How can we improve our internet?

Question

Currently, I live in El Cajon, California, and the internet service my family and I use is Cox. We use the 50 mbps plan. Almost every person we asked have said that they have no issue with the service. We have 18 internet-powered devices that are using the service. Our internet is very slow, and cuts off extremely frequently at an annoying rate. We tried to solve this issue firstly by calling Cox numerous times to solve our issue, to no avail. We own a modem/router that is supposedly considered to be highly recommended by Cox. Then we bought a Motorola Signal Boost Amplifier to help control this issue, but the device seemed to severely overheat, and failed to resolve the problem. I even used the Ookla internet speed test website to test our speed, and instead of getting anything around 50 mbps download speed, we get 10 mbps or lower, and a ping below 20. We even bought an extender to extend the signal of the router, but even that doesn't solve our issue. For some devices, the internet seems to work, but very slowly, and others at the same time fail to even operate. Our router/modem is located in a cabinet area. Switching to Time Warner, Webpass, and AT&T, are not options due to them not being available in our area. We refuse to use Dish internet due to their horrendous services. We could also try to upgrade to 150 mbps, but we're not so sure. Please help us solve this issue :)

Answer 1

When it comes to wireless networking, the more devices you have, the more issues you're going to have. Due to the number of connected devices, your most likely issue is collision on the wifi network. As the devices talk to the router, they don't know which order to talk to it and the router automatically will shut off connection to any device that tries to talk to it at the same time. They are assigned a random number and will connect to it at a later time and try to resend the packet.

To best avoid this issue, you are best going with a router that has multiple antennas and multiple bands to allow simultaneous connections, hence avoiding collisions much better. Collisions are always going to happen with wifi and will increase as more connections are added. Cox is somewhat right by what they said, and they failed to help you find a more proper router because they don't make money that way. BOOOOooo.

TL:DR, Get a better router with more antennae and higher wifi throughput. Add another compatible router to act as a repeater with different channels, but connect it using an ethernet cable. .

Answer 2

Are all the 18 devices using the Internet at the same time? If so, then it's only normal. You have a 50mbps connection. Divide that by 18. How much is it? 2.77mbps per device if they're online at the same time and IF your router has some QOS system that provides equal priority/bandwidth to everything connected.



You have to realize that all 18 devices are sharing the available 50mbps bandwidth. Not each device gets 50mbps for itself.



If you notice this while only using 1 device, then it may be a problem within your local network. First, is your wireless router able to support that many devices at once? The more devices on Wi-Fi you have, the more crowded the "airspace" is.



Try running your Speedtest with only 1 device connected the network. Turn off all other devices. If you get 50 or close to it, then your problem is that you're using too many devices at once.

Answer 3

The biggest problem I see is that you are very unclear in defining the problem so NO ONE can help you with the information as provided. I note that non-technical people do not understand that the Internet speed is the speed at the modem, measured by an Internet Speed Test application on an Internet Speed Test web site, using a wired connection with only one user on. Disconnect all wireless users and disable wireless; unplug all wired connections but one and run the test. (Remember that if you have 3 users simultaneously downloading large files, each will receive about 1/3 of the capacity - so this is why you can only get speed test with 1 user). Note also that streaming video sites are throttled back by the ISP because of capacity issues so if you are disappointed about slow streaming video, the issue is not due to the Local Area Nnetwork nor is it due to the Internet speed - it is a system issue. Never consider a downloading server's speed as the Internet speed, a downloading server speed is run at whatever speed the server admin set it up to run at - and this is less than your Internet speed. Finally, wireless is another issue; wireless signal weakens w distance and weakens more if it has to go through dense building materials; wireless amplifiers are nearly worthless - add more access points but first measure wireless signal strength throughout the intended area of use to make sure you have wireless coverage. Wireless is simplex; wired is duplex - this means wireless is slower than wired. Now go back and define the issue a whole lot better, in light of the info I just provided.

Answer 4

When you did your speed test, did you disconnect all other web-enabled devices? If they are all accessing the internet while you are running the test, that will drag the results of the test down. There is a couple of thing you can do here in this case but you will need some knowledge of networking. You could get a decent wireless router that will let you create multiple subnets and then group devices together and set them on different subnets. Once the devices are segregated (hopefully by their importance of bandwidth usage) you can then assign a cap to the bandwidth available to each subnet thus allowing you prioritize the devices that do stream or other high-bandwidth usage activities on subnets with a larger bandwidth cap.

Answer 5

Get rid of Facebook, Twitter, etc.



Localized slowness happens depending on how many Users are on your leg of the local network. Basically your house line is hooked into a "presence" somewhere in the hood, along with all you neighbors. Remember with Cox, the TV and everything else comes down that fiber line.

Answer 6

Buy and reliable Internet service provider

Answer 7

Pay for more bandwidth from your ISP. If using Cable Internet move to DSL.

Answer 8

Get a new router. I'd suggest a Dual-band or Tri-band

Answer 9

Run cmd as admin

Type netsh winsock reset

Type netsh advfirewall reset

Type netsh branchcache reset

Type netsh int ipv4 reset

Type netsh int ipv6 reset



Finally type netsh int tcp show global

Make DCA=enabled

Answer 10

Wifi router setup

Answer 11

I definitely would. I have heard of some people losing their important data in the upgrade.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD6nqQrJx78

Answer 12

Ban the liars.

Answer 13

slow internet.....So you upgrade money money for them !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it's all about MONEY.....

Answer 14

ok.