I live in an apartment with 3 other roommates. We split 15/5 fios internet. The problem is the connection is only good if you are plugged into the router. While plugged in the connection easily reaches 16 down and 7 up. But I am in the room next to the router and my speed test chart reads like a infant trying to color inside the lines. It is utterly terrible. I am really sick of it and I need to know if there is anything I can do to fix it. If I can't I will be switching 100%. I have tried everything, changing settings, reseting router, etc. but to no avail. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I just hate not being able to use my computer or wait 15 minutes for a 20 minute standard def video to load for streaming.
Is anyone in the house using bittorrent or other file sharing programs?
When you say you are in the other room I assume you are connecting via wireless? Since you say you are in an apartment buidling you may want to check the wireless LAN channel and change it to something different (1, 6 or 11).
You could be getting interference from other devices.
If you're using wireless, run a cable from your room next door and plug directly into the router.
Sounds like the same old Wireless issues. No reason to cancel FiOS over something silly like that. The ActionTec should be having no issue delivering a 15Mbps connection over the Wireless to the devices that need it provided all is well. In this case, since Wireless is such an animal to deal with as compared to a cable I would start off by doing the following:
1: As pointed out above, find out if your Wireless router is using channels that other networks nearby you use. You will need to use a laptop or other Wireless device with a Wi-Fi scanning tool capable of displaying network names and channels over a period of time. InSSIDer and Vistumbler are neat tools to use for the job on a laptop and walking around the apartment with the tool scanning will give you a nice glimpse on what is nearby (since Wi-Fi signals travel based on the environment, they are not perfectly straight). The best channels are 1, 6, and 11, with channels 2-5, and 7-10 used only if needed for speed/stability.
Using the scanning tool, your goal is to use a channel with the least amount of interference. If there is a free channel from the preferred channels, switch the router to use those channels. If all of the channels are occupied, you may have to resort to the overlapping channels such as 3 or 4, or 8 or 9. In apartment buildings and in wide open neighborhoods where Wireless is not needed to penetrate through objects, this tends to be a true issue of concern and often tends to be the solution.
2: Ensure no devices in your apartment are causing the ActionTec's radio to throttle speeds back to the old Wireless B Standard. Some devices such as the original Sony PSP (if you have gamers there), operate on Wireless B by design even though the chipset for Wireless does do Wireless G. Having such devices on the network will cause the radio to throttle down to 6.5Mbps actual throughput, perhaps even less. Taking these devices off of the main network and sticking them onto another network, or just not connecting them would be a solution for this. To ensure no B devices are slowing down the network, you can double check the wireless cards in use, OR you can disable the Wireless B Rates inside of the router.
3: Try disconnecting any mobile device, such as iPods, iPhones, iPads and Android devices temporarily, leaving only PCs and other devices connected to the network. Often times mobile devices will remain connected to a network but will reduce link speed and power in order to use as little power as possible. While this should not cause an issue, the router might not be playing nicely and may be throttling the speed down to keep these devices connected. If they communicate at these lower speeds, the router WILL throttle the speed for as long as it's talking to the devices.
Like I said before, Wireless is an animal, and a lot of people like me do not like using Wireless for networking unless we absolutely have to. The same reasonings behind why I say this is the same reason as to why Verizon provided limited support for Wireless outside of getting on the network and securing it properly. The best throughput is always going to come from a cable.
Start a new topic or ask questions in the open forum.
