Getting the internet speed I'm paying for

[Deleted member 215]

So...I'm in the process of moving in with a friend. He has been at this place for about a year and has been paying for 100 Mbps Xfinity. Because I'm joining him, I insisted on upgrading the service to 1.2 Gbps Xfinity. Xfinity gave us a new Gateway yesterday and I set it up. Through the ethernet I'm getting close to the advertised speed: over 900 Mbps on my Windows PC. The Wifi, on the other hand, only a tiny fraction of the speed: about 70 Mbps, which is what we were getting before when the service was only 100 Mbps.

I don't understand it. For one thing, the Wifi briefly worked yesterday. Shortly after setting it up, I was getting 700 Mbps on my iPhone and MBP (while sitting right next to the Gateway--speed dipped to 400 Mbps while upstairs, furthest from the Gateway). Now, while sitting next to it, it won't go above 70-90. Why?

Should I forget about the Xfinity Gateway and get my own modem and router? If so, which ones? What are your experiences with this?

 

[rdrr]

Sounds like a bad Gateway, and I would reset it before you start the troubleshoot process. Which means turn it down completely and unscrew the coax for about 30 seconds. Then reconnect the coax and power it back up.

Wifi problems are pretty tricky due to congestion and any type of interference (electrical, glass, concrete, metal, etc,) between the transmitter and receiver. However, since you are saying that you are on top of it and getting poor speeds would lean me to a faulty modem. Also if you know what you are doing you can configure the Xfinity gateway into dual band, the default is that you let the modem decide how to connect the client up. I would suggest you do that and put your IoT things on 2.4 GHz and your computers and phones on 5 GHz. There is a lot more too this than I could type up in this response, but wifi issues are alway a pita to diagnose. The quick and dirty is to replace the gateway first.

Unless you know what you are doing and purchasing, I would advise against purchasing your own model and wifi. You can go here to look at the specific supported modems for your area and plan. https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/list-of-approved-cable-modems. I used to run my own modem and wifi, until it just stopped working one day. I had three technicians come out and they couldn't get it to work. Once I replaced it with an Xfinity gateway, it "magically" worked. I have a tin-foil hat theory on why started working, but that is another topic.

 

[Nycturne]

I admit I’m a bit out of touch with router/wifi tech, but I can point out something to consider here:

Make sure your devices are on the 5Ghz band, rather than the 2.4Ghz band. There’s a huge difference between the two in terms of bandwidth available, but I’ve noticed that many devices will fall back to 2.4Ghz when the SSIDs are the same and the 5Ghz band has spotty reception (which is common since it sucks at penetrating walls).

On the tech side, my history has been it’s hard to know exactly which devices can actually handle a 1Gbps+ connection, as many of the consumer devices were built with much slower speeds in mind. It’s possible it‘s gotten better, but not many reviews do a great job checking for their available throughput. So it can be a bit of a minefield buying your own kit.

In my case, I was using an Airport Extreme as my router until last year. It could keep up with 500Mbps fiber, but not 1Gbps fiber. Instead of bothering with replacing the whole thing, I bought an EdgeRouter 4 and made the Airport Extreme a Wifi bridge. But managing my own network is something I can (kinda) do, and so splitting wireless access away from the routing made a lot of sense, as I could make sure it all worked the way I wanted, and managing a router using a more advanced interface wasn’t a huge hurdle.

 

[Runs For Fun]

Make sure your devices are on the 5Ghz band, rather than the 2.4Ghz band.

This is the first thing I thought of. It could be your device jumped over to the 2.4GHz band. That will definitely kill your speed. Some access points like UniFi have a band steering setting that has worked pretty well for me with keeping 5GHz capable devices on the 5GHz band. If you don't have a setting like that you may want to consider setting up separate SSIDs for the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands.

 

[Deleted member 215]

Thanks guys.

So...yes, it does appear the problem is related to 2.4 vs. 5. Under "Advanced Settings" on the XFi app, there's a way to change the Channel Select from "Auto" to another number, which I did (not that I know what that means), and now my phone appears to be connected to the 5 GHz and I'm getting 700 Mbps again. What seems to be happening is when I go upstairs where the signal is weaker, it automatically connects to the 2.4.

Is there some way to deactivate the 2.4 since it's, well, garbage? I'll look into setting up separate SSIDs. I know that's what we have at our vacation home (two WiFi networks, one that's 5 GHz and one that's 2.4).

My roommate and I will have four WiFi devices: our phones and laptops. The Apple TV and my Windows PC, the only other internet-using devices, are connected via Ethernet.

 

[Runs For Fun]

Thanks guys.

So...yes, it does appear the problem is related to 2.4 vs. 5. Under "Advanced Settings" on the XFi app, there's a way to change the Channel Select from "Auto" to another number, which I did (not that I know what that means), and now my phone appears to be connected to the 5 GHz and I'm getting 700 Mbps again.

Is there some way to deactivate the 2.4 since it's, well, garbage? I'll look into setting up separate SSIDs. I know that's what we have at our vacation home (two WiFi networks, one that's 5 GHz and one that's 2.4).

My roommate and I will have four WiFi devices: our phones and laptops. The Apple TV and my Windows PC, the only other internet-using devices, are connected via Ethernet.

You should be able to disable the 2.4GHz band somewhere. However, I've found there's still a lot of embedded IoT devices that only support 2.4GHz. However if you don't have anything like that or older devices that don't support 5GHz then it shouldn't be a problem to disable it.

 

[Deleted member 215]

At home we have a Linksys router system and the Linksys app allows you to select which devices to keep on the 5GHz band. If there's something like that with XFi, I might just keep things as is. I want to force my iPhone and laptop to connect to 5GHz no matter if I'm upstairs or not.

 

[Deleted member 215]

What about something to boost the signal upstairs?

(It's pretty crazy that this is a fairly small apartment, yet even going behind one wall significantly slows the speed. Reminds me at work when you go into the back office suddenly the Wifi drops the connection every five minutes. I hate Wifi. Lol).

 

[DT]

Should I forget about the Xfinity Gateway and get my own modem and router? If so, which ones? What are your experiences with this?

I would do this, not only do you have better control, but you save the rental fee for their equipment. We're running a Surfboard (Arris) , DOCSIS 3.0 compatible, supports up to 384 Mbps, that's connected to an Airport Extreme, with a physical drop down to the main TV room, a switch (most equipment is running off ethernet), with a second Airport Extreme downstairs running as an AP.

I'd attempt to run an ethernet line upstairs, it's actually pretty easy to do, it tucks nicely under carpet, can be stick under bannisters, heck, you can run it right through the floor (YMMV as to how that goes over the the owner if it's not you ). Then just hang an AP or router in AP mode or whatever.

They make power line products that use the AC lines as conductor for a network signal, and some companies have a single device that's an AP (so just sticking it in the outlet gives you a WiFi signal), but I never had much luck, lots of speed variation, interference, maybe they've notably improved.

 

[Herdfan]

Thanks guys.

So...yes, it does appear the problem is related to 2.4 vs. 5. Under "Advanced Settings" on the XFi app, there's a way to change the Channel Select from "Auto" to another number, which I did (not that I know what that means), and now my phone appears to be connected to the 5 GHz and I'm getting 700 Mbps again. What seems to be happening is when I go upstairs where the signal is weaker, it automatically connects to the 2.4.

Is there some way to deactivate the 2.4 since it's, well, garbage? I'll look into setting up separate SSIDs. I know that's what we have at our vacation home (two WiFi networks, one that's 5 GHz and one that's 2.4).

My roommate and I will have four WiFi devices: our phones and laptops. The Apple TV and my Windows PC, the only other internet-using devices, are connected via Ethernet.

While 2.4 is slower, it is also more robust. It goes through walls and floors better than 5. Which is why when you go upstairs the signal is weaker.

 

[rdrr]

What about something to boost the signal upstairs?

(It's pretty crazy that this is a fairly small apartment, yet even going behind one wall significantly slows the speed. Reminds me at work when you go into the back office suddenly the Wifi drops the connection every five minutes. I hate Wifi. Lol).

If you are going to do a mesh network (ie boosters), then you need to run your own wifi and invest in a wifi 6 setup ($$$). Do not use the Xfinity xFi pods. They are a ripoff and people have complained how bad they are. Plus you cannot really get help from Xfinity on them and the return policy is ridiculously short.

 

[Deleted member 215]

Thanks for the input. The mesh Wi-Fi 6 setup is what we have at my parents’ house and I guess I’ve been spoiled by it. I may look into it here. For now I’ve split the network into two and am keeping my laptop connected to the 5Ghz. The speed is definitely less upstairs than it is in the living room by the router but it is much higher than on the 2.4.

 

[Nycturne]

They make power line products that use the AC lines as conductor for a network signal, and some companies have a single device that's an AP (so just sticking it in the outlet gives you a WiFi signal), but I never had much luck, lots of speed variation, interference, maybe they've notably improved.

I guess you can get those in 1Gbps versions now. Neat. It's been years, but I thought they need to be on the same circuit? More modern construction tends to divide up circuits more thanks to modern electronics, and older houses (like mine) where we've had to modernize by adding circuits to rooms mean we have a number of non-obvious restrictions on how we could deploy these.

While 2.4 is slower, it is also more robust. It goes through walls and floors better than 5. Which is why when you go upstairs the signal is weaker.

And to add to this, when/how the building was constructed can have noticeable impact on signal strength and range.

 

[DT]

I guess you can get those in 1Gbps versions now. Neat. It's been years, but I thought they need to be on the same circuit? More modern construction tends to divide up circuits more thanks to modern electronics, and older houses (like mine) where we've had to modernize by adding circuits to rooms mean we have a number of non-obvious restrictions on how we could deploy these.

Yeah, there's quite a few considerations about how the location is wired, when I tested them years ago, they were also super sensitive to what was powered on in the house, like turn on a microwave, and you dropped from 50Mbps to 1 ...

Running some Cat6 isn't a big deal, you find ways to get creative with a cable run - just get a 1000ft of Cat6, a box of connectors and a good crimper and you're set

 

[Huntn]

My impression is that wireless is always slower than wired. For me to see the actual advertised speed in my office I had to run a wire. What might be of interest is when we recently switched to a fiber optic service which is more expensive than my cable service provider, but more reliable, we downgraded from 400Mbit to 100Mbit just to see if it hindered us.

With 2 of us in the house, the only difference I see is the slower download for large files say larger than 10GB which is usually associated with gaming, but I’m not doing that every day. And with the 100bit service my upload speed actually doubled over the 400mbit we had before Which is an upgrade for cloud storage. I’m paying $65 month. 500mbit is $85.

 

[Herdfan]

My impression is that wireless is always slower than wired.

It is. But it seems we are getting to the point where what we are getting via wireless is fast enough for most users. I can stream 4K over WiFi with an Apple TV. So short of needing to download a huge file, what I have works just fine.

I have a client who has the equivalent of a neighborhood connection into his house. He can stream 1080p to 18 TV's at once. So he has capacity, but still not faster than what I have.

 

[SuperMatt]

My impression is that wireless is always slower than wired. For me to see the actual advertised speed in my office I had to run a wire. What might be of interest is when we recently switched to a fiber optic service which is more expensive than my cable service provider, but more reliable, we downgraded from 400Mbit to 100Mbit just to see if it hindered us.

With 2 of us in the house, the only difference I see is the slower download for large files say larger than 10GB which is usually associated with gaming, but I’m not doing that every day. And with the 100bit service my upload speed actually doubled over the 400mbit we had before Which is an upgrade for cloud storage. I’m paying $65 month. 500mbit is $85.

Wireless can be quite fast, with one caveat. When you need a low latency connection, wired is substantially better.

 

[Huntn]

Wireless can be quite fast, with one caveat. When you need a low latency connection, wired is substantially better.

My old router offered a poorer connection to my office as compared to my newest router. My understanding is more people are using network extenders. What pissed me off a little is that the extenders that come for Ring devices only work with Ring devices. They are on the network but your other devices don’t see it. Probably a security or functionality issue.

 

[DT]

My old router offered a poorer connection to my office as compared to my newest router. My understanding is more people are using network extenders. What pissed me off a little is that the extenders that come for Ring devices only work with Ring devices. They are on the network but your other devices don’t see it. Probably a security or functionality issue.

Our Eufy (Anker) cameras are the same way, the cameras themselves don't connect directly to the router, they connect to a bridge, which is like a proprietary NAP. Then you connect HomeKit to the bridge, works really well (it does the initial setup through their own app, which is actually pretty nice).

 

[Citysnaps]

With Sonic (in the SF Bay Area) I pay $61.63 per month (including $11.64 of various Fed/State/Local taxes) for 1 Gb/Sec fiber service.

At the output of my router it's around 940 Mb/sec. Over 5GHz WiFi, running the SpeedTest app on my M1 MBA laptop it's 578 Mb/sec down and 107 Mb/sec up. Router and APs are Ubiquiti/Unifi, and I wired my house with Belden CAT 6A (and CAT 7 to the fiber ONT in the garage).

Overall, and considering I've never experienced a loss of service with Sonic (unlike my previous Comcast Xfinity service which happened almost daily for 10 minute periods of time), I'm pleased