Question:
Hey Jason, I was hoping you could provide a little advice.

I recently switched to Comcast internet service, about 3 days ago, and I am having major problems with my wireless network. When we had Qwest, I never had to reset the router, it always operated at the same speed, and never went down. Now that I have switched to Comcast, my wireless internet speed is ridiculously low. I know it is not a problem with the provider because when hard-line to the ISP modem, I get speeds of roughly 25 mB/s, but when I connect to the wireless network, I am getting about .33 mB/s, and I am using the Comcast Xfinity Speed test to get these figures.

What could be the issue? I realize that there will be a drop-off when testing wirelessly, but not from 25 to .33 mb/s.

Answer:
Excellent question!  There is no ‘drop off’ in the conventional sense of the term.  A drop off would imply that the speed was fast and then slowed down over the course of the speed test.  In this case, Comcast does throttle their residential customers (you’re slowed down if you use more than 80% of your promised bandwidth for more than a few minutes).  That’s legal in the same world where a cell phone company can say un-limited means 5GB.  Go figure.

Anyway… Your drastic speed difference is either caused by an older router which has begun to kick the bucket, or, more likely, a WiFi card on the network which is not WiFi N compatible.  Let me break it down for you.

As I’m sure you know, to get the best wireless speed, you need the same standard to be accepted by both the router and the WiFi card.  If a single device is not Wireless N compliant, the router will adapt to the needs of the slowest device and shift itself down to accommodate the slower device.  Alternatively, if the router itself is not wireless N compliant, every Wireless N card will shift down to accommodate the router it is connecting to.

Now, enter the world of Dual-Band Routers.  The higher end of modern routers usually have a feature called ‘simultaneous-dual band transmission’.  That means the router has two separate transmitters within the unit itself and can function entirely independent of each other.  If a Wireless G card tries to connect to the router, one of the transmitters shifts frequencies and standards to permit the connection without slowing down the rest of the wireless devices.  If every device is Wireless N, the two transmitters usually shift to accommodate the two Wireless N frequencies: 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz.  5 GHz is faster but more prone to interference and 2.4 is slower and more robust.  They both use the same standard, but on different frequencies.

In your case, I think your Lenovo might claim to have a Wireless N compliant card which isn’t actually N compliant.

I hope that helps.

Jason

Nerds Limited, LLC

What’s the best router for my old desktop, three-year-old laptop, new PC laptop, MacBook, MacBook Pro, iPhone, iPad and HDTV home theater with NetFlix?  We don’t care about the technical stuff, just give us an answer!

You got it!  While routers depend heavily on use-case, we won’t bore you with that.  We own, troubleshoot, and use all of the above stuff and more every day in our own homes.

Here’s the Apple Router we use:

Airport Extreme 802.11N (5TH GEN)

Here’s the gigabit hub we use:
NETGEAR GS105 ProSafe 5-Port Gigabit Ethernet Desktop Switch – 10/100/1000 Mbps

Here’s the article which won us over to the apple router.  We are truly not a Mac people, we’re computer people.  So too is Brian Klug of AnandTech.com: one of the most objective review sites on the net.

Here’s the article link which discusses the AirPort Extreme 5th Generation

The article really gets technical!  In the interest of brevity, here’s an excerpt from the conclusion section of the article:

I guess the reason that I personally use an Airport Extreme (in conjunction with another device for NAT) is that it’s really one of a small number of 802.11n dual-band APs I’ve tried that actually works without locking up, becoming unstable periodically, dropping the session from overheating when being pushed to 100% for hours, or requiring a daily reboot. There are just so many other consumer level 802.11n APs  that either fall short or are incredibly frustrating and unreliable.

AnandTech Reviewers are never that kind about anything, ever.

Next, for those with a HDTV configuration which includes networking, do not expect to be happy with even the best WiFi connection.  WiFi, even with MiMo can’t hold a candle to a slow and steady cable for streaming.

Why? Because your streaming HD video will always be competing with something for your router’s attention.  Cell phones, laptops, or simply walls with adobe, metal mesh, or plaster wreck the absolute dependability of a solid cable connection.

“I’m not going to put a network cable across my living room to get a better picture!  What’s the best way to get the best of all worlds?”

Power-line Networking / Power-line Ethernet (PLE for brevity)  sounds crazy.  But it works!  Using the electrical wiring in your house, two boxes can establish a rock solid connection between your PlayStation, Xbox 360, Netflix enabled HDTV, Blu-ray Player, & DVR!  Simply plug the home theater devices in to the hub mentioned above, leaving any single port available for Ethernet over power line uplink, plug the last port of the hub in to one EOP box and plug it directly in to an outlet (no extension cords, no multipliers).  Next, plug the other PLE box next to your router anywhere in the same house and your connection will find its own way through the wiring to its match across the house! While some report this up-link can take up to 45 minutes, we have rarely observed more than 60 seconds before PLE is working at full speed!

Here’s a link to one of the faster PLE interfaces.  Again, even the slowest PLE will beat the best modern WiFi in the long run.

For good measure, I’m also going to give you some other router links.  Any one of these will be an order of magnitude  more capable, nimble, and, of course, speedy than what you currently have.

I’m going to rank them by amazon’s popularity which, in this case nearly correlates to overall ease-of-use.

1. Cisco-Linksys E4200 Dual-Band Wireless-N Router
2. Netgear N900 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router (WNDR4500)
3. Netgear N600 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router WNDR3700

Here’s the clincher:  Most non-industry specific end-users would use Apple hardware if it was less expensive.  We’re not judging, simply stating what we’ve heard time and time again.

That said, the Airport Extreme 5th Generation is just over 20% more expensive than the cheapest router on the list and exactly the same price as the current version of the same router (N900 vs. N600).  Yes there are other routers which cost half as much, but for an extra $80, you’re getting gigabit Ethernet and dual band WiFi. Dual band means that another, non- 5 Gigahertz compliant device can connect to the same router as your MacBook Pro without one slowing the other’s connection to the router.

If you end up going with the Airport Extreme, we personally like these mounts because they let you put your router out of the way )(under a desk, on the inside of a closet, behind a bookshelf, etc).  Routers and cables are ugly.  This mount keeps the router within reach but out of the way.

H-Squared AIRMOUNT-S Air Mount for Airport Extreme

We hope that helps clear some of the mystery up.  As usual, we love your questions!  Call Nerds Limited today! If we’re with clients, don’t worry! Leave us a voice mail and we will call you the moment we’re available to talk.  Phone time is always free so don’t hesitate.  Text or call us 24/7. 505.750.8885 or drop us an email.  Our address is NerdsLimited@Gmail.com