Help me internet faster.

Heres the scenario. I have spectrum internet through my apartment complex as part of an upgraded "technology package" that's been thrown in with our (astronomical) rent. Previous to that, I had spectrum I paid for myself, which I have had since I moved to Florida. On my self paid service, I opted for the 400mbps package. I regularly saw 250ish via wifi/ modem and called it good, since the whole "up to " thing applies. There was no bottleneck,  it was stable etc. Good enough for xbox. It reached all areas of the home, so on and so forth. 

This new package....is not so good. I am "up to" 300mbps now. Not a big deal as 250 is fine, right? Nope. Wifi only I am LUCKY to see 60-65 across however many devices. Laptops, phones, tablets, etc. I also no longer have any signal (so I am told, I haven't really bothered to check) I no longer have wifi signal in the furthest bedroom, despite the broadcast box being in literally the exact same spot as it was before. This is more likely due to the user in that room not knowing how to anything other than iPhone, but we are not talking about that. 

Hardline is fine. I plugged in my Asus to the wall just out of dumb curiosity,  and boom. Solid 275. I'll take that. So that brings me to the question, how do I unberkeley this? Do I buy a repeater and set up my own network off the line in the wall? Do I call spectrum and tell them to send out their finest shaved ape to give me tech that was made within the last two or three presidencies? I dont really have the option to hardwire the whole place mostly because swmbo would trip and die and I would be sad. If anyone has any ideas, that would be superb. 

First thing you need to do is upgrade the primary router, see if the telecom company will get you a new one. If not, you add your own, which gives you the option of choosing a really good one, maybe one with removable antennas so that you can swap them for high-gain antennas. This should fix your wireless speed problem and perhaps improve your coverage. From there, since you can't hardwire the place, you'd have to add extenders. These won't improve speed beyond what the new router did, but they will improve coverage. Or you could wire up a second router via a powerline network - a hardwired link without actually running any new wires.

Agree, a better wifi router is your best bet. In the interim, you may be able to reconfigure your existing router. Check out the mobile app called "Wifi Analyzer". It will show you all the access points in your area, what channel they're operating on, and the signal strength. If your router is operating on the same channel as others nearby, you may gain some performance by changing your channel to one that isn't in use.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Can I add a secondary router? If I am understanding my setup correct, the primary is in the wall, AMD I suspect they're none too keen on my digging around in there. 

Out of curiosity, what are you doing that requires that kind of bandwidth?

Large file transfer is basically the only thing that would use that kind of bandwidth, and very few sources are going to supply that quickly anyway.

ProDarwin said:

Out of curiosity, what are you doing that requires that kind of bandwidth?

Large file transfer is basically the only thing that would use that kind of bandwidth, and very few sources are going to supply that quickly anyway.

Everything all at the same time. Pair of xbox ones,  pair of laptops, at least one playstation and 3 phones, minimum. We are tech-heavy house hold. I am also looking into going back to a work from home scenario and I'm not taking any chances. 

Mndsm said:

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Can I add a secondary router? If I am understanding my setup correct, the primary is in the wall, AMD I suspect they're none too keen on my digging around in there. 

At the very least you could disable the wifi on the primary and wire a new one to it.

 here's what I'm looking at. Pic# 1 is whatever broadcast system they've added. I guess it ties into the smoke alarms and stuff too- not 100% on that, but I've been told someones rugrats tore off the wall and it caused hell in that building for a solid week. 

Pic#2 is pretty useless, but it's what is coming out of my wall behind my living room setup. Behind that is the back of pic 3. 

Pic#3 is the mystery box. I have no idea what's behind that panel. I do own tools and work at a hardware store, I suspect I could let myself in if I needed to. 

Are you running a server farm?

I'm on cable internet, 1 tier up from the basic package, I've got "Up to 25 Mbps Downstream and 3 Mbps Upstream."

I really haven't played any Xbox games since the last Doom, but it worked fine when I did.  We do watch a heck of a lot of Netflix and Prime Video, in HD on the Xbox, rarely any issues.

I did recently retire Ole Blue, my ~12 year old WRT54G, since it was giving me random issues with both wired and wirless connections.

I Upgraded to something a little more modern.  So far I've been happy with the Linksys Max-Stream AC1900 that replaced Ole Blue, it fixed my network connectivity issues, and the WiFi is noticeably faster.

GameboyRMH said:

Mndsm said:

In reply to GameboyRMH :

Can I add a secondary router? If I am understanding my setup correct, the primary is in the wall, AMD I suspect they're none too keen on my digging around in there. 

At the very least you could disable the wifi on the primary and wire a new one to it.

You don't have Comvajajays so that should actually work. It's my issue now, my Netgear AC110 that can move a gigabyte per second is dummied down to 25MB/s from the 200MB/s comvajajay feed going directly into it for some reason. It was faster with the old comvajajays modem that kept its Wi-Fi off when I shut it off. 

Not to mention the fun of trying to print or stream then finding it one of the devices is on the comvajajays wireless network that the modem says is shut the berkeley off.

So does the ethernet (red from the wall) operate independently from the coax-based stuff?  What existing does the ethernet jack feed? 

If what you have is a two seperate networks, the coax/modem stuff and the ethernet, just jack into the ethernet and install a good quality router/AP and forget their wireless completely. 

Since connecting directly is much faster, I also have to wonder if it is possible the chipsets in your client devices are not playing nicely with your wireless AP.  There are some newer, very fast, wireless standards that will do you no good at all if your clients are not compatible.

Finally, how are you determining what your actual throughput is?  The speed your client is connecting at and the connection's actual throughput may have little to do with each other.

I opted out of Charter's router. I ran the modem to my own router and it works well. The issue with having multiple routers is possible interferance, more so if your neighbors have wifi as well. The easiest way to manage interference is to allow the router to switch channels. if you have two, you may not be interfering with your own, but maybe your neighbors, who in turn will select a channel closer to the other channel you're using. 

One good router is all you need (you can disable charter's) and a hard line to any gaming system or PC. A repeater if you're still having trouble.

In reply to CJ :

That ethernet cord is running directly to my brand new laptop, and that is seeing the fastest speeds in the house. The coax is going directly to a cable box that is under one of my living room TVs. As I understand it, the ethernet is more or less a port directly to whatever is in my wall. (Again, not 100% sure what's in it, it was installed when I was not home) in theory i suppose i could run the ethernet cord directly to a router and set up my own network independent of the wall. Previous to my upgrade, that's pretty much what I had, except I was running coax into a spectrum supplied modem/router and that was giving me signal in the apartment . As far as throughput- speedtest net. I'm reasonably certain every device I've tested is capable of the speeds listed previously, simply because they could before. I suppose if the client devices are only capable of speaking quickly to old gen tech (my previous modem was probably 3 years old, so you know 148 in computer years) that could make sense with the exception of the laptop. It is literally a month old at best, and before I plugged it in directly so I could get my wreckfest on, it was only seeing the same speeds my phone/xbox/chromebook/toaster were seeing. 

Time for a better access point. I've never been impressed by the wireless access points built into the modems. I like Ubiquiti myself, it's more enterprise-grade but that means you have access to better tools and they're pretty darn reliable. You do have to be a little techy to set them up.

If all operates as it should (access, streaming, etc) connected via your laptop to the Mystery Port, just run your network from there and don't mess with their wireless at all.  Sounds like you are confident you have identified the cable wireless as the issue.

In an apartment, there is no reason at all that you should not have excellent signal regardless of where you are, unless there is something odd in the construction (Big metal electrical panels, metal HVAC stuff, steel beams, etc.  Wired a school that had large whiteboards in each room.  Turned out they were enameled steel - berkeleyed up the wireless coverage big time).  Also, moving your AP a few feet can make a huge difference in coverage and performance, so try it in a few locations before your fix it. 

I tend to buy name brand equipment that one generation down from the bleeding edge and then keep current on firmware updates.  When the manufacturer stops producing updates, I take that as a clue that they think the equipment is EOL and start looking at replacements.   I know that you could find cheaper, but I would expect to invest $125 - $150 on a quality wireless router at this point. 

bigdaddylee82 said:

I really haven't played any Xbox games since the last Doom, but it worked fine when I did.  We do watch a heck of a lot of Netflix and Prime Video, in HD on the Xbox, rarely any issues.

A netflix 1080p stream is only 3Mbps (they recommend 5).  Multiplayer games need low latency, but have minimal bandwidth requirements. All 7 of the devices on his network could be streaming Netflix simultaneously and it would still only be 20-30mbps.

That's why I say large file transfer is the common way to max out a connection like that.

I support fixing it, but I don't think you need that much bandwidth.  I have 100down, its the standard tier.  Next lowest drops me to 3 or something.  If there were a 20mbps tier or something I'd drop down in an instant.

In reply to ProDarwin :

In my case my choice is 300. Previously I could go faster or slower, but 400 was the most cost effective option for me. I like overkill. 

In reply to CJ :

I suspect swmbo jr is the root cause of the connectivity issues in that bedroom. I sort of figured buying my own access point was the answer- just drop it inline off the ethernet port and piggyback tha . 

We have 150mbps here and see that speed on hardwired and 5g Wi-Fi. Our router is in the basement and Wi-Fi wont reach the 3rd level of the townhouse so I have another hardwired 5g capable netgear wndr3400v3 router (router is probably 4 yrs old at this point) running a separate wifi upstairs. My Xbox is on the middle level in the room below the netgear, and on the 5g Wi-Fi I am still pulling 100-120 mbps download speeds even with a 1 lousy bar of 5g signal.

So yeah hardwire another router maybe. 

We do have faster speeds available too but this works and I havent really had complaints sooo...

I'm guess you mean 5Ghz (the frequency) not '5G' the wireless standard successor to 4G

Idk probably. Sounds reasonable.