2.4ghz band saturated - Huge packet loss - Flash 3925?

nikouy

Hi,

I installed UPC 200mb broadband at home a couple of months ago and I am very dissapointed with the service. Actually the service is fine as I get the speed I should when I use an ethernet cable. The customer service is really bad as they are not able to give ma a solution.

The problem is that the 2.4ghz band is saturated leading this to a huge packets loss and a really bad connection.

892 packets captured
69072 packets received by filter
65635 packets dropped by kernel


Switching to the 5ghz band helps a lot and makes a huge difference as nobody around is using this frequency. But I got another issue with this and it's that one of the laptops at home does not support this freq. I bought a dual band USB adapter but still no joy.

I have an old cisco 3925 at home from UPC which I could use to improove my connection, was wondering if there is anything I can do with it. Use it as a repeater? Replace my current modem Thomsom with it? Flash it?

Thanks a mil,
Nicolas

degsie

Have you used a wifi analyser to see which channels are being saturated? Try changing the channel number based on what you see with an analyser. Obviously use a less cluttered channel.

nikouy

degsie wrote: »

Have you used a wifi analyser to see which channels are being saturated? Try changing the channel number based on what you see with an analyser. Obviously use a less cluttered channel.

Yes I did, but they are all saturated , that's how I found out that nobody else is using the 5ghz band.

Irish Steve

inSSIDer software will give you a view of the usage around you, it made the difference to a friend of mine who had 18 different WiFi signals around him.

You may get some useful information about what channels are actually being used around you, and that may give you options on using alternative channels. Some WiFi routers are less than clever when it comes to finding free space in the spectrum, I've seen a lot of the UPC routers all sitting on channel 11, even though there are others on that channel.

I've put a second router in at home here, due to a large concrete block chimney that does horrible things to the signal from the main unit, which is upstairs as it's wireless, using Ethernet to connect the 2 together, and that works well for me, but there will be no advantage using a second router if you can't connect using ethernet.

degsie

Congestion is difficult to overcome. Some options include going to 5GHz exclusively, replacing the router with one loaded with a custom firmware where you could play with transmission power, use RFI paint/wallpaper (yes they do exist!), move home

nikouy

I'll try to see if i can install DD-WRT in a router that I got

Snaga

Regarding the dual band USB adapter not working for 5Ghz on the laptop - are you advertising the SSID in both bands still? (2.4 + 5).

If so - can you disable the 2.4Ghz radio on the Cisco and only transmit your SSID on the 5Ghz band? This should force all of your clients onto the 5Ghz SSID including the one using the dual band usb dongle.

(I'm not familiar with the UPC router in question so unsure if this is easy to do from the admin portal).

dfdream

I was testing DDWRT on a TP link WDR3600 over the weekend.
Also tested another TP link WDR3600 with OPENWRT on it.

I liked the simplicity of the DDWRT but found it constantly disconnecting on 2.4ghz. 5Ghz was fine but its signal is nearly line of sight only.

Also devices seemed very slow to connect to DDWRT router and some wouldn't connect at all.

Signal strength on DDWRT seemed to jump around a lot too.

On OPENWRT and stock firmware the wifi was fine.

Seems openwrt for me anyway is bit more stable but I have now to setup VPN, WOL and Email notifications that are standard on DDWRT.

So maybe try OpenWRT as well ???

nikouy wrote: »

I'll try to see if i can install DD-WRT in a router that I got