Electronics

[Allegheny]

Our router is in our spare bedroom.

I am on my laptop in the living room. My husband is using his laptop in the spare bedroom where router is. Whenever he is there my speed drops significantly. He is not doing anything special, just reading the newspaper. We are both using the router wirelessly.

When we are both in the living room, he on tablet and I on laptop, we have almost equal speed.

Is there a way to dedicate speed to devices or am I just stuck with this issue? I've talked to tech folks from our internet provider and didn't get a defined answer. Unfortunately we only get 10 Mbps and as of yet have no service available to go higher.

Many Thanks

[Lynnj]

If you've already tried restarting the router and the cable modem, and see no difference, then you may want to look into replacing the router with an updated version.

Look for something that is dual band. It will have a 2 and 5 ghz band. To your question about is there something that you can use to assign to different things, this is the way to do it. You'll set up the dual band for both bands, probably best to give different names to each band, which will make it easier to select which one you want when looking for it on the device.

Only newer technology devices are able to connect to the 5 ghz band. Most newer cell phones, tablets, and laptops. Go online and look up the specs for all of your devices to see if they offer technology that connects to 5 ghz. It should list it in the wireless section of the spec sheet.

[Nuttmeg]

Can you move the wireless router, and cable modem to a more central location in your home? This may improve the signal some. http://www.wikihow.com/Improve-WiFi-Reception

http://lifehacker.com/5931743/top-10-ways-to-boost-your-home-wi-fi

[Allegheny]

Gee thank you both so much. After talking with Windstream, our ISP, it sounded pretty grim; but that was a couple of years ago. I just felt with today's updated technology there had to be something to address this issue.

DH is more techy than I am. I am going to share this with him. I don't know where else we could locate our router, but he will. It was replaced (updated) quite some time ago, so perhaps we need to research getting a newer one. It may help our speed also. We were upgraded just recently from 6mbps to 10mbps, but the speed testing we have done rarely has us receiving 10. I know this varies but sometimes its crawling around at 7 or below. We're very rural and 10 is the highest speed offered by our ISP, but recently Comcast just installed lines so we may need check them out and see what they offer.

Again, Thanks so much!!! Much appreciated.

Our devices aren't real old, except for the HP laptop he uses in the small bedroom with the router. His tablet is about 2 months old and my MacBook Pro is going on 3 years (I know old in technology years).

[hckynut]

You might want to go to this link and check out one of the latest in routers. Download speed via your provider is only part of what causes wi-fi to slow down, and having a router with older technology is the other part. The more devices using a router the slower it can get regardless of your download speed.

We had a 1.5mbps for many years and finally was able to upgrade to 8mbps a couple months ago. No way I could even watch Utube videos let along have more than 1 device using our wi-fi at a time. Fortunately I ain't into much to do with wi-fi so my wife is pretty much on her own there.

This is one of the latest (802.11ac) in routers.

One of the latest in routers

[jaxs mom]

Windstream has really poor internet speeds. Have you checked with the local phone company to see if they can do better? Windstream does offer service where I am ( I'm in a town of 2500) and the fastest they offer here is 12mbps. I can get 107 mbps from another cable company but we choose to use 50mbps. We do not use Windstream.

You could choose to hook up with gigabit ethernet ( you need the router to be compatible and a CAT6 not CAT5 cable to get it but your macbook is already compatible) during those times that you need faster speed, you're downloading a large file or feel like working near the router. Other than that, you need a better internet service provider with faster speeds. Moving the router isn't going to fix the problem if your getting massive slow speeds from your ISP.

[gardenman]

Just a technical point here, but 7 mbps isn't "crawling", it's pretty darn fast for most purposes. You really shouldn't be having issues with that fast of an Internet connection. Is it the fastest in the world? No, but for most users 7 mbps is perfectly fine. You should be able to stream HD video with no trouble at 7 mbps. Is faster better? Sure, but what you've got is pretty darn good. If you read the fine print on ISP contracts they typically list the highest speed possible to receive, but never guarantee you'll actually receive those speeds.

[jaxs mom]

To me it's crawling. My most recent test was showing 28 mbps on my desktop while sharing bandwidth with my husband who was online gaming in an MMORPG at the same time, his desktop using the wifi while I'm using gigabit ethernet.

[Allegheny]

Thank you all again.

jaxs mom, Windstream is our local phone company, it is the only one that serves our immediate area. We bundle a package with them for phone, internet and Dish. Dish could provide satellite internet, but I think that could be pricey and possibly not guarantee faster speed.

I've talked with Windstream about speed and they just upgraded our area to 10mbps. Other places can get faster speed, it just depends where you live. I was paying extra for 6mbps, but when the rep heard Comcast was putting in lines, she upgraded us to 10 for a year and knocked off the extra "highest speed available" charge. So basically we getting 10 for the price of 3.

We aren't into downloading files or streaming videos, so the 10mbps is serving us pretty well, its just the issue when DH is using his device near the router my speed tanks. So we may have to look for a different router. I don't know what gigabit ethernet is, but I will find out and see if that is an option we may consider.

The people here on the electronics forum are wonderful. I thank all of you who have responded. You all never made me feel dumb for asking questions and I really appreciate that.

[jaxs mom]

Satellite internet is going to be a lot more expensive unless you use very little data. The ones I've looked at are charging about 40 dollars a month for only 25 gigs of data. That's just really high. The speeds are mostly 10 mbps with one at 15 so it's not even significantly faster. I'm not sure how much data you use monthly but there is no way my house could just use 25 gigs. I'm bundled too, so it's hard to separate out just the internet cost but even my cable plan at 15 mbps includes 250 gigs of data a month. Now that we moved to 50 mbps our plan limit is 350 gigs, and that was just a 20 dollar a month increase to upgrade.

If it was me, I'd check out what speeds Comcast can give you. Since they are new to the area they are also probably signing people up with no installation charges and giving huge discounts for the first year as incentive so make sure to found out the charges once the introductory prices end. Although you can often call and get some new plan once it expires.