Airport Extreme - A1301 3rd Gen. - No gigabit and slow WiFi speeds

[lostinspace8]

Hi,
I'm using an Apple Airport Extreme Base Station 3rd Gen - A1301. I recently upgraded my ISP (connection via PPPoE) and now get stable speeds of 150mbps. For the longest time I was not able to go above 100mbps with my AE and kept complaining to the ISP that there was a fault at their end. Their tech guy changed multiple network plugs on various ends, to no avail. Then, I plugged in the ISP's main network cable into my Mac and voila, I got the optimum speed.

Finally, their technician got their own router (TP-Link Archer C1200) and to my surprise, I was able to get the full speeds on that too. Thus the issue had to be with the AE.

The setup is as follows -

Main ISP Cat5e -> AE -> Mac via Cat6

I reset my modem to factory settings and then set it up again, now I am able to get speeds up to 125mbps but still not the optimal 150mbps that I am able to achieve over the ISP provided router.

ALSO, the speeds over WiFi (5G) don't go beyond 60-70mbps whereas the other router gives me a full 150mbps.

I've been researching a lot for the probable causes and have hit a dead end. Any suggestions or help would be much appreciated.

Thank you,

LostInSpace

PS: One thing I forgot to mention that both the cables are straight cables. I know that it shouldn't make a difference, but you never know.

 

[Juicy Box]

ALSO, the speeds over WiFi (5G) don't go beyond 60-70mbps whereas the other router gives me a full 150mbps.

I think we have the same model, and I have similar results with mine. The router came out almost 10 years ago, so it will probably not be as fast.

their technician got their own router (TP-Link Archer C1200) and to my surprise, I was able to get the full speeds on that too. Thus the issue had to be with the AE.

The TP-Link router has the newer wifi standard on it. The faster wifi speeds could be due to the ac speeds, compared to the n speeds on the AirPort.

I reset my modem to factory settings and then set it up again, now I am able to get speeds up to 125mbps but still not the optimal 150mbps that I am able to achieve over the ISP provided router.

Now this part I am unsure about, as my AirPort has just about the same speeds when compared to connecting directly to the cable modem. These speeds are much higher than the speeds you have, so I know our model of AirPort can handle higher speeds.

You can check on your Mac to make sure your connection is Gigabit speeds. I would also suspect cables, or perhaps a HW issue. Swap your cables and see if that makes a difference.
[doublepost=1527254615][/doublepost]A quick search and on this website I found the following photo:

This compares the difference between AirPort Extreme models. The model you have is not listed, but is older than the slowest AirPort that is in the test. So, your speeds would probably have been even less if it was tested.

Now you can see why there is such a big difference between your AirPort and the much newer ISP's modem.
[doublepost=1527255282][/doublepost]I found this test in one of the links on that website I posted:

This shows the newest AirPort Extreme, which is now 5 years old, compared to other ac capable routers.

These results are pretty impressive, it makes me sad that Apple is not making anymore AirPort Extreme models.

 

[Fishrrman]

Perhaps it's time to start shopping for something new.

One of the [numerous] "mesh systems" out there might be worth consideration.