BGW20 gateway with Orbi router

1. Do I really need to turn off my ATT Gateway wi-fi?  Seems to be working with the Orbi without trouble as far as i can tell

No. There are two reasons for turning it off: (1) The two Wi-Fi networks will be competing on the same radio bands and will jockey with each other for which channels to use, etc., and (2) The two will provide different access to the network, which may be confusing unless you're the person who set it all up.

2. Should my Orbi be as fast as the ATT Gateway?  ...

You're adding another routing hop, so no, it shouldn't be quite as fast, though just a hop shouldn't be as significant as what you're describing.  Note that some features in your router (e.g. QoS, Malware filtering, etc.) come at a processing cost, and you may be seeing that cost.

3. I noticed that the ethernet cable is a cat5e, (going from gateway to Orbi), should I upgrade that cable to cat6a?  Would that help?

Cat 5e can run 1000 Mbps for short distances.  It is unlikely that this cable being 5e is a problem unless it is a lot longer than the 2 meter cable I'm picturing.

4. What about other wifi routers I have in the house? 

The more Wi-Fi infrastructure-mode devices you have, the more your radio spectrum is going to be crowded and the devices will fight each other for channels.  This can cause them to:

• use narrower channels, meaning less throughput
• routinely switch channels to find a clearer one, meaning brief disconnections while the channel switch happens

Thanks Jeffer for the quick response.  

1. Thanks, makes sense

2. Any advice how to diagnose the delta in speeds I'm seeing?  I have not tried reaching out to Netgear support (yet) but if there's a way I can try some things I'd prefer to do that first.

3.  Correct, very short distance from Gateway and WiFi router 

4. I'll most likely will turn off the other 2 routers, thx.

Regards

Tom

The first thing I'd do is check to see what sort of options you have turned on that you think might affect performance, and then try turning them off and run a speed test.  If things are no faster, you can just turn them all back on.  If things do go faster, turn them back on one at a time, running speed tests after each, and see when things slow down.  Then decide if you want that feature.

Currently QoS is normally not as important for fiber, and the cycles spent looking at the packets and trying to decide which is more important is worse for your performance than just letting them go at speed, and that's one that often gets tagged as being a problem.  Security filtering (e.g. NETGEAR Armor™) can have similar impacts.  But, the security may be worth  reduced bandwidth... only you can decide that.

We'd be happy to help you with the internet speeds you've been experiencing with your 3rd party router, @Devil_Dog21. 

We appreciate @JefferMC for providing that helpful information.

In order to have your 3rd party router configured to our gateway we'd recommend setting it up in IP pass-through mode. This could be what is affecting the speeds you're receiving on your Netgear Orbi router making it slower than what you're getting from your AT&T gateway. 

Please let us know if that helps. 

Robert, AT&T Community Specialist

Thanks again JefferMC, I'll try doing that.

And thanks Robert as well, I'll check to see how that router is setup, I thought it was configured to be pass-through but maybe not.  

I'll let you know if things get better or not.