Does reliable wireless internet exist?

I have a wireless router in my house (well actually the 3rd one), and with all 3, they just seem to work when they feel like it. I have a wireless printer that works occasionally, but most of the time not, and recently in the last few days my iphone and laptop decided to no longer connect to the normal network, but the guest network works fine, with no changes to anything else. Does anyone who knows about those things have any ideas of how to get it to work better? Or is that just normal for a wireless connection at home.

I have a wireless provided by Verizon Fios and never have a problem with it.

I'm using my ATT Uverse modem/wireless router and i have no problems with the network.

how old is the house? more importantly, how old is the wiring in the house? i've seen before in older places and even in newer places where there was enough noise in the electric line that the wifi was unreliable. it is so bad in my parents house that the upstairs computer had to be put on a battery backup because the voltage would drop and cause the computer to restart, and that house was build in 2004. in my ex's apt, the rounter would cut out every time the a/c unit kicked on. at an office i worked at, it would just kick on and off about every 4-5 minutes.

if your router isn't on a good surge protector or battery backup, try one and see if it improves.

Your problem is not your ISP, but the cheap residential class wireless router.

Buy an actual Cisco, Proxim, etc Commercial grade equipment and you will not have those problems.

2nd best thing, buy a linksys WRT router and flash with DD-WRT

A lot of wireless hardware and especially the software to go with it is/can be nicely flaky. I had quite a lot of issues with our (admittedly cheap) ASUS wireless router initially - connection wasn't stable, would time out or reboot randomly. Matters improved massively when I replaced the ASUS firmware with DD-WRT but it would still reboot randomly. Having the cable company put in a new cable modem after the one that was in there went south fixed that issue...

IOW, some of the issues might be router issues, but I'd also check if there are other wireless networks around you that might cause interference. You might be able to solve this by using different channels. It might also make sense to invest in a decent wireless router (which is actually what I'm planning to do next here), but if you get one I'd check that it also supports the 5 GHz bands if the devices you have can use that.

That said, if your router is supported by DD-WRT, I'd try flashing it with that first.

My new microwave bleeds so much EM Radiation that the home (Cisco, not a cheap one either) router is unusable during microwave operation.

The heater doesn't knock it out, but the AC must pull more current as when the AC kicks in, we lose connectivity in half (furthest distance) in the house.

I have a DLink Wireless G router in my house. Its fast and reliable. I have 2 iPhones, a wii, a PS3, my wife's business machines and my home office and both of our home office VOIPs all served thru it.

Location is everything - you can't set it atop the microwave or put it on the other side of a few walls but if you can place it in the center of a normal residence away from strong interference it should be fine unless there is something wrong with it.

Do you have a 2.8 ghz (or is it 1.4 ghz?) cordless phone in the house? That can fubar some wireless networks, too.

I have an Apple 82011.g airport network set up with 1 base station ethernetted to the FiOS router, 1 relay station upstairs, and a mini station that pipes music to the entertainment system and handles the PS3/Wii internet connections. It supports at least 3 computers, 4 internet-enabled phones, and the consoles for online gaming pretty dang reliably, considering the variety of systems using it.

I've had the same Linksys WRT54g for 7 or so years. I put a Zyxel X-550 in my cousin's house in 2006 and it is still working fine.

just go wired, problem solved

I second DD-WRT as a replacement for the POS firmware on most Linksys/Cisco routers. Much more powerful and able to more quickly resolve issues as it is open source.

I use an WRT610N with wireless-N and DD-WRT to stream audio/video to 4 different PCs, an iPad, iPhones and two laptops. Seems to work just fine in my 1700sqft multi-level house.

Another thing to watch for is what wireless channel you're trying to use. DD-WRT will tell you what other wireless networks are broadcasting in your area and what channel they are using so you can find one between the others.

My problem was leeching neighbors killing my connection, wife setup the network as unsecured.

When "we" upgraded to N, I secured it with a simple password and guess what, the network almost NEVER goes down now, expect for the occasional cable modem quitting and needing a reset.

Brian

I recently bought a Cradlepoint router. It is fantastic. It does WiFi with all the options, but I have the WiFi turned off as I just use it wired for now. It has a USB port on it so I can plug my Virgin Mobile dongle directly into it for internet access. I also like that it has a physical switch on the back to turn the WiFi off. It is so much more stable than the Windoze XP box I was using for ICS. I've messed with various other brands, but I'm going to buy Cradlepoint from here out whenever possible.

We have a Belkin "N" wireless router and haven't had any problems.

Datsun1500 wrote: I had similar issues. My ipad would drop signal about every 2 minutes. I spent the $$ on an apple airport and have it in the same location as the other one. No issues at all with 3 laptops, 2 mac minis, 5 iphones, 2 ipads, and a nook connecting to it. Well worth the $$

Dang, you guys have spent more on personal electronics than I have on cars in the last couple of years!

Bryce

I have a Linksys WirelessG 2.4 gig and it's been rock reliable. I can be in the Garage Majal 250 feet from the thing with all kinds of walls etc in between and the signal is 5 bars.

TPLink it is for me.
Flashed with ddwrt..

Using a Netgear WGR614v6 from Salvation Armani for $5, works flawlessly !

OP: Yes.

Apple airport here. Returned three unreliable routers (linksys, d-link, some off-brand I can't remember from newegg) before getting this one about a year and a half ago, and I can't even remember the last time the Apple router dropped a connection. It cost twice as much as any the others, but appears to have been totally worth it.

I have a Linksys router, but the key was to add an amplifier from Hawking Technologies to it. Works all the time everytime.

I have a Belkin G-Router at one end of my house and as long as the $15.00 microwave is not used I can use it on the crapper at the other end of Casa Kidrock (16x80 modular paradise) with the Belkin wireless card that can not pull better than 54.0 Mbps even when on top of the router (100.00 Mbps when hard lined).

I am relatively happy with the setup but remember I have very low expectations when I am dealing with a $50.00 laptop, a $25.00 router, a free wireless card, a $75.00 printer all stuffed in a $30,000 mobile home.

I just ran a "clean" phone line for my dsl modem and its been awesome ever since, along with plugging it into it own dedicated surge protected outlet. old phone lines were fine for regular telephone, but had too much noise for the DSL, which was causing the modem to reboot often, which in turn was causing the linksys wireless router to loose signal, and the whole set up was crashing every couple of hours.

After that worked pretty good, i dug out the netgear dgn2000 i picked up for $40 last year (that wouldn't stay connected) hooked it up and its been almost flawless and very fast ever since.

so that being said, lack of clean power and iffy incoming signal line seem to be core factors that affect the transmission the most.