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Forum Discussion
Nighthawk AC1900 Wifi Cable Modem Router -- Choppy and slow wifi
Hello. I have recently purchased said router and Comcast Xfinity high speed Internet with speeds "up to 400 Mbps". Standing next to my Netgear modem/router, however, and measuring speeds with th...
Hey, there.
Thanks for responding.
I guess I am more after how I can improve my the subjective experience of my network. I tried video chatting with a family member on my cell phone and it was pretty bad. Loading time for my apps seems to take 4-5 seconds while the app is probably fetching data from the network. In our previous house, this was not the case. I mean how much physics is involved when I am standing directly next to my router? What is knocking the 400 Mbps that is coming into my house down to > 200 Mbps?
One thing that I did that seemed to drastically improve the situation was setting the router on a higher spot, which makes sense.
Questions I have though:
- How do I know Xfinity is doing their part and switching to Internet providers wouldn't help?
- If I purchased the next higher speed from Xfinity (up 600 Mbps), would that help my situation, or is the bottleneck my home network set up? I purposely purchased a router that purportedly can handle high speeds (up to 960 Mbps per what is on the box)
- Should I move to a mesh network? This would help with the range but what's coming out of the router is the most disappointing.
- Maybe I should try a new router?
There are so many variables involved. It's hard to narrow it down.
rscharfer wrote:
What is knocking the 400 Mbps that is coming into my house down to > 200 Mbps?
The fact that you are using wifi to connect.
The way to check that Xfinity is delivering the speed you pay for is to measure the wired speed coming out of your modem. Wifi speeds tell you nothing useful.
To repeat an earlier qiestion, have you looked at the speeds that your phone gets on other wifi sources? There is nothing that Xfinity, Netgear or anyone else can do to make a phone go faster of it is designed to work at 200 Mbps, which is faster than anything that most applications come anywhere. Streaming HDTV needs nothing like that speed.
rscharfer wrote:
- If I purchased the next higher speed from Xfinity (up 600 Mbps), would that help my situation, or is the bottleneck my home network set up? I purposely purchased a router that purportedly can handle high speeds (up to 960 Mbps per what is on the box)
- Should I move to a mesh network? This would help with the range but what's coming out of the router is the most disappointing.
- Maybe I should try a new router?
If your phone is working as fast as it can, then changing the rest of the network will have no effect.
rscharfer wrote:
I tried video chatting with a family member on my cell phone and it was pretty bad. Loading time for my apps seems to take 4-5 seconds while the app is probably fetching data from the network.
Once again, you are talking about the phone. What about other devices you use?