Airport Extreme Bandwith

The AirPort Extreme was designed to match up with a normal ADSL or cable modem, so we are seeing a number of reports from users with connection difficulties when a fibre connection is involved. We will not say up front that the AirPort Extreme is not going to deliver the goods with a fibre connection, but that is a real possibility. We will know soon in your case.

We need more information to begin to troubleshoot this issue....things like.....

Have you swapped out the Ethernet cable from the fibre "modem" to the AirPort Extreme?

Is this a CAT5e or CAT6 Ethernet cable?

If you feel that the Ethernet cable is working correctly, how have you verified this? (A "new" cable does not mean that it is working correctly)

What device are you using to check the speed?

If you are using a Mac, we need to know what operating system that it is running

Is the 80 Mbps figure the result of a direct Ethernet connection between your computer and one of the LAN <--> ports on the AirPort Extreme?

Is the 80 Mbps figure the result of a wireless connection?

Once we have some basic information, we will ask you to check some settings on the AirPort Extreme.

We will assume that your Mac is using the current operating system or a recent operating system.

On your Mac.....

Open Finder > Applications > Utilities > AirPort Utility

Click on the picture of the AirPort Extreme

Click Edit in the smaller window that appears

Click the Network tab at the top of the window

What is the setting that you see there for Network Mode? It will be either DHCP and NAT or Off (Bridge Mode).

You did not answer my question.

Click the Network tab, then look at the setting for Router Mode.

Do you see DHCP and NAT or Off (Bridge Mode)?

You did not answer my question.

Click the Network tab, then look at the setting for Router Mode.

Do you see DHCP and NAT or Off (Bridge Mode)?

The problem is that the WAN "O" port on the AirPort Extreme is not negotiating speeds correctly with the fibre modem. This is a common issue with the 802.11ac AirPort Extreme and 802.11ac AirPort Time Capsule.

Unfortunately, there is no "fix" for this. All that you can do with the AirPort that you have is reset it back to factory default settings and then set it up again to see if that helps, although I doubt that this will help.

If you have the same problem after you reset the AirPort Extreme, ask Apple to replace the AirPort Extreme.

If the replaceement AirPort Extreme has the same problem, then you will know that an Apple router will not work with your fibre service, and you will need to choose a router from another manufacturer.

The WAN port (which is hardware) is defective. If it were working correctly, you would see speeds of at least 500 Mbps.

I have Blast Plus service from Comcast which is supposed to deliver up to 200 mbps download. I also had this same problem. Thought it was a Comcast or cable modem problem due the fact they had tried three different cable modems. Finally I got them to bring me their latest and greatest Arris dual band wi-fi cable modem on the fourth service call. The tech removed the Airport and set up the wi-fi in the modem. I now get consistent 200 mbps download with the modem hardwired to my MacPro and 100 mbps download wi-fi with either of two MacBook Pro's and an iMac I have in my home. Also getting five bars (or dots) on both my Apple TV's. Comcast tech said something about the Airport not accepting the IP address from the Arris cable modem as being the problem with choking the speed. Whatever the problem it was remedied by removing the Airport.

The Service Center report is:

The device has been tested, we found the following errors in doing so:

A device hardware failure was not found

This is like saying that your car........which can easily go 80 MPH, but will now only go 10 MPH.......has no problem because the car is moving.

I am sorry, but there is nothing more that we can do for you other that suggest that you ask Apple to replace your defective AirPort router.

If they will not do that, then I would suggest that you look for another brand of router.