Heavy wifi congestion

Hi all having real problems with wifi.

So heavily congested I can only use channel 1 and even that is not realisable. A wired broadband test shows a consistent 11ms ping and 19mbps which is its max sync speed. Fibre coming next month and its time I sort out this congestion.

Im sure I need to use 5ghz but my airport express only stretches across 1 floor and I have 3 floors to cover.

I'd love to cable it all up but that isn't going to happen yet.

How about homeolugs? I think I tried a 250mbps one once and got 50-80mbps. If I add 2 more homeplugs and 2 more 5ghz airport express connected to the plugs will this speed be cut even more?

Can anyone think of suitable 5ghz solution that I could use to cover 3 floors and try to get at least 50mbps from each floor please.

Thank you

Have you tried swapping/changing your wireless access point? "Wireless congestion" is not as big of a problem in homes as is often made out. You may find if you buy a new AP then the problems will go away.

Remember you can mix and match 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz - you will have to play around with it. You can have 4 non-overlapping 5Ghz 20Mhz channels but you might even be able to get away with it on 40Mhz i.e. ground floor 36+40, middle floor 44+48, top floor 36+40 again or vice versa.

Whether you want to include home plugs in the design to deliver the data to the wireless access points or act as the wireless access your points is your choice too!

Have you used a wi-fi channel scanner such as inSSIDer to see what APs/routers are within range? If there are none, then the problem is with your AP/router.

Sorry guys should have said I did use inssider to check the wifi points around me.

Every single channel was rammed with 2 points that were runnig 40mhz cross over (where they span over 1 and 6). If I had to estimate it I would say there were at least 10-14 points found and enough with a strong signal to interfere with mine.

I tried different routers and its always the same.

Does the homeplug speed reduce the more plugs you have on your powerlines? Or do they all run at full speed apart from when they all want to talk at once?

The only way to connect airport expresses together without halving the speed in repeater mode is homeplugs right?

I think the best solution is wireless home plugs. One wirelse's router downstairs covering it with wifi then two home plugs to broadcast wireless on each floor.

Something like http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/tp-link-av500-500-mbps-pow... You'll need another wireless plug but some kits come with 2.

This is how I solved a similar issue in a 4 story terrace suffering from similar issues.

I know next to nothing about home-plugs (and nothing at all about Apple kit.) There seem to be a lot of different standards so I should do some research before you splash out. I would make sure that you get home-plugs with ethernet connections as well as wireless (assuming you want wireless). Others will be able to give you more focussed advice. You've come to the right forum.

Edited by micksharpe (Sat 27-Sep-14 17:58:47)

Have a read of this:

http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/multiuser/t/4349588...

which is a previous post I did a month and a bit ago on this topic. As others have already said though, if your 2.4GHz spectrum is really that crowded, your only option left will be homeplugs with APs on each level.

Thank you, just having a read now

I just ran a site survey and this is the wifi around me

[img]https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3928/15370837181_c806...[/img]

(not sure how to post an inline pic)

Eden and Pacha are my access points. At the time of the screen shot Pacha had a big drop in signal strength. It is currently sitting at 30% signal.

pings are 11ms with huge spikes and pack loss very occasionally. Eden on 5ghz is a solid 14ms with some small movements up to 20ms occasionally. I think the home plug adds a little latency.

Edited by oldskool (Sun 28-Sep-14 00:31:35)

I ran the utility this morning and it finds the two plugs I already have and measures them at 150mbps and 138mbps

Not sure if that means full duplex potential max or about 70mbps potential max. I know the port caps out at 100mbps anyway.

What do you think of the wifi survey I posted? Is many homeplugs and 5ghz the right way to go?

Direct ethernet cables would be best but homeplugs are a good 2nd.

I would use Apple Airport Expresses like you plan to, especially if you have a Time Capsule or Airport Extreme.

Later Homeplugs such as AV600/650 give more bandwidth as they can use the earth terminal, but I think that only works if they are the same type. However, they will interoperate with AV200s.

In reply to a post by oldskool:

What do you think of the wifi survey I posted? Is many homeplugs and 5ghz the right way to go?

There seems to be some messiness (someone on channel 12) up and around channel 11. "pacha" is on channel 1, which seems a good option, but channel 6 is also worth considering.

I also note that "pacha" is only "b/g", where as all the other access points on channels 1 and 6 are "b/g/n" - this could be your downfall as the "n" standard is probably dominating the bandwidth on those channels, effectively shouting over your slower "g" access point.

Homeplugs and 5GHz might be a better bet, yes. I was not all that keen on them a few years ago; I bought some 200Mbps units (forget the exact make now) and they were really slow. If I remember correctly, I got 1Mb/sec across them and found them highly unreliable (network would disappear for seconds, even minutes at a time sometimes). I suspect this was due to the length of the mains cable run that the signal was going over, which you do also need to consider.

However, in the property I am in now, I bought some more modern Devolo dLAN® 500 AVtriple+ units from Maplin, and these work surprisingly well across a short cable run (I guestimate no more than 15-20m of mains cable). My FTTC broadband on a direct wired (ethernet) connection maxes out at about 7Mb/sec download. Performing a download test across the Devolo units, I can get around 6.5Mb/sec (when things are good) dropping to 4Mb/sec when things are not so good (not entirely sure what causes things to slide between good and not so good, but it's probably down to general interference on the mains ring and other noise that varies depending on time of day). Regarding Batboy's post on the 600/650 units, new to me, Devolo now do 1200+ units (impressive!) - http://www.devolo.com/uk/Products/dLAN-1200+ - but I find the 500 range sufficient for my needs.

BE AWARE with homeplug technology though - if you have a dodgy appliance on the mains ring, such as, a cheap eBay replacement laptop power supply (probably made in some back-street China tech shop, shipped from China itself), and not endorsed or tested to comply with UK electrical regulations, these appliances can inject horrendous noise back onto the mains ring when they are in use, rendering any homeplug technology completely useless. I had this problem after ordering a cheap replacement laptop power supply, and when that was being used, homeplug links went dead and unusable. Do keep this in mind.

So, here is what I would suggest. Take into consideration that, if you were to homeplug all levels out, what would be the total length of mains circuit involved? Remember, you have 3 floors to cover here, so I would presume you would be wanting at least one homeplug per floor to break out to wireless at each level. That's 3 on the ring in total. The more units you have, and the longer the mains circuit is, the slower speed you will get. If each floor is actually on a different mains ring (which is possible), that may also seriously impact homeplug speed (you need to check this out as the phasing can be different per floor, which degrades the signal - I read this somewhere, I'm sure there's more info on Google if you look). Then simply breakout to an access point per floor, one on each channel (1/6/11). If you are having to penetrate walls on each floor, go with 2.4GHz access points - if that's not an issue, you could opt for 5Ghz instead (or APs which support both).

If you want to go a cheaper route initially, you could try a single access point running on 2.4Ghz and replace the antennas with high-gain ones to achieve better coverage across all 3 floors. 2.4Ghz has more chance of penetrating all 3 levels if you use high-gain antennas on the access point. I know this works as I had a Draytek router several years ago and using the standard antennas on that, the coverage was not good enough. I removed the Draytek ones, and attached some high-gain ones instead and that instantly improved things. Obviously this only works if you are using an access point which permits alternative antennas to be connected to it.

So in summary, if I were you, I would firstly switch to a dedicated 2.4Ghz access point. I use this unit at home - they are cheap, and do everything you need, including "n" MIMO standard. They are not 5Ghz though. See how things go with that. If the signal can't reach the top floor, purchase some high-gain antennas and repeat. If that still doesn't do the job, then the next best (more expensive) option is to go the homeplug route and homeplug each floor up, but be aware of the pitfalls of this technology as I have described above. If I was going this route, I would opt for the integrated wireless homeplug units, and go with 2.4GHz/5Ghz as you see fit.

Apologies for such a long answer but I hope it gives you a feel for the issues you need to consider and things you can try to get the results you want!

Edited by deleted (Sun 28-Sep-14 23:10:20)

Thanks for posting such a great and informative response

You pointed out a significant issue i hadn't realised. My wifi was set to Auto-g! I think this was probably my own stupidity from the past. Switching to Auto and i now have wireless-n. Really not sure how that happened, i should know this.

I'm not sure how much of a difference this will make but potentially it could muscle out some of the bandwidth as you mentioned.

Sky sent me a wifi booster and i plugged that in today on the top floor and it seems to be connecting to the base station at the max of 130Mbps. We have an open stairwell all the way up so placing both devices in this open (ish) space might be helping as all the rooms are decided by blocks. So now upstairs computers are achieving half the 130Mbps connecting to the repeater but at least have a full signal.

Even with the halving and them running at 65Mbps on the repeater speeds this is a faster connection than a shoe string weak signal i had before.

I don't quite know wether this will be quicker than a 500Mbps home plug connecting up 5ghz apple wifi running at 138Mbps according to its utility. If the home plug says its connecting at 138Mbps i assume i have to halve this for the true 1 way throughput? If that is the case there should be no difference between the two methods.

Even though my signal is improved i still ping my routers IP and get occasional blips of packet loss and very high pings. I can only assume this is still down to wifi congestion? If so this is the advantage of running 5ghz as this never happens on that frequency.

Edited by oldskool (Mon 29-Sep-14 20:10:50)

Now disappointingly when i sit downstairs right next to the main router for some reason my laptop is connecting to the base station on the top floor with a connect speed of 5Mbps!

I assume i can't prevent this.

are they different ssids?

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

are they different ssids?

The booster is repeating so using the same SSID

I have discovered that actually its not the booster, i turned it off and found that channel 1 (despite looking the best option on the site survey) seems to get huge swings in transmit speed (as recorded by the mac). It ranges from 5Mbps to 78Mbps

Channel 11 achieves up to 104Mbps but drops down to 39Mbps. Although i have seen it lower, but not as bad as channel 1.

And i wouldn't have picked 11 because someone fairly close is running 40Mhz on 12-1.

I don't know whether these fluctuations are the mbp in power saving or whether its wifi interference.

I know you have alluded but before we go any further have you tried a clean test between your primary wireless AP (router or whatever) and a laptop AND nothing else wireless in your house switched on, and also tried different channels with this?

I agree from your screenshot the air is very busy in your house but if you sit next to an AP you should usually get a very good performance even if the air is very busy.

The booster could potentially be slowing wireless down even more if its just repeating off the wireless signal already produced. I would go with your orignal idea of using a home plug with your airport express but i would just place 1 in first to see how it works then if needed add the 3rd one

Managed to spend some time today testing

Lan speed tests with 2Gb file. Laptop downstairs near router connected at 104-145Mbps according to mac, desktop on 3rd floor.

2.4Ghz with or without booster (39-65Mbps according to mac)
16Mbps

2.4Ghz laptop to desktop with homeplug or desktop to 5Ghz into home plug
72-88Mbps

5ghz laptop to desktop home plug
Mostly 88Mbps

I tried removing all wireless devices from the 2.4Ghz network and it was still terrible. It was also very sensitive to moving around. The file transfer would drop to 50-60Mbps on the middle floor or sides of the house.

Wired (even into home plug) as suggested clearly the winner. 5ghz into home plug a close second but this diminishes because of the signal strength.

When i get fibre next month i can only see 1 way for all wireless devices to get full speed and that is to have 5ghz on the ground and top floor. At least the home plugs are performing near that 100Mbit limit. I'm not convinced getting a much better 2.4Ghz router will solve the speed issues because there is so much wifi traffic around me, but very little 5ghz.

Or i look for a really powerful 5ghz router.

Edited by oldskool (Tue 30-Sep-14 15:13:35)

when you say sensitive to moving around do you mean roaming ? if so you might need to change the Beacon Interval slightly so that way th wireless on your devices can switch between the 2 aps depending on strength

Not sure if i've done the right thing here

Just bought an ASUS DSL-AC68U - i considered it along with the Nighthawk 7000 one, the 6900 linksys (i think) and the D-Link(or belkin) 88something L. I read all of these have decent AC/n 5GHZ range.

I quickly realised that booster/repeating was never going to yield good results 16-20Mbps!! Homeplugs did work out but i wanted 1 simple solution. I hope this Asus is it! I will try it when i get home later.

The roaming was ok, its just 1 side of the house is best on channel 1 and the other is best on channel 11!

//edit i've since read the DSL-AC68U from asus has stability issues with DSL connections, oh well.

Edited by oldskool (Wed 01-Oct-14 13:02:48)

In reply to a post by oldskool:

I quickly realised that booster/repeating was never going to yield good results 16-20Mbps!! Homeplugs did work out but i wanted 1 simple solution.

I just ran a test for you over my AV200 Homeplugs into a 5GHz wifi repeater http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/button/14121...

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

In reply to a post by oldskool:

I quickly realised that booster/repeating was never going to yield good results 16-20Mbps!! Homeplugs did work out but i wanted 1 simple solution.

I just ran a test for you over my AV200 Homeplugs into a 5GHz wifi repeater http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/button/14121...

I got similar results for LAN tests using 500Mbps, they definitely work. I have a lot of wiring in the house but i decided i needed another 5ghz access point as my AE only managed to do 3 rooms!

So i hope this new ASUS router works out.

Edited by oldskool (Wed 01-Oct-14 14:19:37)

In reply to a post by oldskool:

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

In reply to a post by oldskool:

I quickly realised that booster/repeating was never going to yield good results 16-20Mbps!! Homeplugs did work out but i wanted 1 simple solution.

I just ran a test for you over my AV200 Homeplugs into a 5GHz wifi repeater http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/button/14121...

I got similar results for LAN tests using 500Mbps, they definitely work. I have a lot of wiring in the house but i decided i needed another 5ghz access point as my AE only managed to do 3 rooms!

So i hope this new ASUS router works out.

Now you can see why I recommended Homeplugs and AE.

The ASUS DSL-AC68U is powered on.

1) The DSL portion seems far inferior compared to the sky router. Synced at 15.3Mbps 37dB attenuation compared to 18.3Mbps and 30dB!

2) Didn't realise sky don't allow 3rd party routers and its a faff getting the u/p

3) No obvious way to put this router into access mode only? I managed it by not setting up WAN and turning off DHCP. Still not sure if this is the best way?

4) Whilst trying to find out how to connect sky up i read that sky use something called MER for fibre which isn't compatible with a lot of routers. Great, so seems the DSL part of this router is pretty useless.

As for the wifi performance. Well it is a step up. Top floor has decent coverage and a file transfer shows 20-28MB/Sec between the computer on floor 3 and laptop on floor 1 (where router is).

Laptop on top floor not such a good 5ghz signal, around 11-14MB/Sec.

Packet loss completely gone even on 2.4ghz. So coverage is much better although no easy way to test 1300 to 1300 which literally only seems possible within about 1m of the router hmmmm.


Any ideas on the DSL issues and capability with sky fibre?

Edited by oldskool (Wed 01-Oct-14 20:45:14)

http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/sky-broadband-fibre-h...

Thanks for the help everyone - i thought i should update with a conclusion.

The ASUS went back and it was accepted. Whilst possible to get it working with sky it was a slight faff and the sync speed was quite a bit lower and the SNR was very unstable.

Whilst in the tests the Apple Airport Extreme does not win any prizes i've ended up with one. Liimited on outright features and perhaps not the best option its certainly turned out to be a very good solution.

I did move the modem (sky hub) up to the middle floor and ran an ethernet cable to the middle landing where the Airport Express now is. Almost very centre of the house.

Over 5ghz with my laptop in the ground floor right hand room and the iMac in the 3rd floor left hand room i'm getting actual data rates of 30MB/Sec - 35MB/Sec. This is with the computers as far apart as possible.

This jumps to over 45MB/Sec with them both in the same room up 1 floor and to the left through a wall. Very decent performance.

I havent been able to test ultimate 1300Mbps performance as the Airport Express is on the landing and not on the same floor as my desktop.

I think it is slightly unfair i didn't test the Asus in this configuration. It probably could have outperformed the Airport Express if i had put it on the middle floor.

But either way, i've found my solution. I can't comment on outright range and throughput but the Airport Express is getting a big thumbs up. Its the fastest one i've tried with the best range and the easiest to set up.

thanks