UPC to offer free WiFi (Wi-Free)

FuzzyZoeller

Can't see it mentioned here yet, but got a letter from UPC about the price increase. The letter went on to say the UPC will be offering free WiFi to it's broadband customers. The enclosed leaflet went on to explain how they were going to do it - by allowing UPC customers connect to other UPC customers WiFi automatically!!

I don't even know where to start with this one... :eek:

Robert Lawlor

Do customers have a choice like i wouldn't want anyone connecting to my Wi-Fi that i pay for every month.

FuzzyZoeller

You can opt out - but not yet. You have a 1 week window sometime in March. I'd imagine if you are using your modem in bridge mode you will be immune from this also.

Cuddlesworth

FuzzyZoeller wrote: »

You can opt out - but not yet. You have a 1 week window sometime in March. I'd imagine if you are using your modem in bridge mode you will be immune from this also.

I got the impression that everybody would need to have their router replaced. I don't think the majority of their current routers would be capable of doing this.

zl1whqvjs75cdy

Its kinda similar to what BT hotspots is like in the UK isn't it?

mark17j

no way would i be happy about strangers using my wifi.

coldcake

You will have to forgive the lack of tech speak here.

I think there is going to be a second channel on your router that will allow for external access.

People will have to be UPC customers and they won't have access to your primary channel.

The advantage is you will be able to log onto other UPC router when out and about but I think the speed will be 2 or 3 mbs.

So if anyone is downloading illegal things or going to dodgy sites, it would not be deemed to be on your router, if you follow.

Knasher

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

I got the impression that everybody would need to have their router replaced. I don't think the majority of their current routers would be capable of doing this.

I've got a pretty old router (EPC2425) and I've noticed it broadcasting a second network for a while now. Probably in preparation for this. So I'd guess most of the wireless routers will support it.

Dave..M

It's a dreadful idea, it'll saturate the 2.4 channels (as it is supposed to broadcast on alt channel to your own) so if you have a few neighbours with UPC then pretty quick you will have noise on all the main channels since they will be using two channels and if they don't use a separate channel then it'll just kill your own. Not to mention the social issues, think of how many kids will get a password and lurk outside people's houses where the wifi reaches out front. A really atrocious idea for high density residential areas, pure marketing for UPC with little benefit for the majority of their users.

bk

So UPC has already rolled this out in the Netherlands a few months ago and it has been very successful, with most people being very happy with it.

First of all, you can opt out of it. Which means you then can't use other UPC wifi points when out and about.

It won't require a new modem, it will be possible to enable this on existing modems. It will create a completely separate wifi point from your own.

It won't use any of your bandwidth, you will continue to get your full 50/120/200 mb/s (they are over provisioning the bandwidth).

Other people will have no access to your own personal wifi point and no access to your own network, it is all totally separate. There should be no security risk here.

The advantage of all of this is that you will be able to use UPC wifi where-ever you go. For instance if you head into town with your wifi enabled laptop, you will be able to use any UPC wifi point you find.

Overnight, UPC will be basically switching on a massive wifi network, perhaps the largest in Ireland.

They also plan on allowing UPC customers to do free data roaming while in other UPC countries, for instance the UK, Netherlands etc.

This could be quiet a significant advantage to UPC when their launch their own mobile network later this year, they will be able to offload a lot of the mobile data to wifi. China Mobile is doing something very similar and has managed to offload 75% of their data traffic from 3G to wifi. It is a pretty clever use of resources and it could end up revolutionising the mobile business.

I expect Eircom and Vodafone will follow suit and do the same.

Crocked

Thanks for that info bk. It does sound like a win win really, once they have got it totally separated.

It does seem like one of those things though, where we're told it's all secure and there's no way anyone can gain access to your own network, only to find out in a years time that there's all kind of weaknesses in their system.

White Heart Loon

No win win about it at all. This is already being discussed at length in the Irelandoffline forum and the opinion among those who understand wireless technologies is that it's a very bad idea. Wireless is a very limited resource. The Upc modem has only one radio so therefore cannot use a different channel to your existing wireless, it's a virtual access point on the same channel, therefore it will cause slowdowns on wireless. It's a very bad idea to have a device with a weak signal hanging off your wireless, there are threads here daily by people suffering from poor wireless speeds.

bk

Crocked wrote: »

It does seem like one of those things though, where we're told it's all secure and there's no way anyone can gain access to your own network, only to find out in a years time that there's all kind of weaknesses in their system.

For those of us who studied computer security, there is a saying: "The only secure computer is a computer left on the moon switched off..... And even then you have to worry about the little green men!"

In other words there is no such thing as perfect security, there is always some possible risk. There are no guarantees in life.

I'm certain UPC have put a great deal of effort into making sure this works properly and is secure. It isn't anything particularly new, most modern routers have had a "guest mode" for a long time, so it shouldn't be too ground breaking or risky. It is a very well understood idea.

But as I said above it is always possible. But then it is also possible to break into wifi. So not really much extra risk.

Everything we do in life is a trade off between security risk and convenience.

bk

White Heart Loon wrote: »

No win win about it at all. This is already being discussed at length in the Irelandoffline forum and the opinion among those who understand wireless technologies is that it's a very bad idea. Wireless is a very limited resource. The Upc modem has only one radio so therefore cannot use a different channel to your existing wireless, it's a virtual access point on the same channel, therefore it will cause slowdowns on wireless. It's a very bad idea to have a device with a weak signal hanging off your wireless, there are threads here daily by people suffering from poor wireless speeds.

That isn't necessarily true. It depends on the router and your network.

If your router is a dual band - dual radio type, then the UPC free network would be on 2.4GHz, while you could use the 5GHz frequency. So the extra 2.4GHz AP would have no effect or interference on your performance in any way.

Anyone concerned about getting the maximum performance should be using 5GHz 802.11n anyway as there is more bandwidth and far less interference on that frequency.

If you are really concerned about maximum performance, then you should really be using a wired gigabit ethernet connection.

That is what I do myself, I normally using 5GHz 802.11n for my normal day to day use, but when I'm transferring very large video files, I then plug my laptop into my gigabit ethernet network.

Like anything in life there are trade offs and in fact wifi itself is the ultimate trade off of convenience versus speed and reliability.

White Heart Loon

bk wrote: »

That isn't necessarily true. It depends on the router and your network.

If your router is a dual band - dual radio type, then the UPC free network would be on 2.4GHz, while you could use the 5GHz frequency. So the extra 2.4GHz AP would have no effect or interference on your performance in any way.

Anyone concerned about getting the maximum performance should be using 5GHz 802.11n anyway as there is more bandwidth and far less interference on that frequency.

If you are really concerned about maximum performance, then you should really be using a wired gigabit ethernet connection.

That is what I do myself, I normally using 5GHz 802.11n for my normal day to day use, but when I'm transferring very large video files, I then plug my laptop into my gigabit ethernet network.

Like anything in life there are trade offs and in fact wifi itself is the ultimate trade off of convenience versus speed and reliability.

How many Upc modems are dual band? How many customers will have all their devices with 5ghz radios? How many customers will be aware of this? Bet we'll have loads of threads here, 'I enabled this and now my wireless speeds are dire'.

dreamers75

How will they manage this? How will it know my phone belongs to a UPC account? Is it one login type thing? Ie I can access other UPC modems but the wife cant?

Interesting idea tho.

White Heart Loon

dreamers75 wrote: »

How will they manage this? How will it know my phone belongs to a UPC account? Is it one login type thing? Ie I can access other UPC modems but the wife cant?

Interesting idea tho.

It will most likely be the same as any hotspot, you connect your device, then login with your browser with your credentials

L1011

Crocked wrote: »

It does seem like one of those things though, where we're told it's all secure and there's no way anyone can gain access to your own network, only to find out in a years time that there's all kind of weaknesses in their system.

WPA/WPA2 are not fully secure - once you have wireless at all, someone determined enough can get in.

bk

White Heart Loon wrote: »

How many Upc modems are dual band? How many customers will have all their devices with 5ghz radios? How many customers will be aware of this? Bet we'll have loads of threads here, 'I enabled this and now my wireless speeds are dire'.

Here is the thing, if they aren't using a 5GHz router, then they aren't power users anyway and probably wouldn't even notice a slow down.

The reality is that the vast majority of people are light users, mostly just doing some browsing, facebook, maybe some youtube and Netflix.

Realistically the vast majority of people won't even notice a difference.

Power users like us will already be using our own routers in bridge mode with 5GHz so they won't be effected by this.

There maybe a small percentage of non power users who will notice a difference and I assume UPC will upgrade them to a more modern router when they complain.

Reading the UPC Netherlands forums (with Google Translate obviously) it seems to have gone well over there so far, with few complaints and lots of praise in general. I suppose we will just have to wait and see.

White Heart Loon wrote: »

It will most likely be the same as any hotspot, you connect your device, then login with your browser with your credentials

No, it isn't, it is instead using the new Wifi Hotspot 2.0 specification that allows for the automatic login to wifi hotspots.

How it works is that the first time you connect with a new device (smartphone, tablet, etc.) yes you have to login with your UPC username and password. But once logged in, you never have to login again, you will just automatically connect to any UPC Hotspot that you pass.

dreamers75

bk wrote: »

How it works is that the first time you connect with a new device (smartphone, tablet, etc.) yes you have to login with your UPC username and password. But once logged in, you never have to login again, you will just automatically connect to any UPC Hotspot that you pass.

Is it a single user licence in countries that have this?

Cuddlesworth

Knasher wrote: »

I've got a pretty old router (EPC2425) and I've noticed it broadcasting a second network for a while now. Probably in preparation for this. So I'd guess most of the wireless routers will support it.

Interesting, they must have been working on this for some time then. I understand the mechanics on how this could work in terms of infrastructure, but its very open for abuse.

For example, I could give my UPC login details to my sister, who could take advantage of her neighbours UPC box. Then if she decides to, lets say, watch a 1080p youtube video even ata capped 3mb download with a WirelessG laptop, she has now reduced their wireless speed to at best 10Mb. One or two devices on their side would make the network unusable for video streaming where before it had been usable.

And UPC don't ship dual band routers with good signal and they are default set to 2.4ghz. If they actually gave good routers out I'd be less concerned. I could crash my 3925 with ease before I turned it into a bridge only. Running two separate networks and routing, or a layer 2 passthrough for the guest network could only invite trouble.

White Heart Loon

bk wrote: »

Here is the thing, if they aren't using a 5GHz router, then they aren't power users anyway and probably wouldn't even notice a slow down.

The reality is that the vast majority of people are light users, mostly just doing some browsing, facebook, maybe some youtube and Netflix.

Realistically the vast majority of people won't even notice a difference.

Power users like us will already be using our own routers in bridge mode with 5GHz so they won't be effected by this.

There maybe a small percentage of non power users who will notice a difference and I assume UPC will upgrade them to a more modern router when they complain.

Reading the UPC Netherlands forums (with Google Translate obviously) it seems to have gone well over there so far, with few complaints and lots of praise in general. I suppose we will just have to wait and see.



No, it isn't, it is instead using the new Wifi Hotspot 2.0 specification that allows for the automatic login to wifi hotspots.

How it works is that the first time you connect with a new device (smartphone, tablet, etc.) yes you have to login with your UPC username and password. But once logged in, you never have to login again, you will just automatically connect to any UPC Hotspot that you pass.

You didn't answer my question, you avoided it like a politician.

First of all you said there won't be a slowdown if the router is dual band because users will use 5Ghz. True, how many are dual band then? How many have 5Ghz enabled?
Then you say there will be a slowdown but most won't notice it, power users have their own dual band routers and use 5Ghz and the vast majority of people won't even notice a difference. If you bridge the modem and add your own dual band router won't you be exempt from this?
Then you go on to say there maybe a small percentage of non power users who will notice a difference and you assume UPC will upgrade them to a more modern router when they complain. Will this be after they have posted here giving out?

That's some turn around, your shilling isn't going too well, you're backtracking. You're the only person recognised on boards as having a technical knowledge in both threads claiming it's a good idea, others like Watty have called it madness.

bk

Hold on there a second White Heart Loon, you are accusing me of shilling!!!!

Please note that I'm a moderator of this forum, so any such accusation is very serious.

Let me make this VERY clear, I don't work, nor have I ever worked for UPC or any other Telco or ISP.

A lot of people on this forum know me in real life, I'm not really very anonymous here on boards and most know that I work as a software engineer, with experience in both security and networking. It really isn't much of a secret. If you truly believe I'm shilling, then please report it to the boards Admins and I'll happily prove my credentials.

Now to answer your questions, I wasn't avoiding them like a politician, I didn't answer that question as there is no possible way for me to know how many UPC customers have 5GHz routers, as I don't work for UPC and have no access to such information.

I have a great deal of respect for Watty and we have a long history of debating various issues and I usually agree with him, but sometimes I disagree and this is one of those times.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there wont be a negative impact on wifi performance, there will be. But it is a trade off for added convenience.

And that is the point I'm trying to get across, everything about wifi is a trade off. Wifi is by it's very nature much slower, much less reliable and much less secure then gigabit ethernet.

But despite these downsides of wifi, most people opt for wifi over ethernet for the convenience of not needing to be plugged in all the time and to be able to wonder around there home freely with their laptop/mobile/tablet.

This new service just takes the convenience to the next level, being able to use wifi across urban Ireland and even across many European countries. Yes there maybe a penalty on performance, but there is also a possibly great benefit to people using their devices on the go.

And in the end, if you don't like this trade off, you can always opt out. Just like you can opt out of wifi and use ethernet instead. I really don't get what your hysteria is about!

Big Lar

For anyone that does not know what shilling is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shilling_(Irish_coin)

Just felt that a light hearted moment was needed

FuzzyZoeller

I really can't see how this is a good idea. WiFi interference is going to double in UPC households overnight, and for what? UPC are aiming this service as a time saver for "when you visit the home of another participating UPC broadband customer.... you don't have to ask for their WiFi password".

As this will only be of use to smartphone users, and the majority of smartphone users are on data plans, I feel this is just a marketing ploy, with no real benefit, but has the potential to balls up WiFi access in areas where UPC have a large presence.

Mr. G

MYOB wrote: »

WPA/WPA2 are not fully secure - once you have wireless at all, someone determined enough can get in.

Even harder to do with WPA2-Enterprise

AlanS181824

This is a very interesting idea. I wonder what credentials will be required to login.

bk

FuzzyZoeller wrote: »

I really can't see how this is a good idea. WiFi interference is going to double in UPC households overnight, and for what? UPC are aiming this service as a time saver for "when you visit the home of another participating UPC broadband customer.... you don't have to ask for their WiFi password".

No, it is much more then that, you will automatically connect to any UPC wifi point that you happen to pass.

- In Dublin City Center at a bar, your iPad will automatically connect to the UPC wifi point of the flats upstairs. You couldn't ask them for a password.

- In Amsterdam on holidays, your mobile phone will automatically connect to any UPC wifi point you pass in the city. You can't ask them for a password.

The idea is that in dense urban areas, you can have almost complete wifi coverage, so you almost have a new, high capacity wireless network and you have little or no need for 3G/4G.

Remember, UPC is about to launch a mobile phone service in the next few months. So being able to offload much of their mobile data as they can from 3G to wifi, would be very useful for them and would allow them to sell a much cheaper mobile service.

This is what China Mobile does where they offload 75% of mobile data to wifi.

Eircom and Vodafone will likely do the same in time and hopefully they will come up with roaming agreements for customers to roam on each others networks, creating a massive new high speed, potentially pan european mobile data network that takes a lot of the strain off 3G/4G

AlanS181824 wrote:

This is a very interesting idea. I wonder what credentials will be required to login.

You use your UPC username and password the first time you register a new device on the network. But you only have to do that once, once registered, you never have to do it again.

Zascar

How can you think this is a bad idea?? It's a bloody brilliant idea!! If you don't like it, opt out and don't use the service. Simple. I have absolutely no problem allowing other users to use a portion of my connection. No matter what way it works, I have a 100mb line, I think I'll manage with a tiny % of that being given to others to allow them (and me when outside my home) the huge convenience of automatically connecting to wifi all over the country and abroad!

I know a lot of people seem to like wearing tinfoil hats, but I doubt this puts any significant threat to your security. UPC would hardly do it if they did not think it was secure. Imagine the bad publicity they would get if peoples wifi networks stated getting hacked all other the place? Unlikely.

Very interesting about UPC going into the mobile business. So when is this all going to happen and how will they make the changes to routers etc?

NinjaTruncs

If they are using the Horizon boxes for this I wouldn't worry, the signal is so week you would have to be sitting on the box to get a connection.

Cuddlesworth

FuzzyZoeller wrote: »

I really can't see how this is a good idea. WiFi interference is going to double in UPC households overnight, and for what?

It won't double unless its being used.

Zascar wrote: »

How can you think this is a bad idea?? It's a bloody brilliant idea!! If you don't like it, opt out and don't use the service. Simple. I have absolutely no problem allowing other users to use a portion of my connection. No matter what way it works, I have a 100mb line, I think I'll manage with a tiny % of that being given to others to allow them (and me when outside my home) the huge convenience of automatically connecting to wifi all over the country and abroad!

Its not a bad idea but its implementation has flaws, which they are not being transparent about. Instead I get a email stating that its a great service and I have 7 days in some time in March to opt out. Why not when you send me the email. I doubt they will be helpful enough to remind me closer to time either.

The example of being in a bar and connecting to the upstairs flats wifi, you and the 50 other people with bad signals connecting to a shared network on a overburdened router? Have UPC pointed that out to the owner of that connection? That their wifi will become unusable? That the inherent instability in their crap hardware will increase? That when you log into your facebook, the other 50 people can log into it too?

Most people don't understand this. A few people here don't understand this. Most people don't need this either. I have a small data plan. My phone spends 90% of its time in range of a known wifi. The rest of the time I'm driving. I can't be alone in this.

Cuddlesworth

bk wrote: »

Now to answer your questions, I wasn't avoiding them like a politician, I didn't answer that question as there is no possible way for me to know how many UPC customers have 5GHz routers, as I don't work for UPC and have no access to such information.

I don't have the figures either but a educated guess would put it in the very low numbers. UPC do not ship with dual band, plenty of devices can't do 5ghz and all the devices ship with 2.4ghz as the default.

Inquitus

The new Horizon box, which to my mind is the only one capable of this Wifi sharing, does have dual band off the rack, currently disabled by UPC though.

Capt'n Midnight

Inquitus wrote: »

The new Horizon box, which to my mind is the only one capable of this Wifi sharing, does have dual band off the rack, currently disabled by UPC though.

The Technicolor TC7200 has dual band but the firmware used by UPC means it just doesn't work :mad:


The only question is how much band width are third party clients allowed to use ?

If it was only 10% and they used QoS to limit it's effect on the local users then it's a complete non issue. Happy days for all.

If it was 50% and they don't use QoS then that's a different story.

Sticking routers in 802.11N mode will limit time slice stealing of slower connections, if all the local devices can support it.

Cuddlesworth

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

The only question is how much band width are third party clients allowed to use?

It was mentioned on this thread, 2-3Mbp's. No official documentation on it.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

If it was only 10% and they used QoS to limit it's effect on the local users then it's a complete non issue. Happy days for all.

QOS has negligible effects on wireless.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Sticking routers in 802.11N mode will limit time slice stealing of slower connections, if all the local devices can support it.

That's not a bad idea. I would be surprised if you weren't locked out of such options since it would break their service offering.

Capt'n Midnight

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

It was mentioned on this thread, 2-3Mbp's. No official documentation on it.

They're bumping me up from 50Mb to 120Mb next month, and then they have the nerve to take 3Mb out of extra over provisioning bandwidth and all I get is the ability to use WiFi in most of Dublin :mad:

QOS has negligible effects on wireless.

More about ping time for local connections. But if they are only using a few Mb/s then not an issue.

bricks

I've a pain in my a**e from some of the free services like CIE and others where you need to load up a webpage and agree to terms and conditions before you can do anything or login.

If there is some way the phone can be authenticated once with the UPC network and then it just automatically connects in and switches seamlessly to wireless then I'm all for this. I never bothered with Eircom's free one when it was around as the login made it a waste of time.

murphaph

This service is already up and running in Germany from Kabel Deutschland and is enabled by default. They state you can opt out any time.

They have a map: https://www.hotspot.kabeldeutschland.de/hotspots.html

Cuddlesworth

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

They're bumping me up from 50Mb to 120Mb next month, and then they have the nerve to take 3Mb out of extra over provisioning bandwidth and all I get is the ability to use WiFi in most of Dublin :mad:

Since their supplied routers can barely manage past 50Mb's via wireless N, I can see why they wouldn't care about bumping peoples speed up. For the majority of customers, it won't make the slightest difference to them.

But its not about your gateway speed. Its about how wireless works.

Your network operates at the mode of the slowest device. If I use a "B" device on your wifi doing something like streaming, you are now locked to a "B" Network.

Wifi doesn't work like a ethernet connection. You might get 20mbs on wireless G with 1 person, you might only get 5mb's with two people downloading per person. The more people there are, the slower it becomes.

The more people on your network with bad signals, the worse your signal becomes. And with this service, you actually have no idea how many people are connected.

People are also going to be off network. They won't be able to share, access their NAS, talk to their Sono's device etc..

GHOST MGG

LoL at upc..share my wireless?...man i cant even share my own wireless through to the next room..horizon hot spots my hoop.

bk

bricks wrote: »

I've a pain in my a**e from some of the free services like CIE and others where you need to load up a webpage and agree to terms and conditions before you can do anything or login.

If there is some way the phone can be authenticated once with the UPC network and then it just automatically connects in and switches seamlessly to wireless then I'm all for this. I never bothered with Eircom's free one when it was around as the login made it a waste of time.

Yes it will be automatic. You register each new mobile device just once and from then on it will connect automatically to any UPC Hotspot you pass.

mark17j

GHOST MGG wrote: »

LoL at upc..share my wireless?...man i cant even share my own wireless through to the next room..horizon hot spots my hoop.

the only good thing about this is that UPC may supply modems with better wifi coverage, because my home Wifi is dire also.
nextdoor has a stronger signal.

stefanovich

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Since their supplied routers can barely manage past 50Mb's via wireless N, I can see why they wouldn't care about bumping peoples speed up. For the majority of customers, it won't make the slightest difference to them.

But its not about your gateway speed. Its about how wireless works.

Your network operates at the mode of the slowest device. If I use a "B" device on your wifi doing something like streaming, you are now locked to a "B" Network.

Wifi doesn't work like a ethernet connection. You might get 20mbs on wireless G with 1 person, you might only get 5mb's with two people downloading per person. The more people there are, the slower it becomes.

The more people on your network with bad signals, the worse your signal becomes. And with this service, you actually have no idea how many people are connected.

People are also going to be off network. They won't be able to share, access their NAS, talk to their Sono's device etc..

Anyone really concerned about speed aren't going to be using wireless anyway. I only use the wireless for casual browsing on my phone. Desktop is hooked up via ethernet.

Over the last few years UPC have upgraded me from 100 to 120 to 150 and now to 200 with little extra cost (apart from the few euro extra recently). I could not be happier. I always get more than the stated speed.

I agree with bk. This is a wonderful idea. They are leading the way in Ireland.

Always laugh when vodafone ring offering me broadband. One word "UPC" is all that is needed to banish them.

stefanovich

Inquitus wrote: »

The new Horizon box, which to my mind is the only one capable of this Wifi sharing, does have dual band off the rack, currently disabled by UPC though.

My Thomson started broadcasting 2 networks a week or two back. (At least I think so, unless it was the neighbour's)

podgeandrodge

bk wrote: »

And in the end, if you don't like this trade off, you can always opt out.

How??! I read their FAQ and it told me to first register, then set a password and then click on "disable".

So I registered with a password, and now it says it's enabled but I can't see any option to disable it anywhere?

drumswan

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Since their supplied routers can barely manage past 50Mb's via wireless N

Why would you be using wireless if speed is crucial?

Cuddlesworth

drumswan wrote: »

Why would you be using wireless if speed is crucial?

Are you suggesting that in a world dominated by video streaming and multiple wifi only devices, that bandwidth is not a important factor?

Fiddlex

I'm guessing if your modem is in bridge mode then it doesn't matter either way? I tried to register to opt out but it gives me errors.

donnervogel80

I have a much more difficult problem with this, which is out of my control. I live in a neighbourhood with about 20 UPC Wifi networks around me, and I have serious problems with interference already. I have 5 direct neighbours, and the others are not far away either. I can barely get any decent data rates through my own private WiFi (I tried fiddling with channels, bandwidths, WiFi standards, etc. already, and also moving the box around - it's not helping. I've even had a UPC technician over one day, but he couldn't do anything about it of course.) It is so bad, that sometimes I can't even browse the web properly - from my 120Mbit/s connection, I get between 5 and 15 across the Wifi on good days - sitting about 3 meters away from the box with a laptop). On bad days, it barely works at all...

Now, if UPC launches this Wi-Free service, I'll suddently have not just 20 networks around me, but 40 (I don't expect many neighbours to opt out). This will very likely kill my WiFi completely - no matter if I opt out or not. Seems there is nothing I can do about it.... I might opt in just for the odd chance that one of my neighbour's public WiFi networks gives me a better connection than my own...

Any thoughts / suggestions?

Capt'n Midnight

donnervogel80 wrote: »

I have a much more difficult problem with this, which is out of my control. I live in a neighbourhood with about 20 UPC Wifi networks around me, and I have serious problems with interference already. I have 5 direct neighbours, and the others are not far away either. I can barely get any decent data rates through my own private WiFi (I tried fiddling with channels, bandwidths, WiFi standards, etc. already, and also moving the box around - it's not helping. I've even had a UPC technician over one day, but he couldn't do anything about it of course.) It is so bad, that sometimes I can't even browse the web properly - from my 120Mbit/s connection, I get between 5 and 15 across the Wifi on good days - sitting about 3 meters away from the box with a laptop). On bad days, it barely works at all...

Now, if UPC launches this Wi-Free service, I'll suddently have not just 20 networks around me, but 40 (I don't expect many neighbours to opt out). This will very likely kill my WiFi completely - no matter if I opt out or not. Seems there is nothing I can do about it.... I might opt in just for the odd chance that one of my neighbour's public WiFi networks gives me a better connection than my own...

Any thoughts / suggestions?

All that changes are the network names.
They will still be on the same channels.

On the wifi side - do a channel scan and set your AP to the one with the lowest interference, if your laptop and stuff supports it then channel 12 or 13 or better still 5GHz as it doesn't go though walls as well

bk

donnervogel80 wrote: »

Any thoughts / suggestions?

Get a dual band 802.11n (or 802.11ac if your budget will stretch *) wifi router and use the 5GHz 802.11n frequency.

The UPC routers only use the 2.4GHz frequency so the 5GHz frequency should be free of most of this interference.

* ac is the new standard, even if non of your client devices support ac, ac routers are backwards compatible with 802.11n and reviews show that ac routers have significantly higher performance even using 802.11n over older 802.11n routers, due to the ac routers having more powerful processors and better antennae design. But the down side is that you will pay a price premium for an ac router.

BTW such interference might not be just down to your neighbours wifi routers, remember the 2.4GHz frequency is a totally open frequency, baby monitors, DECT wireless telephones, walkie talkies, even micorwave ovens all operate on this frequency.