Ive called Xfinity about my wifi not working and they said to call Netgear. I called netgear and they said I have to PAY for customer support. I bought 200 mbps wifi from Xfinity and ran a wifi test and I have 4.5 mbps speed in my room. I told Netgear this and all they said was it’s not their fault and I should buy their customer support so they can figure out the problem. If it’s not their fault then why would I pay them?? why do I even need to pay for customer service? I’m begging anyone to please help me solve this problem. I have a Nova wifi extender in my room that’s supposed to help but so far it’s not doing anything. I can’t use any device without it buffering or just not loading. this is especially difficult because I am doing online school through Zoom and I keep getting disconnected due to “unstable internet connection”.
What speeds do you get directly connected to the C3700? (not wireless)
are you testing over 2.4ghz or 5ghz in your room? (2.4ghz is much much slower but broadcasts further and through more materials)
How large is your home?
What is the interior walls made of?
Something to keep in mind with extenders is that they cut throughput 50%. Reason why is they have to send and recieve using the same wireless chip and they can't do both at once. So if they're far enough away from the router and working with a poor signal, they're going to drop the speed even further just off how they function.
Hi thank you so much for responding, i’m really grateful!
unfortunately I don’t know the answers to most of these questions as i’m in college and renting a house, and I literally don’t understand anything about tv or internet.
The house is 2 floors and the router is on the main floor in the living room. My room is 3 walls away from the router so I put a wifi extender in my room (no clue if this helps, my roommate’s dad just said to buy it. Also the light on the extender is green which I thought indicates it’s working.
I’m pretty sure I can’t plug my laptop into the router because I have the newer Mac with only 2 ports (they’re the small rectangular ones I don’t know what they’re called).
Another thing is I plugged my Vizio smart TV into the wifi extender via an ethernet cord; it wasn’t working at first but I just unplugged the TV for 2 mins to reset and now it works! Not sure if this is helping my case or not.
If you could give me any tips at all, I would greatly appreciate it (maybe try to dumb it down just a little bit, i’m sorry)!
1. don't put it right where you plan on using it. An extender needs a good signal to pick up and rebroadcast. If you're putting it in the same room as you already don't get a good signal, neither does the extender.
2. placement is key. many times, objects in the walls (hvac, plumbing, etc) can cause signal interference. So test it in different area's/spots to see which one gives you the best performance. Sometimes a lateral move helps just as much as moving the extender closer.
3. optimize the channel you're on. Check which wireless channel you're using. Try different ones.
4. Triband extenders. You didn't put which extender you have but standard single band and dual band extenders take a 50% speed reduction just based off how they function. The tribands get around that by having a 2nd 5ghz band just for router---extender communcation.
5. Again, check your extender. 2.4ghz is much slower than 5ghz and more sensitive to interference. If your extender is only single band, it could be the issue right there.
It's frustrating to hear about your experience with both Xfinity and Netgear. It's understandable to feel let down when you've paid for a service and it's not meeting your expectations. Customer service should be a part of the package, especially when troubleshooting issues like slow internet speeds. It's disappointing that Netgear would suggest paying for support without taking responsibility for potential issues with their product. It might be worth escalating the matter with Xfinity to see if they can offer a solution or provide further assistance.
