Google’s newly launched Nest Wifi Pro seems to be plagued by a connectivity issue out of the box. Less than a week into the market, several customers have complained that the router limits their download speeds to just 50Mbps. They are getting significantly higher speeds with older Nest routers, or existing solutions from other brands.
The Nest Wifi Pro is limiting download speeds
The Nest Wifi Pro is Google’s first Wi-Fi 6E-enabled mesh router. It promises consistent high-speed internet across your network thanks to Wi-Fi 6E support, which opens a third 6GHz band to make the network less crowded. You also get a notable speed boost over Wi-Fi 5 solutions (theoretical peak speed of 9.6Gbps Vs. 2.2Gbps). Wi-Fi 6 also promises a theoretical peak speed of 9.6Gbps but it only offers 2.5GHz and 5GHz bands.
Unfortunately, some early buyers of the Nest Wifi Pro are having to deal with a major bug that severely limits their internet speeds. Affected users have taken to Google’s official Nest community forums to report the issue. All of them say the new router doesn’t offer download speeds of more than 50Mbps. Their previous router offered higher speeds on the same network, making their latest purchase a downgrade rather than an upgrade.
It’s unclear why the Nest Wifi Pro s throttling the download speed. Most affected users have a fiber internet connection. As noted by 9to5Google, the new Nest router connects directly to the fiber ONT (optical network terminal) on a fiber to the premises or FTTP network. There may be some compatibility issues with this setup. Some users have also hinted at possible problems with the PPPoE (Point-to-Point Protocol over Ethernet) protocol that facilitates communication with your internet provider via Ethernet.
Google has yet to publicly acknowledge this problem. However, a UK-based user said they reached out to Google support and were told that the company’s engineers are investigating the issue. That response appears to be specific to the UK, which is where the bulk of these complaints is coming from. But Nest Wifi Pro users in other regions are also facing this speed throttling problem. Hopefully, a fix will arrive soon.
You can try these workarounds
If you are one of the early buyers of the Nest Wifi Pro and are facing this problem, you can try these workarounds. Some users found that removing the cable and using the wireless mesh no longer throttles their speed. Putting an older router ahead of the Nest Wifi Pro also helped some. These solutions don’t work for all affected users, though.
Google should be able to fix this Nest Wifi Problem with a software update. But when that update will arrive is anyone’s guess. If you can’t wait until the fix arrives, then it might be a better idea to return the product and switch to one of these best Wi-Fi routers.
2022-11-01 15:11:58