The detailed comparison of the latest wireless routers from major UK internet service providers in terms of WiFi speeds in home environment is now available.
In fact, the test was conducted by BT to substantiate its claim that its latest Smart Hub WiFi router comes with the most powerful WiFi signal in the UK.
Other routers that were tested along with Smart Hub were Virgin Media Super Hub 2 (ac), Virgin Media Hub 3.0, Talk Talk Super Router, EE Bright Box 2, Sky Fibre Hub (SR102), Sky Q Hub and Plusnet Hub One Fibre.
All are dual band routers, so, the performance at both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz were tested.
According to BT, the WiFi test was conducted on typical devices which are used in homes like Macbook Pro with 3 antennas and Samsung Galaxy S4.
Two test facilities – Sagemcom Brocholt Germany and BT Adastral Park research facility were chosen for the ‘real world’ test because these venues had rooms which allowed to measure the performance of routers at different distances as in a typical home.
For example, BT BT Adastral Park research facility has three floors and the routers were kept in the ground floor (Room 0), allowing the signal pass through brick walls and plasterboard walls and the wireless reception & speeds were measured in different rooms, at different distances. You can see, wifi signal has to pass thorough more walls (3 brick and 1 internal wall) to reach Room 3 which is in second floor.
“To provide further confidence that the test facilities truly represent the experience of customers in the UK, a further 10 tests were completed in 10 real customer homes” said BT.
The test results show that BT Smart Hub has beaten all its rivals in both download speeds and upload speeds, whether it is operated in 2.4GHz band or 5 GHz band. It offered 11% faster download speeds than its nearest competitor Virgin Media Super Hub 2 (ac)in 2.4GHz band and 32% faster upload speeds in 5GHz band
“The results show that in every test the BT Smart Hub provides the most powerful wi-fi” said BT.
However, we wanted to find out how other routers performed in comparison with Smart Hub.
- Virgin Media Hub routers came second to Smart Hub in almost all tests.
- TalkTalk Super Router and Plusnet Hub One offered significantly good download & upload speeds in 2.4Ghz band.
- Sky Q router offered faster upload speeds, especially in 5Ghz band. It came second to BT in upload test under 5GHz.
- Despite the good performance in 2.4Ghz band, EE Bright Box 2 did not improve speeds under 5GHz but its wifi range was good in 2.4Ghz.
- Sky Fibre Hub (SR102) is the single band router offering average performance.
- To everyone’s surprise, TalkTalk Super Router offered great performance in terms of speeds and distance. Its download speeds came second to BT Smart Hub in 5GHz.
For detailed report, graphs and tables: BT Smart Hub: Marketing claims substantiation