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hmsmith
Premium Member
join:2004-01-15
Arlington, VA

hmsmith

Premium Member

Possible Router Upgrade?

I have an Actiontec MI424 RevE router that was installed with FiOS in late 2009. Currently we have the 50/25 internet plan.

On a local Speedtest site we can get 57/38 via ethernet but 1/2 those amounts via wireless with a pc/ipad/iphone close to the router. Straying more than 10' away, the wireless drops sometimes by 1/2 again. The router is in our lower level since we have desktops and laptops connected by ethernet due to better connection. Using a laptop about 20' away on the floor above is frequently problematic; the router is at the bottom of the steps and the laptop is about 5' away at the top. Connectivity at 20' on the same floor is not much better.

Strangely, the connection is better on the 3rd floor directly above the router than it is 15' or so on the same floor with the router. Seems that it has more problems broadcasting laterally that vertically.

Also, unless we are close to the router, we get a better signal from our neighbor's router - also Actiontec but later model - which is on the other side of a concrete block wall of our townhouse.

Another problem is that frequently the connection speed drops from 54mbps to around 10 or so for no apparent reason as shown on Windows network connections. This happens on two quite new Win 7 Dell laptops

I have set the router to channel 11 which seems to be better than 1 or 6. However, there are many connections in our area according to the InSSIDer program.

Is it worth trying to get Verizon to trade up our current router? At one time Verizon was offering a newer version for $99, but if the wireless connection would be no better, why bother.

I would appreciate any suggestions. Thanks.

Pureblood
'Let's Go Brandon'
Premium Member
join:2000-10-18
PorkRoll NJ
·Optimum Online
(Software) pfSense
Netgear WAX630

Pureblood

Premium Member

Friends of ours got Fios last fall. They live in 2 story signal family home probably coming in around 1200 square feet. I was over there in November helping him transfer files from an old system to their new system and noticed their Wi-Fi speeds were terrible to the second floor. This became apparent when I transferred his Outlook data file to the new system and then configured and tested Outlook. Emails with text only were dragging, then throw in an email with a small PDF file attachment under 1mb and it would take forever to download a single email. After doing a speed test I found the ActionTec Wi-Fi was just barely above dial up speed.
I had an old Linksys router flashed with dd-wrt that I was no longer using. I configured as an Access Point ONLY and gave it to them to use. Now their Wi-Fi is stable and strong to floor 2 as it should be. With my old Linksys they are getting around 48mb download which is about a 12 -14% loss off their wired connection speeds so considering they were at 2mb download speed with the ActionTec I think they did OK. You could have something going on in your environment causing issues but if you rule that out and are sure it’s the ActcionTec that is underperforming my suggestion would be instead of giving VZ another penny do what I did for our friends or simply buy an out-of-box Access point off your favorite online retailer then connect your AP to the ActionTec and disable the ActionTec wireless
hmsmith
Premium Member
join:2004-01-15
Arlington, VA

hmsmith

Premium Member

HD Ride, thank you for your response. I do have an old (2004) Linksys WRT54G router that we used when we had Verizon dsl. Gave no problems until our conversion to FiOS in 2009. However, I never upgraded its o/s (for the lack of a better term) so it would still be operating 2004.

Is there a simple way to "convert" our system as you indicated using the Linksys as the wireless? If I remember correctly, I looked in this forum a year or so ago. If you know of a post in this forum that provides this, please let me know.

It would seem that there are some standards somewhere about wireless. For ex, at 10' from router w/ no obstructions, the speed should be approx X% of the ethernet speed. I realize that once walls and floors are involved, standards would be difficult to establish.

I plan to visit our neighbors this week and determine what % dropoff I get with their Actiontecs. I think they still have the orig. 25/15 plan, but it is the %age that I am concerned about.

Thanks again for your post. The Linksys might be a work-around since I really cannot move the Actiontec very well to the 1st (main) floor.

Pureblood
'Let's Go Brandon'
Premium Member
join:2000-10-18
PorkRoll NJ
·Optimum Online
(Software) pfSense
Netgear WAX630

Pureblood

Premium Member

Barring no issues like cordless phone interference I guess all depends on how you want to proceed. As far as our friends adding the old Linksys in the role of AP severed them well, they wanted a simply solution and didn't want to make a project out of it.

If you don’t want an off-the-shelf out of box AP and would like to do a the dd-wrt method you probably only need an N router. Again if you have no environmental issues impacting your wireless you could get away with just about any AP or dd-wrt compatible device. You could probably pick up a new older Buffalo router with dd-wrt already installed from the factory for about $55 shipped if that's how you want to go. I wouldn’t pay any more than that and if you shop around you may do better. Then all you do it configure it as an Access Point and assign it an IP address outside of the ActionTec’s dhcp scope so when the VZ router reboots your router you don’t get any dhcp conflicts.

Here we are running in mixed mode with G/N and I have no plans for 5 GHz at the moment. IIRC the 5 GHz is the one that really struggles with the walls & obstacles as you mention but is great with NO obstacles, I’m certain I be corrected if that is not factual.

xirian
Premium Member
join:2003-01-26
Beacon, NY

xirian to hmsmith

Premium Member

to hmsmith
Not sure how good it is, but verizon sells a range extender for $75 that plugs into a coax connection and broadcasts on both 2.4ghz and 5ghz.
hmsmith
Premium Member
join:2004-01-15
Arlington, VA

hmsmith to Pureblood

Premium Member

to Pureblood
Thanks for the info. Suppose then that our old Linksys b/g would not work or would be too difficult to update. Had to google dd-wrt since I was not familiar w/ it. Definately I am not a network person.

I did try a cheap ($40) Netgear extender about a yr ago. Technically it worked, but did not do much good.

Read about the Actiontec access point ($75) in another thread. That may be something I have to investigate.

Apparently the "n" routers have a much stronger range. When I am on the main level, several "n" networks appear and they are not in the adjoining townhouse or the one directly behind us.

These multi-floor dwellings are a pain in many respects.

Thanks for your insights.