You've got a Wi-Fi 7 mesh system that's rated for 27 Gbps, so when your iPhone shows 90 Mbps in the living room and the laptop stalls at 40 in the office, something is wrong. The Netgear Orbi RBE973S can push real multi-gig speeds, so a few specific things are likely causing the bottleneck.
Start with one wired test. Plug a laptop directly into a 10GbE LAN port on the main Orbi router using a Cat 6 cable and run a speed test. If wired matches your ISP plan, the problem is on the wireless side. If wired is also slow, the bottleneck is pre-Orbi, the modem, the cable between modem and router, or your ISP. That single test narrows everything down fast.
That Cable Between Modem and Router Might Be the Problem
The RBE973S has a 10GbE WAN port, but it only negotiates as fast as the cable and modem allow. A Cat 5 cable caps you at 100 Mbps. Cat 5e tops out around 1 Gbps. For any multi-gig plan, you need Cat 6 or better on every link, especially the one from modem to router.
Open the Orbi app, tap the router tile, and check the WAN port speed. If it shows 1000 Mbps but your plan is 2 Gbps or higher, the cable between modem and router is the bottleneck. Swap it for a Cat 6 or Cat 6a cable and retest.
Test Straight From the Modem
If wired through the Orbi is still slow, plug your laptop directly into the modem with the Orbi completely out of the chain. Reboot the modem first so it doesn't hold onto the Orbi's MAC address. Run the speed test. If wired-from-modem hits plan speed but wired-through-Orbi doesn't, the Orbi gateway itself is the issue, sometimes it's a CPU limitation on multi-gig plans, especially under heavy load.
If wired-from-modem is also slow, call your ISP. The problem is upstream of your gear.
Are You Testing With a Wi-Fi 7 Device?
The RBE973S is a BE27000 quad-band Wi-Fi 7 system. An iPhone 14 or older only has Wi-Fi 6, which tops out around 1.2 Gbps in real-world conditions. A Wi-Fi 5 laptop is capped closer to 400 Mbps. If your test device is the limit, no router fix will help.
Borrow a phone with Wi-Fi 7, a Galaxy S24 Ultra, a Xiaomi 14 Pro, or any 2024+ flagship, and test from there. If that device hits closer to plan speed, your old hardware is the ceiling.
Move Within 6 Feet of the Main Router
Stand right next to the RBE973S with line of sight and run a speed test on your phone. This tells you what the system is actually capable of delivering to your specific device. Compare that number to the speed in your kitchen or bedroom.
If close-range is fast and far-range is slow, you have a coverage problem, not a router problem. You might need better satellite placement or, less likely, a third satellite if one is too far.
Reposition Your Orbi Satellites
Satellites on the RBE973S use a dedicated 6 GHz Enhanced Backhaul for the fastest link back to the main router. But 6 GHz is short-range; it drops off sharply through walls and across distance. If a satellite is too far from the router, it falls back to 5 GHz backhaul and your speeds drop by a lot.
Place satellites within line of sight of the main router when possible, and no further than about 30 feet through one wall. Put them on a shelf, not on the floor or behind a TV. The Orbi app shows the connection quality for each satellite, anything below "Good" means move it closer. Note that the RBE973S doesn't support daisy-chaining satellites; each one must connect directly to the main router.
Check the Orbi App for Conflicting Settings
One known issue with the RBE973S is that the web UI and the Orbi app sometimes disagree on settings. If you've made changes in the web UI at orbilogin.com, the app might not reflect them. Open the Orbi app, tap Settings, and look for anything unusual, a QoS rule you set months ago, a device priority that's throttling your test phone, or a guest network that's hogging bandwidth.
The QoS engine on the RBE973S can slow speeds if Smart Connect is misconfigured. If you see any device priorities or QoS settings listed, disable them temporarily and retest.
Check for Background Traffic
Open the Orbi app and look at the Data Usage or Traffic page. See which devices are actively using bandwidth. A Windows update downloading a 5 GB patch, a Mac backing up to iCloud, a Ring doorbell uploading 4K video, or a Sonos system streaming music can all chew into your speeds.
Pause any heavy devices temporarily and run a fresh speed test.
Restart the System and Give TrueMesh Time
Unplug the main Orbi router, wait 60 seconds, and plug it back in. Leave the satellites plugged in, they'll reconnect automatically. After a power cycle, the mesh routing can take an hour or two to fully re-optimize for your home's layout.
Run a speed test immediately, then again two hours later. If the second test is better, the system just needed time to rebuild its routing table.
Check if Firmware Is Updating
Open the Orbi app, tap Settings, then Firmware Update. If it shows an update is in progress, speeds will be reduced while it propagates across all three nodes. Updates are usually done in under 30 minutes. Let it finish before you do anything else.
If Nothing Else, Factory Reset and Start Fresh
A factory reset wipes all your settings, network name, password, QoS rules, everything. Hold the reset button on the back of the main router for 10 seconds. The LED will flash. Once it's back up, set it up fresh through the Orbi app.
Add the satellites one at a time, closest to furthest. This forces the system to build a clean routing tree instead of inheriting any bad paths from your previous configuration.
