WIFI in Shady Brook
 

Maybe this is just a vent, but what is up with the WIFI here in Shady Brook??????? Will it get better when Eastport goes up? This can’t say this way…..EVERYTHING is connected to it! Anyone having these issues?

Your first post; welcome if you are real.
Wifi is based on your router and ISP, and has nothing to do with anything outside your house. Cell service is tower dependent, but not Wifi. If you have issues, call your ISP.

Are you talking about items connected to the WIFI in your house, or are you asking about cellular signals provided by local carriers? Also, what kind of issues are you having the possible solutions between the 2 types of systems are very different. You need to provide more information, for example: Who is the communication supplier, is this by radio, cable or fiber, is this company owned and installed equipment or user supplied and installed?

OP, your post makes no sense. Who are you paying for Internet service and what specific issues are you having? If you have a wifi network in your house, you need to protect it with a password, so others cannot use it. I am referring to wifi, but it sounds like you may be confusing wifi with cellular service, which is not wifi.

The OP is likely asking about 3G/4G/5G that carriers provide for mobile internet. That is separate from voice/texting. I know Verizon has many dead zones in their 4G service, but voice and text is fine in the same zones.

Wifi is fantastic in Shady Brook. Centric Fiber 1 GB/S upload and download speeds. It just doesn't get any better. Cell service is terrible though, particularly if you have ATT. One bar inside the house, sometimes not much better outside. Verizon is a little better.

I try to do everything on WiFi.

WiFi is a function of your router. Contact your Internet provider if you’re having WiFi problems.

If cell service is the issue, enable wifi calling. That will help anytime you are connected to an ISP (at home, etc)

Our WiFi works awesome in Shady Brook. Don’t know what you are talking about.

You should consult with your grandkids. They will explain the lingo and where to get help.

Why call an isp for wifi issues? ISP’s only deal with internet, they are clueless about wifi. If you call an isp with a poor wifi signal in your house, they will add a WAP and think this is all you need. Plus, if you have 2 wifi names (ssid’s) and you had to change your wifi name on all your devices, your installer knows nothing about internal wifi networks. You only need 1 ssid and I have kept the same ssid on many different network providers.

You might try buying WiFi boosters that plug into an electrical outlet and you can
have multiple boosters throughout your house . That might help your situation

I took this to mean that the Wi-Fi at the rec centers is terrible.

Yeah, poor wifi at his house is an Internet provider issue. Usually a placement issue or a large home

WIFI Follow Up
 

My apologies if I’m not doing this right, this is my first post. I’ll get there! Yes, I am real. :). And for those of you who were confused by my post, welcome to my world….I’m not tech savvy. LOL. My TV in living room (closest to my router) works great! TV in the bedroom has trouble staying connected to WiFi. I have a wireless mouse and keyboard and sometimes, it doesn’t work. What prompted this question is my security system won’t connect to WiFi suddenly. I’ve engaged online support and nothing they tell me fixes it. Of course I get book and page responses and now they want to charge 100 bucks to come out and “fix it!” What I’m having a hard time understanding is how some wireless things work easily and others don’t. But clearly it’s my issue because others here in SB do not have issues. I have Xfinity for ISP and I believe it’s 5G. :bigbow: to all who are trying to help me! BTW….love it here….including SB!

Couple of thoughts:
- The wireless mouse and keyboard will be Bluetooth and not WiFi. Separate signals, separate protocols, and separate problems.

- Does your Xfinity box have a coax cable attached to it (thick round cable) or is it shaped something like a milk carton and maybe has a small screen with bars like on your cellphone? The first would be a cable internet (likely) and the other would be a 5G internet. I can't find any indication that Xfinity even offers 5G internet.

- Does your living room TV work great at exactly the same time your bedroom TV has problems?

- Do other devices (computer, tablet) have problems in the bedroom but not in the living room?

- Has it always been this way or did something recently change (new TV, moved the Xfinity box, etc)?

If you have cable internet (coax from your wall to the Xfinity box), if you haven't moved the box, and if other devices also have problems in the bedroom then it sounds like the WiFI signal from the Xfinity box is too weak. There are options to boost the signal throughout the home that others can describe better than I can.

OP, we have Xfinity also, with no problems, try the following:
1. Look at where your modem/router is located in the house, we had to move ours to a central location for complete coverage.
2. Run "www.speedtest.net" from your computer this will give you an idea of your INTERNET speeds. I would do this with both the wireless (wifi) connection and a wired (ethernet) connection.
3. For your blue tooth devices (keyboard and mouse), I would look into updating the drivers. Also, if you have a lot of these devices (speakers, earphones, mice, keyboards, game controllers, etc., these maybe interfering with each other.
4. Depending on the make of your TVs, you should be able to do an update on these also.
5. You may want to contact Comcast to see what level of Internet service you have, and if necessary you can share your results from the speedtest if it shows much slower that what you are paying for. We had a situation where the cable from the box in the back yard went bad and we were getting lots signal problems in the house, since we were renting the Xfinity modem, the cable replacement was no cost.

There a few people on this site that are very good with getting this type of equipment to work together, I am hoping one of them will reply (I did not keep their contact info) and you hire them to get your various systems working.

I hope this helps and thank you for providing the additional info.

You don’t call the internet provider to fix or build your wifi network, they don’t know how to do it. You also don’t want to use a WAP or an extender in a wired socket, they are junk. Calling the internet provider for wifi is like taking your car to a car wash to get a tune up, 2 different technologies.
1st thing you need to do is test what speed you are getting from the isp without using wifi. This means hooking up a newer computer/laptop to the routers port and do an ookla network speed test. You should get 90% of the bandwidth you are paying for. If you are not getting this type of speed then you need to call your isp.

Now, on to your wifi. For starters, 1 router will get you small coverage of signal and that’s if you put it above your kitchen cabinets. Only in that large area will you get decent speeds. I use 4 routers in my 2400 sq ft designer home and I put in 5 routers in friends bigger houses. I’ve done enterprise networks for large companies and have done dozens of networks for friends. With today’s technology, you want to use a mesh 6e or newer network which the isp doesn’t provide to you. So what I do is buy/use my own routers instead of renting/leasing the router from the isp.

1 more thing, you always want to use a wired network when possible. So behind every mesh router in my house, I have a 5 port switch so I can hook up the Apple TV devices, dvd players, and anything else that can be hooked up by wired Ethernet which provides a much faster speed than using the 2.4ghz wifi that most devices use outside of your iPhones/ipads/newer computers.

Have you tried unplugging the TV, waiting 60 seconds, and plugging back in?

The router used is almost always one provided by the internet provider. It almost always includes wifi. Claiming otherwise is akin to claiming humans do not live on Earth.

It is possible to use your own equipment, but anyone who does would never post on TOTV for tech support.

It is distance and interference based issues. Interference is anything that gets between the router and the device (in your case, the TV). The close one works and the one farther away does not.

If it is possible, move the router closer to the TV with the issue - or get it out from behind objects, such as if you have it behind the door of a cabinet or such. Set it out in the open and see. Put it as close as possible to the other TV, even if it looks bad, as a test, just to see if that extra closeness does the trick.

Odds are you will need an extender to make things work, but these are easy and free tests.

I have one (1) wifi router and no mesh in my 2,000 soft home. It does not sit on top of a cabinet in the kitchen and it DOES provide the same wifi speed in the far end of the house. Four routers, a mesh network, wired connections and a five port switch are an expensive overkill and configuration nightmare for many users.

Does anyone know if homes in the newer area like Shady Brook have poured concrete interior walls? My home does not and perhaps that's why I have such good luck with a single router. Concrete interior walls would block more of the wifi signal and require a different solution.

The OP describes a situation that appears to indicate the wifi signal is poor in one end of the home. Knowing that they are getting the proper speed from their ISP is useful for billing purposes but we already know the speed is sufficient as the equipment in the living room works well.

If the modem/router is at one end of the home then moving it to a different location close to the center of the home might help. If the wiring and power allows it, I would try this first.

In this case an extender *might* help. Speeds will likely be lower (the extenders are only so good) but they could be adequate. It is not the best option but it's the cheapest to try.

Purchasing a separate wifi router and using that rather than the Xfinity signal could help as well. This dedicated wifi device might have a stronger signal than the Xfinity gear and might extend throughout the home. It will be an additional device requiring additional power and configuration but it's an option.

A mesh device is probably the most appropriate solution. Rebroadcasting the wifi signal nearer to the bedroom should fix the performance problems there. Unfortunately, since I do not need such a device in my home I don't know what is involved in configuring one.

Poured concrete interior walls? No

OP, some good recommendations in the above posts. To answer a couple of questions:

First, the issue will not get better on it's own as it is with YOUR system in the house (99%). If anything it could get a little worse as more channel interference comes on line. Second, the houses with poured walls have metal studded interior walls, so they do cause some signal loss. I have dead spots where two walls are perpendicular etc. Nothing you can do beyond planning a system around the spots if you have them.

The approach I would take:

1). Do a speed test as indicated above. This is probably not your issue, but get a baseline as compared to what you paid for. Look for steady upload/downloads......if you see it download well at speeds, then stop to 0, then restart there could be an issue with your cable system (modem provisioning, switches etc). This is highly unlikely, but....
2). Download to your phone a wifi analyzer app. I have a Samsung phone and use "wifi analyzer". Measure your signal near your current router, then walk toward the far corners of the house. You will likely find spots with big drops in signal, these are your problem areas. A good signal in my house is about -40 to -45 dBm. -30 dBm is near perfect, and starting around -65 dBM you start have connection issues.
3). If possible, move current router towards center of house, as high as reasonable, but not behind a lot of furniture etc. This can be a challenge. Now I would do step 2 over again, and see if it helped with the dead spots I mentioned.
4). Assuming it does not solve the issue, and it did not in my 2K sq ft house, you likely need a better wifi system. While far from state of the art, I have had great luck with the Amazon Eero wireless mesh system. I have a main router and 2 other nodes, and strong coverage throughout the house. While Eero has a very good wifi 7 system, they have an old gen 3 node system for about $300 that is good for many users. Note again though, the $300 system is not close to best on market, but I've found very stable in my use for 5+ years. I am assuming you have internet service of less than 500 Meg with that recommendation though.
5). If possible, plug anything you can into hard wired ethernet. Your house probably does not have an ethernet switch, and the cables in the garage would need to be terminated, but a wired connection is always solid. I use Centric where I am, and they were very reasonable to come out and terminate cables, but you did have to buy their switch. Not sure what other companies do. This is a good to do, not required if you solve the current wireless issue.

I personally would not have the cable company help with anything beyond the ethernet switch if you go that route, unless I find a bad cable connection. They will likely rent you a repeater or similar, but then you have a monthly bill and likely still marginal service. Not criticizing the employees, just the companies equipment.

Finally, if needed I would be willing to stop but and give an assessment. I am not an IT person, but have been a computer guy since PCs were first available. My gut says my recommendation will be the wireless mesh network (Amazon Eero or similar), so if you are able to run the tests mentioned you should get to the right conclusion.

If you need me to stop by, just PM me here. I am busy today, but would have some time tommorrow. Of course I am talk free recommendations as a neighbor, I am not a business.

Xfinity offers a wifi extender pod that works well and is plug and play. If you call and complain, they might send one at no charge.

Xfi Pod