I still don't understand why the limitation would be between the "drinking straw" between the modem and router. If the router is connecting at 700Mbps to my wireless clients but the max speed between modem and router is 100Mbps, then Netgear just built the router knowing it would have these limitations?
    – Joel Hoelting
    Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 0:50
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    @JoelHoelting Yes. Any AC-capable router with only 10/100 Ethernet ports is ripoff design. Unfortunately, all the major home network equipment vendors have at least one model like this.
    – Spiff
    Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 1:08
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    @user: Cost maybe, but power seems like an unlikely concern for device that doesn't run on batteries. Given modern chips with energy-efficient-ethernet that reduces power for short cables, it's probably well under a watt difference. Also, if plugged into a slow cable-modem that itself only does 100M ethernet, it will only run the PHY at that speed. (Although these days a 1G cable modem would be expected even if the specific install had low bandwidth). But that's all the upstream port. The internal switch being only 100M is total nonsense, making them slower than the wifi!
    – Peter Cordes
    Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 19:12
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    @user: I'd be wary of extrapolating from a device with a 48-port switching fabric. For fully non-blocking (or whatever you call enough aggregate bandwidth to max out all 48 ports at port full duplex), some of the transistor counts scale with number of ports squared. At least I think so. So the switching fabric might be a significant fraction of that total power, not just the transceivers. And that total power might be worst-case, with 802.3az energy efficient ethernet having to use max power for long/noisy links on every port.
    – Peter Cordes
    Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 19:43
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The internet comes from your modem with 400Mbit/s and goes in through the WAN port of your router which is a 100Mbit/s port. This limits the rest of the path to your client to 100Mbit/s max speed.

That the WiFi hardware in the router is capable of up to 700Mbit/s speeds can still make sense though, you can utilize those speeds on your LAN, internally, you just cannot get Internet speeds in excess of 100Mbit/s because of the limitations on the WAN port.

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I suggest you look to see how many channels your modem has(4x8, 16x8 is usually, recommended, I just bought a 32x8 channel modem)and compare.

your Netgear R6080 AC1000 Dual Band WiFi Router data sheets show: 2x2 (2.4GHz)+ 2x2 (5GHz) for the quantity of antennas. I have a Netgear R6400 — AC1750 Smart WiFi Router and it has WiFi Transmitters/Receivers (Tx/Rx)- 3x3 (2.4GHz) + 3x3 (5GHz) and I am upgrading my modem to see if it help me get the speeds I am paying for or better. I suggest you get a better router, a gaming router. It also matters how many devices your network has connected to it. Hope this helps.

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    This answer is wrong. From the question and router specs it is clear the issue is that the wan (and lan) ports are 100mbps and that's the bottleneck.
    – davidgo
    Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 11:14
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    Well, the ultimate suggestion to get a better router is correct. But better ethernet, not better wifi! Upgrading the modem would be useless, especially given that the OP confirmed they get the advertized speed when hardwired straight to the modem.
    – Peter Cordes
    Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 19:14

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