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pepper brooks

By pepper brooks
in Can You Help Me With This?

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pepper brooks

pepper brooks 580

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I have att fiber internet.  I run it through a nitehawk router.  Not sure this is a great set up.  My wireless router and att modem are all upstairs in the center of the house.  That said my wifi coverage isn't great.  Also my speeds aren't that great either despite having technicians come out to try and improve matters.  Do I need a better provider, better wireless coverage, wifi booster?  What?  I know jack shit about any of this other than I pay a lot for internet and bought a separate router over the ATT hardware, and my service seems pretty minor league for what I spend. I'm in Houston, west university neighborhood if that matters.  

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tokamak

tokamak 6431

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One thing you can try that's free is switching the channel on your router. If a neighbor is using the same channel, it could be causing interference. If you have access to an Android device, there are free apps that will show you what's nearby on what part of the spectrum.

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Dahobbs

Dahobbs 17625

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1 hour ago, pepper brooks said:

I have att fiber internet.  I run it through a nitehawk router.  Not sure this is a great set up.  My wireless router and att modem are all upstairs in the center of the house.  That said my wifi coverage isn't great.  Also my speeds aren't that great either despite having technicians come out to try and improve matters.  Do I need a better provider, better wireless coverage, wifi booster?  What?  I know jack shit about any of this other than I pay a lot for internet and bought a separate router over the ATT hardware, and my service seems pretty minor league for what I spend. I'm in Houston, west university neighborhood if that matters.  

Plug in directly to the ATT router and go to speedtest.net. Do the same for your nighthawk. Then use your wifi and do the same from your primary devices (phone, laptop, desktop?)  in a few locations around the house. Report the results. 

Possible bottlenecks:

(1) your ISP is slow. I have ATT fiber gigapower in Houston. It has been pretty awesome from the get go (gigabit up and down consistently, less than 3 ms of latency). I'm not sure about the lesser tiers of service. What do you have?

(2) your router combination is slow. ATT is a bit wonky with their routers and fiber service. You can use a third-party router, but it requires passing through the ATT router. If you do this wrong, things may not be running at optimal speeds. 

(3) your wifi is slow (I assume running through the nighthawk). Provide a model #. 

(4) your wifi coverage is bad. This is where placement of the wifi-router matters. You may want to look into mesh wifi if this is the issue. 

(5) your devices' wifi receivers are poor. Even the best connection with the best wifi isn't going to give you great speeds if not supported by the wifi-receiver. 

Once we know the results of the tests, we can start to diagnose the problem. 

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pepper brooks

pepper brooks 580

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40 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Plug in directly to the ATT router and go to speedtest.net. Do the same for your nighthawk. Then use your wifi and do the same from your primary devices (phone, laptop, desktop?)  in a few locations around the house. Report the results. 

Possible bottlenecks:

(1) your ISP is slow. I have ATT fiber gigapower in Houston. It has been pretty awesome from the get go (gigabit up and down consistently, less than 3 ms of latency). I'm not sure about the lesser tiers of service. What do you have?

(2) your router combination is slow. ATT is a bit wonky with their routers and fiber service. You can use a third-party router, but it requires passing through the ATT router. If you do this wrong, things may not be running at optimal speeds. 

(3) your wifi is slow (I assume running through the nighthawk). Provide a model #. 

(4) your wifi coverage is bad. This is where placement of the wifi-router matters. You may want to look into mesh wifi if this is the issue. 

(5) your devices' wifi receivers are poor. Even the best connection with the best wifi isn't going to give you great speeds if not supported by the wifi-receiver. 

Once we know the results of the tests, we can start to diagnose the problem. 

excellent. thank you very much for the information.  I actually think 4 is the issue.  Problem is I can't move my wifi.  

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pepper brooks

pepper brooks 580

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48 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

Plug in directly to the ATT router and go to speedtest.net. Do the same for your nighthawk. Then use your wifi and do the same from your primary devices (phone, laptop, desktop?)  in a few locations around the house. Report the results. 

Possible bottlenecks:

(1) your ISP is slow. I have ATT fiber gigapower in Houston. It has been pretty awesome from the get go (gigabit up and down consistently, less than 3 ms of latency). I'm not sure about the lesser tiers of service. What do you have?

(2) your router combination is slow. ATT is a bit wonky with their routers and fiber service. You can use a third-party router, but it requires passing through the ATT router. If you do this wrong, things may not be running at optimal speeds. 

(3) your wifi is slow (I assume running through the nighthawk). Provide a model #. 

(4) your wifi coverage is bad. This is where placement of the wifi-router matters. You may want to look into mesh wifi if this is the issue. 

(5) your devices' wifi receivers are poor. Even the best connection with the best wifi isn't going to give you great speeds if not supported by the wifi-receiver. 

Once we know the results of the tests, we can start to diagnose the problem. 

I have ATT Internet 100.  it is part of a promo and I get it for $50 a month rather than their advertised $70/ month.  I have a fiber line coming into the house.  Should I upgrade to the Internet 300 or 1000 package?

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Dahobbs

Dahobbs 17625

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45 minutes ago, pepper brooks said:

I have ATT Internet 100.  it is part of a promo and I get it for $50 a month rather than their advertised $70/ month.  I have a fiber line coming into the house.  Should I upgrade to the Internet 300 or 1000 package?

That is up to your needs. 100 mbps is certainly enough for most folks for surfing and streaming. Let's test your connections first and see if you are getting the advertised speed. At 100 mbps, your wireless should rarely be your bottleneck absent poor coverage. 

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pepper brooks

pepper brooks 580

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4 hours ago, Dahobbs said:

That is up to your needs. 100 mbps is certainly enough for most folks for surfing and streaming. Let's test your connections first and see if you are getting the advertised speed. At 100 mbps, your wireless should rarely be your bottleneck absent poor coverage. 

We run the satellite tv, two gaming systems, and about 10-12 other devices on the system.  Testing i seem to be getting advertised speeds. 

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Dahobbs

Dahobbs 17625

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11 minutes ago, pepper brooks said:

We run the satellite tv, two gaming systems, and about 10-12 other devices on the system.  Testing i seem to be getting advertised speeds. 

What experiences are deficient for you? Gaming is latency driven, but with fiber I expect yours is sub 10ms. With that many devices you may be exceeding your bandwidth, especially if multiple are streaming at the same time. Att gigabit is 80 a month for me, so maybe it is worth it for you. also, no data caps. Keep in mind, you will not get full speed over wireless most likely for any single device. 

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Lobwedgephil

Lobwedgephil 1139

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19 minutes ago, pepper brooks said:

We run the satellite tv, two gaming systems, and about 10-12 other devices on the system.  Testing i seem to be getting advertised speeds. 

Your 100 is fine, get a mesh system for better wifi coverage. You don't have to "move your wifi" as you say. The base stays where your router is now, and plug in other nodes where needed, solves your coverage problem. 

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Dahobbs

Dahobbs 17625

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32 minutes ago, Lobwedgephil said:

Your 100 is fine, get a mesh system for better wifi coverage. You don't have to "move your wifi" as you say. The base stays where your router is now, and plug in other nodes where needed, solves your coverage problem. 

If he is getting the advertised speed throughout his house, the issue isn't his wifi coverage. 

Edited by Dahobbs
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Dahobbs

Dahobbs 17625

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Just now, Lobwedgephil said:

He has mentioned his coverage is bad several times. Where he has wifi, he tests normal speeds. Seems like a coverage issue to me with one router, but maybe not. 

Maybe. He doesn't seem to really know. That is why I asked him to actually test and report numbers (and for him to describe the problems he experiences). I would want to know up/down and latency at different points. Hell, for all I know his actual issue is his upload bandwidth. Most plans have the download/upload ratio too much in favor of download. People really underestimate how important upload can be nowadays. 

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kevwun

kevwun 15797

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I hate AT&T internet service because of Dahobbs' 2nd point.  I don't know why they continue to insist you have to use an AT&T Router even when you don't need it.  I only use them when they are the only internet option.  AT&T support will also make you contemplate murder.

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Liquor and Poker

Liquor and Poker 3659

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1 hour ago, kevwun said:

I hate AT&T internet service because of Dahobbs' 2nd point.  I don't know why they continue to insist you have to use an AT&T Router even when you don't need it.  I only use them when they are the only internet option.  AT&T support will also make you contemplate murder.

I had AT&T Gigafiber or whatever in Dallas for 2 years without any issues.  Here it's Xfinity Gigabit (even though I live really close to the OP, no AT&T fiber for me).

Xfinity is slower (around 780 vs 960mbps direct connected to the modem, and the Wifi maxes around 300 when in Dallas it was around 480 on 5g - same router, doesn't matter what channel).  Xfinity also drops enough that my alarm system sends alerts almost nightly to tell me it's switching to cellular, and, best of all, Xfinity costs an extra $60/mo (70%) more for unlimited (over a TB per month). 

I'd take AT&T fiber in a heartbeat.

Edited by Liquor and Poker
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