Internet connections

[texaskdog]

Time Warner keeps trying to get me to get their faster internet.  Never mind that my computer is a piece of junk.  I love my work computer, might spend the $$$ to buy one of these.

[cpzilliacus]

Time Warner keeps trying to get me to get their faster internet.  Never mind that my computer is a piece of junk.  I love my work computer, might spend the $$$ to buy one of these.

I have yet to experience any broadband Internet connection that comes close to FiOS. I admit that I am very spoiled.

Not at my office in Washington, D.C. (where the connection is pretty good) and not on other connections (including in particular Comcast and some broadband connections at hotels I have stayed in).

[kphoger]

Time Warner keeps trying to get me to get their faster internet.  Never mind that my computer is a piece of junk.  I love my work computer, might spend the $$$ to buy one of these.

Cox sure doesn't like the fact that I have no video cable or land line phone service at all, and have the slowest internet speed available.  They call me all the time, and don't like my answer that I work for them via contractor and, if I want to upgrade my service, all I have to do is walk two doors down the hallway and set it up (with free installation, no less).

The other day, my coworker got a call from a sales rep while she was at work.  She said, "I'm dispatching for you guys right now, and I need to get back to work, so good-bye."

FWIW, if you live in an area with Cox service, you really can't do better than Cox for internet connection.  At least around here, they're head and shoulders above the competition.  (Maybe in other areas, there's a better one out there, I don't know.)  Even though we work on a node-based system, by which you share bandwidth with your neighbors, you still end up with more bandwidth than other companies who guarantee your specific house a certain level of service.  Most serious gamers around here, for example, would never think of switching.  Anyone who doesn't stream video or do online gaming can get by just fine with the slowest speed offered (even though most people get talked into a faster speed).

[cpzilliacus]

FWIW, if you live in an area with Cox service, you really can't do better than Cox for internet connection.  At least around here, they're head and shoulders above the competition.  (Maybe in other areas, there's a better one out there, I don't know.)  Even though we work on a node-based system, by which you share bandwidth with your neighbors, you still end up with more bandwidth than other companies who guarantee your specific house a certain level of service.  Most serious gamers around here, for example, would never think of switching.  Anyone who doesn't stream video or do online gaming can get by just fine with the slowest speed offered (even though most people get talked into a faster speed).

Verizon (and Verizon FiOS) competes with Cox in Fairfax County, Virginia. 

Originally, the cable TV franchise in the county was owned by Media General (same company that owns the Richmond Times-Dispatch), but Cox bought them out some years ago. 

"Traditional" phone service in most of the county was always C&P Telephone (one of the corporate ancestors of Verizon) - some of the outer parts were Contel, then GT&E, but became Verizon when Bell Atlantic merged with GT&E to form Verizon.  Now the two compete pretty hard, though everyone that I know personally in Fairfax County is a Verizon FiOS subscriber.

[kphoger]

Verizon doesn't offer cable service here, so it may very well compete where you live.  Phone service is a mixed bag in our competition with AT&T here.  We offer digital phone service in this area which, similar to digital video cable, is better only inasmuch as your wiring is up to snuff.  Being a passive system, our phone equipment is not constantly pushing power through the line, but rather only when you pick up the phone or a call comes in.  NIU-based phone systems (the use of which by Cox ranges from nonexistent to heavy, depending on your area) constantly pass power through the line, burning through any corrosion or other faults.  So, to switch over from AT&T, for example, or even to switch over from NIU to digital within Cox, your call quality will likely improve, but you may experience complete call drops due to poor wiring.  The general signal quality and prevailing wiring issues in a given region vary geographically.

[vtk]

Hey Scott / Steve / Sven (I'm terrible with names), I think we need to fork this thread...

[kphoger]

Eh, I'm done.  I've run out of things to say.

[Michael]

I agree that the Cable vs. FiOS discussion should be split, but I figured I'd post before I forgot.

I have 1 Mbps DSL, but am currently using a router with DD-WRT to pick up an open WiFi signal that is 15 Mbps from Time Warner.  Most of my friends (and even my mom and stepdad) have FiOS.  I can think of four friends that have Time Warner, but FiOS isn't available at their houses anyway.  My mom and stepdad decided to switch to FiOS since Time Warner was getting too expensive.  They had Time Warner for TV, and Verizon for phone and DSL.  One of my friends had dial-up before his family got FiOS, and since they had a poor quality phone line on their road, he only got 28 Kbps.  One family I'm friends with can't get FiOS, Time Warner, or DSL, so they use a MiFi mobile hotspot.  The dad even works for Verizon, and part of his job is installing FiOS at Verizon's COs.  All of my friends love their FiOS, and I hear that a lot of people complain about Time Warner, but none of my friends ever have.  If I could afford it, I'd order FiOS since I average 2 GB of data per day (not a typo!).  Good thing I'm not on a mobile data plan!

[kphoger]

Time Warner does seem to do some things the "old school" way, which seem rather crazy, but often the old way works just fine (this is a general truth in life).  MiFi is a cool thing, and I would be interested to hear people's take on it (OK, split the thread).  We don't have a Cox/TW competition here, which is why my contracting company is able to work for both–Cox in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas, but Time Warner in the KC area.

[vtk]

We don't have Fios here in Ohio (at least, not around Columbus) but we have AT&T U-Verse which I think is pretty much the same service.  We're U-Verse customers here at home and enjoy the service – though we pay for what we get, to turn the adage around.

[Alps]

Hey Scott / Steve / Sven (I'm terrible with names), I think we need to fork this thread...

I enjoy forking.

[bugo]

My friend had Cox cable, and occasionally the internet would quit working for a minute or two.  I haven't had that problem with my DSL.

[Alps]

I've never had a good time with cable. Connections cutting out, terrible upload speeds. Blackouts for hours or days when everything else electrical worked fine. I've never had a bad time with fiber optic.

[realjd]

Brighthouse Cable. Paying for 60 Mbit, averaging around 75 Mbit on the speed test.

When I'm away from home, I usually get 20-30 Mbit with AT&T LTE, and I've seen as high as 57 Mbit.

Brighthouse doesn't do fiber to the house like FiOS but it does do fiber to the node (outside box). Seems good enough to me. And I don't have to deal with Verizon!

[kphoger]

My friend had Cox cable, and occasionally the internet would quit working for a minute or two.  I haven't had that problem with my DSL.

We used to have that issue.  It helps to have people at work who will come over and troubleshoot wiring for free.  After having them do that a couple of times and replacing our modem with a newer model, it pretty much never happens now.  Cable is very much dependent on your house's wiring:  good wiring gives you awesome service, but poor wiring will give you headaches (and service calls).  I don't doubt that U-Verse works fine for most people (it's probably comparable to the Cox internet service I have in my house) but, when you start needing serious bandwidth, ours can't be beat–at least in this area.  I personally don't need anywhere near that kind of super-slick service, and most people don't either–which is why I have the slowest speed we offer, and why people are happy with other providers' service too.

Besides the WWW, we also extensively use our internet connection for Netflix and Hulu.  Some of our intermittent Netflix problems were solved with the aforementioned wiring and modem equipment changes, but updating the firmware on both our router and Wii every so often help a lot as well.  That's something I never would have thought of on my own, but let's hear it for online help forums!

[J N Winkler]

My friend had Cox cable, and occasionally the internet would quit working for a minute or two.  I haven't had that problem with my DSL.

We used to have that issue.  It helps to have people at work who will come over and troubleshoot wiring for free.  After having them do that a couple of times and replacing our modem with a newer model, it pretty much never happens now.

We had a similar experience last July when we upgraded to a DOCSIS 3.0 cable modem and added a new dual-band wireless-N router, keeping the old wireless-G router connected to the network via a bridge connection to the new router.  Before these upgrades the Internet connection would drop at least once a day; now it goes for weeks and weeks without dropping.

I am not sure which element of the upgrade "fixed" the problem.  Possibly DOCSIS 3.0 support helped.  Possibly the QOS control built into the wireless-N protocol helped.  But I still suspect the biggest factor was the change in spectrum allocation and the distribution of our devices among three wireless networks, each operating in its own channel range isolated from the others and (largely) from our neighbors' wireless networks.  Wifi, as I understand it, can communicate with only one device per time window, so connection quality improves the fewer devices there are on the network in general, and the fewer devices that are only just within network range.  The biggest improvement in connection reliability was on my computer, which is in the room next to the wireless-N router, and the smallest was on the desktop PC one floor above the router, which connects to the wireless-G network.

In December we all got smartphones, each of which connects to the house wifi.  Initially I had all three connect to the 5-GHz wireless-N network ("Berlin"), and then discovered that I could not play TV shows from my desk computer to my old laptop without cranking up the buffer setting to a frankly inconvenient value (the data feeds from desk computer to router over the 2.4-GHz wireless-N network--"Paris"--and then from the router to the old laptop via "Berlin").  This problem went away once I isolated each smartphone onto its own wireless network.

[kphoger]

I am not sure which element of the upgrade "fixed" the problem.  Possibly DOCSIS 3.0 support helped.  Possibly the QOS control built into the wireless-N protocol helped.

I suspect that upgrading to a D3 modem was the biggest factor for you and me both.  I've seen fewer issues with those modems (looking out from the other side of the phone:  I route WOs and handle provisioning issues during service calls) than I used to with DOCSIS 2.0 modems, no to mention service improvement at my own house.  In fact, we haven't carried D2 modems for a while now, although we do still carry D2 eMTAs.

Wifi, as I understand it, can communicate with only one device per time window, so connection quality improves the fewer devices there are on the network in general, and the fewer devices that are only just within network range.  The biggest improvement in connection reliability was on my computer, which is in the room next to the wireless-N router, and the smallest was on the desktop PC one floor above the router, which connects to the wireless-G network.

I just asked a know-it-all guy here at work.  He likes using lots of technical jargon as a way of impressing people, so I didn't understand everything he said.  But the gist is that wireless routers are not limited to communication with one device at a time.  Your IP address receiving the packets is on the other side of the connection from the devices (PC, Wii, etc.).  He said routers are programmed for communication with 40 or 144 devices, right out of the box; the only reason a router would only be communicating with one device is if it had been reprogrammed (dumbed down) to do so.

Of course, the best way to improve signal from your router is to hard-wire the connection with ethernet (Cat 5e) cable, especially since signal loss doesn't really increase with length the way coaxial cable does.

Our internet connection comes through the basement, and we use a retail router for our Wii, which is upstairs and across a wall from the router.  It's surprising that you've still had issues on the floor above your router, since signal tends to travel upwards from the router.  Not knowing the layout of your house, perhaps there are other issues at play.  I'm not an installer, though, so there's a lot more to it than what I can say.

[kphoger]

OK, he just called back to qualify his response to me by saying that, judging by the level of detail in your description, your issue exceeds even his knowldge of cable.  And, honestly, if there's something about cable that this guy doesn't know, then you're going to be hard-pressed to find someone within the cable industry who does know it (at least someone you would actually have access to).  You might want to consult a third party who specializes in wireless networks.

He did mention a similar situation a customer of his had once, where a neighbor had hacked the internet connection.  For what it's worth.

[vdeane]

Building/floor construction can affect it too.  One of the buildings at college is essentially a concrete bunker... wireless doesn't travel far here, and I only have one bar of service in the lecture halls (four normally).  Another building has no cell service or wireless in the basement because the floor is a special type of concrete only used here (don't remember what it was invented for... it has something to do with the building's LEET certification).

[realjd]

Building/floor construction can affect it too.  One of the buildings at college is essentially a concrete bunker... wireless doesn't travel far here, and I only have one bar of service in the lecture halls (four normally).  Another building has no cell service or wireless in the basement because the floor is a special type of concrete only used here (don't remember what it was invented for... it has something to do with the building's LEET certification).

This. Also, go into the wireless settings and switch to a different channel. Keep your router away from other interference generators like microwaves. Did I mention setting it to a different channel? None of your neighbors did that so you should be able to find a channel with less interference.

[J N Winkler]

I just asked a know-it-all guy here at work.  He likes using lots of technical jargon as a way of impressing people, so I didn't understand everything he said.  But the gist is that wireless routers are not limited to communication with one device at a time.  Your IP address receiving the packets is on the other side of the connection from the devices (PC, Wii, etc.).  He said routers are programmed for communication with 40 or 144 devices, right out of the box; the only reason a router would only be communicating with one device is if it had been reprogrammed (dumbed down) to do so.

Not being a know-it-all guy (at least in this particular field), I think I explained poorly.  What I understand to be the case is that while there can be multiple devices in a wireless network, a radio in a wireless access point cannot exchange data packets with more than one device at the same time.  A dual-band router can exchange data packets with two devices simultaneously, but this is because it has two radios (one each for the 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz bands).  The access point and the wireless devices use handshaking to establish a time-bound interval (I think it is called a "frame," but I am not sure) in which data passes from the access point to one device, or vice versa.  The data is accompanied with error-checking bits and when the receiving radio does not receive the data free of errors, it requests retransmission.

What this means, as I understand it, is that a wireless device that is just on the periphery of the access point's radio range reduces available bandwidth for every other device on the network because it is more likely to "waste" frames with requests for retransmission of error-filled packets.  Similarly, because 2.4-GHz wireless-N is designed to be backward-compatible with wireless-G, a single wireless-G device on a wireless-N network will pull speeds and bandwidth down to that of a wireless-G network while it is exchanging data with the access point because wireless-G devices do not support dual-channel operation and have (I think) intrinsically lower data throughput per channel.

Our internet connection comes through the basement, and we use a retail router for our Wii, which is upstairs and across a wall from the router.  It's surprising that you've still had issues on the floor above your router, since signal tends to travel upwards from the router.  Not knowing the layout of your house, perhaps there are other issues at play.  I'm not an installer, though, so there's a lot more to it than what I can say.

At our house, both wireless routers are perched next to each other on top of empty binders on top of metal filing cabinets in the basement, which is unfinished and of poured-slab concrete construction.  Walls are sheetrock nailed to lumber studs, and the ground floor is fiberboard supported by lumber joists at approximate one-foot spacing.  Three PCs that connect to the network regularly are also in the basement, while the fourth PC is upstairs.  The smartphones rove around the house, though mine usually stays in the basement.  The wifi routers have three radios between them and we run one network per radio--"Rome" (wireless-G, for legacy G devices and wireless-N devices with low bandwidth demand), "Paris" (wireless-N with wireless-G backward compatibility turned off, for wireless-N devices which can operate in the 2.4-GHz band only), and "Berlin" (5-GHz devices only).  The default channel assignment for the routers we and our neighbors use is Channel 6 (at least in the 2.4-GHz band), and surveys of the wireless environment over several weeks last summer (using NetStumbler and InSSIDer) led me to believe that none of our next-door neighbors have altered this default setting.  In the 2.4-GHz band I set "Rome" to operate on Channel 1 and "Paris" to operate on Channel 11 (it goes dual-channel on Channels 11 + 7).  I believe we are the only ones in the neighborhood so far with a wireless-N network in the 5-GHz band, but even so I deliberately chose to set "Berlin" at a channel above the lowest available (which increases the power) to counteract the tendency of 5-GHz signals to attenuate steeply with distance.

Typically, InSSIDer (run on my PC in the basement and thus reflecting signal strength as measured by the radio in my PC's wireless card) reports signal strength of our networks in the -45 dB range, while the signals of our neighbors' networks are -95 dB or lower if they are even visible at all.  On the PC upstairs it is a little different--per NetStumbler, signal strength of "Rome" (the only network it can connect to) is in the -55 dB range, while the neighbors' networks are generally visible and around -80 dB or lower.  There is a slight possibility of interference since one of the houses next door has a 2.4-GHz wireless-N network which is on Channel 6 primarily but tends to go dual-channel on Channels 6 + 2.

There is a possibility of microwave interference, but personally I don't feel it is bad enough to justify the $300 cost of a full spectrum analyzer, or hiring someone to come out and do a spectrum analysis.  I get sustained downloading speeds ranging from 40 Mbps to 56 Mbps, which is more than adequate for daily state DOT file patrol and scheduled downloading projects ranging in size from 18 GB to 65 GB.  The main constraint on our use of the connection is actually Cox's 250-GB monthly cap on total uploads and downloads.  The devices that connect to the wireless-G network are either incapable of taking advantage of the full bandwidth because of CPU/GPU issues or are routinely used only by Luddites.

[kphoger]

Yeah, you're definitely over the head of anyone in my company, and we're in the business of installing internet.  What realjd said, though, is worth reading and evaluating:  keeping your routers away from other devices (not just microwaves, but fax machines, printers, etc.) might improve your level of service.  And I also would still recommend hard-wiring at least some your computers to the routers.  Unless there's a reason to have them operating wireless, what do you stand to lose?  As I said, Cat 5e (ethernet) cable can be cut at virtually any length without losing signal, and you would no longer relying on a fickle wireless signal for your information.  With an unfinished basement, this is an especially viable option, as you can easily run the cables through the rafters and even up the wall to your upstairs location.  That's what I would do.

One more thing that should go without saying, but maybe I still need to bring up:  Many internet problems end up boiling down to the computer itself, not the internet connection.  Have you tried other devices in the problem locations to see if they operate any better?

As for your description of packet transmission only being able to be sent to one device at a time–that makes sense to me, even though, I wasn't aware routers sent packets out in the same way the headend sends them to your router.  Not being the one who actually installs this stuff, I'm not surprised I had a fundamentally flawed view of how it works.  Also, we hardly ever sell dual-band routers to people.  I suspect that's because they cost nearly three times what a single-band router costs, and people who need that kind of capability usually buy their own somewhere else anyway.

[J N Winkler]

And I also would still recommend hard-wiring at least some your computers to the routers.  Unless there's a reason to have them operating wireless, what do you stand to lose?  As I said, Cat 5e (ethernet) cable can be cut at virtually any length without losing signal, and you would no longer relying on a fickle wireless signal for your information.  With an unfinished basement, this is an especially viable option, as you can easily run the cables through the rafters and even up the wall to your upstairs location.  That's what I would do.

We might do that if conditions warrant at some point in the future, but right now it makes more sense for us to keep the cord cut since we get acceptable bandwidth everywhere a wifi-enabled device is likely to be used, and the connection as a whole is very reliable.

One more thing that should go without saying, but maybe I still need to bring up:  Many internet problems end up boiling down to the computer itself, not the internet connection.  Have you tried other devices in the problem locations to see if they operate any better?

I should say that the upstairs computer does not have a "problem" connection.  It is only the device that experienced the smallest improvement in connection quality and speed when the network hardware was upgraded in July 2012.  It is an old (2004 vintage) Dell desktop PC with a nonfunctional factory wireless card, and is actually on its second USB wifi dongle.  It really should be replaced with a new computer, but the principal user does not want to move beyond Windows XP.

After looking at the neighborhood in NetStumbler, I think it also suffers from the worst interference of any wifi device in the house, since it is at the front of the house and one of the families across the street appears to be running an AT&T-provided 2Wire router on Channel 1.  But at that computer our network is at -55 dB and the other network rarely rises above -73 dB, so the interference really isn't bad enough to need fixing.

Also, we hardly ever sell dual-band routers to people.  I suspect that's because they cost nearly three times what a single-band router costs, and people who need that kind of capability usually buy their own somewhere else anyway.

This is more or less what I would expect--when the inside equipment is provided (and installed?) by the cable company, I would expect the focus to be on getting the customer online, with the minimum of frills.  I think most people who want more elaborate provision, such as dual-band routers, buy them themselves (we got ours from Amazon.com) and either DIY or hire a Geek Squad type of outfit.

[Stratuscaster]

Using Comcast 20Mbps service with one of their Arris eMTA boxes at the moment although that will likely change once I purchase my own cable modem (since I can buy one for what I pay to rent the existing one) and kill the voice service that I don't need (and go with something like OBIHai VOIP.)

The eMTA feeds to a Netgear WNDR3700 Wireless Router. It's got two wireless networks on it now - a 2.4GHz N/G/B for guest use, laptops, and older devices like the kids' Nintendo DS systems, and a 5GHz N network for my upstairs PC and a couple of laptops that support 5GHz N.

The WNDR3700 has 4 Gigabit Ethernet ports. There are two 8-port Gigabit switches connected to it - one for the living room, one for the basement. In the living room there is an Xbox 360, a Nintendo Wii, a Sony PS2, a Roku XD, a Brother laser printer, and an Epson Workforce all-in-one device. In the basement are (4) PCs, a Minecraft server, and another Xbox 360.

Surprisingly, with all those devices, I have yet to hit Comcast's 250GB cap.

The router was a refurb, picked up for $60. The switches were $20 each at Newegg. Not all that expensive at all. Checked the area with InSSIDer and NetStumbler, moved my channels away from those around me, and it's been pretty solid overall. The only downtime we experience seems to occur when Comcast is working on the lines outside or adding a new subscriber.

I just installed a couple of D-Link DIR-615 dual-band wireless routers - one at my in-laws, one at my church. Both were refurbs, $20 each. Flashed the DD-WRT firmware on them and I have capabilities usually only found on higher-end gear (like virtual wireless networks and hotspots). The one at church is actually just running as an access point, since there's already a Comcast Business Class router/switch in place. I ended up replacing the one at the in-laws with an older Linksys WRT-54GL (also running DD-WRT) with improved-range antennas - the signal on the DIR-615 just couldn't make it through their house for some reason. They didn't need the dual-band/Wireless-N capability anyway.

[allniter89]

Hey Scott / Steve / Sven (I'm terrible with names), I think we need to fork this thread...

I enjoy forking.

forking is cool.