Spotty WIFI

I think it's possible I need a new router. My WIFI is very spotty from mid morning until noon. It also conks out occasionally at other times of the day, usually in the middle of a streaming show.

I'm paranoid enough to believe that someone is stealing my signal.

The current situation might be contributing, with more people working from home.

Does that make sense. I thought there was unlimited bandwidth.

Do I even know what I'm talking about?

 

There’s a difference between your WiFi being spotty and your internet connection being spotty. But for most people that distinction doesn’t matter. If speeds varied depending on where you are in the house then yes it’s likely your wireless network. Though do know that the typical home cable internet connection is shared with your neighbors. So if everyone near you is also streaming video, downloading large amount of data and causing general congestion it’s not really any different than a busy street or highway. The amount of data that can be transferred at once is finite.

 

"unlimited bandwidth" is the same as saying "this machine is about to hit!"

 

I'm assuming your router is password protected. Start there and change the password.

 

change password if you think somebody is using your wifi.

Sometimes it is not the internet, but lots of other stuff running on your computer.

Try programs like netspeed or fast.com to see you speed.

If you have a smart phone, turn off cellular and connect via WIFI to see what speed you get.

 

I sure HOPE you do not still have the default passwords on your wifi box!

Do you have a wired PC from which you can run some speed tests?

 

And also when he says “unlimited bandwidth” he may mean no data cap meaning no limit on the amount of data you can download. Doesn’t have to do with speed. Most companies also advertise their speeds as “up to X”. So like when I get only 30mbps while I pay for for “up to 500”.

 

Everyone is at home, watching netflix and on zoom conferences. This causes network congestion and slows it down.

 

My wifi at home has been absolute shit lately as well.

My office wifi is running fine, no issues at all. Two different carriers though.

Spectrum at home, Frontier at the office.

 

Can you clarify what you mean by "conks out"? Does the router turn off? Does the network disappear?

If you are concerned about people stealing your wifi, you can change your passwords as others have said. Or, to confirm it, log in to your router's interface (Usually 192.168.1.1 in your web browser, you can confirm the IP address by opening command prompt and typing in "ipconfig", then viewing what the default gateway is), and check the connected devices.

I find it highly unlikely that you need a new router, if its been working fine in the past. However, you MIGHT consider downloading some sort of wifi channel analyzer. The 2.4GHz spectrum is divided into 14 channels. If your router is using the same channel as those around you, you will get interference. Most modern routers will do channel hopping to avoid this, but it's something to look into. The 5GHz spectrum is divided into a lot more channels, but the same concept applies.

Another thing to consider is your physical location. Is there a lot of metal between your router and you? What about during those times of day when it is slow? Is there anything causing interference nearby? Someone running their microwave near your router? Pulling lots of current causing EMF interference?

Finally, the last thing to understand is that wifi is garbage and you should always run ethernet when possible.

 

Main question is, do you use a Cell Phone company or a cable company for your internet?

Routers can get too warm, so it is a good idea to turn them off and let them cool down when you and yours do not need them, such as at night or early morning.

On your network can you see other devices(printers, computers, etc) and connect and send files to them through your router? If YES, it is not your router. If No, then it is your router.

Is your router connected wirelessly to the internet via Verizon or some other cell phone company? Turn off WIFI on your phone and see if your roam is working, if it is, then it is your router.

Are there other people on your network, such as your kids who just so happen to LOVE to watch NETFLIX as much as possible? When our oldest comes to visit, he just goes into his old bedroom and watches netflix and kills our router on a daily basis.

If your router is wired, meaning you have a cable company, the cable company uses the cheapest things possible. Your wire to your house could have been interrupted lately if any digging. A very common thing that cable companies do is just hire a contractor and run a new cable to your house. I had around 20 old cables with this.

Your cable company will use repeaters or amplifiers on their cable lines to boost the signal from pole to pole. If it rains, these can get and will get wet and cause lots of problems. Cable companies routinely replace these amplifiers/repeaters. A bird could have built a nest on them, once again causes problems.

Think of the repeater/amplifier as a chain, it is only as good as the weakest link in the chain. If a repeater that is 12 repeaters from your house goes bad, then all 12 repeaters will have to be tested until they find the bad repeater.

Usually, there is a box that will have CAT5 cable running from it to your house. It looks like a pole about two feet tall sticking up in either your yard or a neighbor's yard. This comes into your house and will have a splitter on it, to split the signal to your TV and to your cable modem. The more TVs you have, the more splitters you have. Splitters go bad on just about a yearly basis.

On this pole, there is the first splitter, it will have multiple connections. This splitter can go bad. The more cables running off of it, the weaker the signals to all the connections.

The old cable systems were not BUILT for the demand we have now. If your cable wiring system 1 mile away is old, that means all the stuff from that point to your house is old.

a splitter is just a piece of metal that has one end you attach your cable to, then it SPLITS the signal and puts it to two or more other connections. When it splits, the signal gets weaker.

Example: a cable coming into your house has a signal value of 1000, but when you attach a splitter with two connections, you divide 1000 by 2, now your signal value is 500 from each connection.

 

Does online gaming affect internet speed? My neighbor’s daughter is into that & he complained that it slows his to a crawl. I often wonder if we’re impacted by her gaming on days (nothing specific recently) where it’s especially slow.

 

It really depends on what games she is playing. If she's playing Real Time Shooters (RTS), like Grand Theft Auto, Company of Heroes, Starcraft, or Warcraft then it could definitely affect everyone else's internet speed. If she's playing RPG/Strategy games, not so much. I have an 18 year old in the house, who plays almost exclusively RTS games, and he was complaining about lag times, so I upgraded to 300Mbps/unlimited download and there is no longer a problem. I also upgraded his wireless to 1300AC (faster than the internet D/L speed).

 

Thanks!! That’s worthy of a classroom!

I do get my WIFI from a cable company, Atlantic Brodadband.

 

Well if he is a bro dad, that could be the issue

 

I also would add the following:

fast.com netllix real world speed test.. it's more accurate
dslreports has a "smoke pipe" test .. that will tell you everything for your connection and that will tell the provider exactly what is wrong with your signal

and yes double check your router and what is connected to it..and change your password routinely

there have been many cable techs caught passing on wifi passwords to friends in neighberhood

 

No. Most online gaming uses very little bandwidth. Watching Youtube, Netflix, Hulu, will have a much greater impact.

RTS actually stands for Real Time Strategy, such as Warcraft and Starcraft. Minor nitpick though. And I don't buy the differentiation between an RPG game using less bandwitdh than a FPS or RTS game.

"Lag time" is referring to the latency between his PC and the server, expressed in (usually) a 2 digit number, called "ping". which is the number of milliseconds it took for a packet to traverse the network. Upgrading the wireless router had much more of an impact than your download speed upgrade did.

Another factor that can cripple network speeds is if anyone is doing any sort of uploads. Realize that "uploads" also counts as Zoom/Facetime/Snapchat/etc.

Not trying to be annoying, but there is a VERY common misconception that online gaming impacts network speeds (or installs viruses on the family computer ). It doesn't. It's an extremely low bandwidth usage, and is intentionally designed this way by the game developers.

 

I have a att gigabit service.

Direct to router getting 800+
Wifi through my router is just under 400

 

I was having very similar issues at home.
Three lengthy calls with Comcast and numerous router resets did not resolve the issue.
Fourth call I got somebody who figured it out.
Bought a booster/extender online and consolidated two networks into one.
Everything good now .Hope I did not jinx myself.

 

Turn the router off. Listen. Turn it on. Listen. repeat this for an hour and listen for things like WTF??? Goddamnit!! MotherF*#%er!!! If any of this hits home,
somebody’s in your shit dude!!! Otherwise it’s your carrier.