Team-BHP - On Wi-Fi & Routers

I have cable internet. There is a cable going from the terrace of my building to my router. What kind of cable is used here? How long is the typical life of this cable, considering it's exposed to the elements?

I got this connection 3+ years back. It's been working very well. For the last week or so, I am having problems - my connection has been flaky. Occasionally for 5-10 minutes, the wifi signal is zero in my bedroom (the router is in the front room). The Wifi Symbol in the taskbar of Windows 10 starts blinking. Sometimes, I can connect but I get no internet. My neighbor doesn't have this problem at the same time.

How do I narrow down whether it's a problem with my router (3+ years old) or with the cable coming in from the terrace?

Quote:

Originally Posted by carboy (Post 4483434)

My neighbor doesn't have this problem at the same time. How do I narrow down whether it's a problem with my router (3+ years old) or with the cable coming in from the terrace?

Borrow your neighbour's modem/router and try plugging it into your connection (you might have to login with your broadband connection credentials). And vice versa - your unit plugged into his cable.

That should help differentiate whether it's a cable fault or endpoint fault.

These devices do age and give up after some time gradually.

Quote:

Originally Posted by carboy (Post 4483434)

If it is an old-style cable internet, then the cable must be old-style coaxial cable. I think if exposed to the elements, there is always the risk of water seeping into the cable and damaging it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by carboy (Post 4483434)

For the last week or so, I am having problems - my connection has been flaky. Occasionally for 5-10 minutes, the wifi signal is zero in my bedroom (the router is in the front room). The Wifi Symbol in the taskbar of Windows 10 starts blinking. Sometimes, I can connect but I get no internet.

But this sounds more like something you recently introduced into your house interfering with the wifi signals. Check that.

Quote:

Originally Posted by carboy (Post 4483563)

What specification of a Wifi Router tells me how much is the range of the Wifi Signals?

Too many environmental factors affect the range to use one representative number from the spec sheet. The basic numbers to look at are transmission power and reception sensitivity (both will be in dBm, or decibel-milliwatt).

Apart from these, the following can also potentially affect the range:

1. The type and number of antennae on the router.
2. Walls and other obstacles.
3. Other sources of radio waves.
4. Presence of reflective surfaces.
5. Humidity levels.

Be aware that manufacturer testing is always based on LOS (line-of-sight) and your actual experience will be significantly worse.

For the Wifi unit that is currently in my office (TP-Link EAP110), I just looked at the spec sheet:

Transmission power = 19 dBm
Reception sensitivity = -71 dBm

Upper limit on path loss = transmit power – reception sensitivity = 90 dBm

This, when combined with 2.4 GHz, gives the range as 300m using a magic formula.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nrahul (Post 4467009)

I recently purchased Netgear Orbi RBK50 system from Amazon for 22K. I'm using it with similar set of devices in a 4000 sq-ft apartment.

I have put money on Netgear X4S 2600 Router with a TPLink RE500 as range extender .Average link speed remain 500Mbps and go up to 800Mbps on 5Ghz .All devices are able to use 5Ghz .Signal strength throughout the house remain close to -50dBm which is excellent .Overall I am extremely satisfied with the setup .The total cost came to about 18000 Inr .Also the Netgear manual says Alexa compatible and has a port to connect hard disk(with back up scheduling also ) and USB which I have not used still.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trust_In_Thrust (Post 4483854)

I have put money on Netgear X4S 2600 Router with a TPLink RE500 as range extender .

One key problem with the range extender setup is that they are two different networks. Your devices will try to hold onto the network even if the signal is weak before switching to different network. Another problem is that the same 5GHz band is used for both backhaul (connecting router and extender) and device connections. This reduces the effective bandwidth.

Here is article which explains the different between extender and mesh network https://sea.pcmag.com/eero/29287/wha...and-mesh-syste

HTH.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nrahul (Post 4484049)

One key problem with the range extender setup is that they are two different networks. Your devices will try to hold onto the network even if the signal is weak before switching to different network.

The Netgear Nighthawk X4S is dual band with 1733Mbps on 5Ghz channel .The TPLink RE500 AC is also dual band with 1300Mbps on 5Ghz channel .

I am able to have a common network name and for both so I don't see any drop outs or change in network within house .Also Dynamic Quality of service is missing in Orbi. Dynamic Qos smoothens out game play online via Nvidia Shield .The X4S and RE500 both support MU MIMO .I am able to access both X4S and RE500 through mobile apps all the time so no issue in that front also .Best part is every device is staying on 5Ghz with link speed much higher than 50Mbps of my Hathaway or soon to come Airtel 300Mbps .

I selected this after reading exhaustive reviews as apart from range, feature set for future was also critical .If I had to buy again with increased budget may be i will opt for X6 or X8 as they have dual bands on 5Ghz of 1300Mbps x2 and 2166Mbps x2 ( This will enable me to add two or three extenders without affecting the internet speed of service provider ).For the extender TPlink RE650 1733Mbps on 5Ghz .

The only place I see Orbi winning is link speed vs Router with repeater system .All other problems don't exist atleast in my system .

I think Orbi is like Apple products and my setup is like Android ☺️.

Quote:

Originally Posted by carboy (Post 4483864)

For both of these, is a higher number better?

Quote:

Originally Posted by binand (Post 4483777)

The basic numbers to look at are transmission power and reception sensitivity.

For transmission power, the higher the better. This is because the more powerful the transmission is, the farther it can go (there is a proportional relation between them).

For reception sensitivity, the lower the better; so that the faintest signals can be picked up.

Be aware that the latter number is often negative, so "lower is better" means that in absolute terms, higher could be better (in my example, it was -71 which is better than -61 and worse than -81).

Quote:

Originally Posted by binand (Post 4483777)

1. The type and number of antennae on the router.

Quote:

Originally Posted by carboy (Post 4483864)

What type is better? And is more number of antennae better?

I guess we don't get directional antennae in consumer APs. Can't see a use-case here (you don't want to shift/rotate your AP every time you decide to move from your workstation to the couch or to the bed, do you?). So one of those choices is taken away.

Two antennae is definitely better than one, because it helps the AP to avoid problems created by reflection (an item in the list in my previous post). I think most APs have two anyway, but repeaters sometimes have only 1. So you might not get the best effect if you were to use a device meant to be used as a repeater, as your primary access point.

Do mobile phones have two? Need to check. I doubt it, which is probably the reason a phone in hotspot mode delivers less performance than a dedicated AP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by carboy (Post 4486716)

How do I check that?

By individually looking up (manuals/google) the technical specifications of the devices.
For example, if I check the technical specs of the Nokia 5 at this link,
it clearly lists 802.11ac as a supported WiFi standard.
So its safe to assume that this will work with 5Ghz.

Another crude way, is to connect to your router over USB or Ethernet from
the laptop and configure it for 5Ghz and then check which of the other
devices are still able to see and connect to the WiFi network.

Make sure that you have a way of accessing the configuration interface of the
router before you make this change, as you might lose access to it if you put
it to 5Ghz and none of the devices on your network support connecting over 5Ghz.

Quote:

Originally Posted by perty (Post 4486863)

Looks like Nokia5, Mi Pad (2014) & the Dell laptop support 802.11ac - but the 2017 Sony phone doesn't - https://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_xa1_ultra-8595.php

Would it be possible for the router to transmit wifi in both ac & non ac modes at the same time?

EDIT: But other sites say it does support ac - http://www.gsmhelpdesk.nl/gear/5661/...a1-ultra/specs

Anyway, would this router have better range than my older router? Also will it be compatible with my cable internet?