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Roku or Apple TV on Motorola Set Top Box Killing Wireless
therealverk
Enthusiast - Level 1
‎09-01-2013 07:52 PM

Interesting find.

Just moved into this house.  Moved from SP Comcast to Verizon.  Only change in setup between houses is set top box from SP.

Setup:

  • Verizon router/AP in home office (adjacent to family room)
  • Family room
  • - Motorola set top box with Roku or Apple TV sitting on top
  • - External HD to left of set top box
  • - PS3 on shelf below set top box
  • - Soundbar and TV on shelf above set top box

Immediately noticed in new house that when Roku was downloading data/video, the download was extremely slow and the rest of the wireless network appeared to go down.  The Roku was pretty much unusable.  I would see wireless signal and Internet connection bounce.  But it wasn't consistent, and I couldn't identify a pattern.  I used inSSIDer and Android wifi analyzer.

So, I figured the problem was with my 1st generation Roku.  Thought maybe that the wireless radio was shot.  So I trashed the Roku and purcahased an Apple TV today.  Same problem!  Wireless and Internet bouncing.

So, I moved the Apple TV off of the set top box.  I moved it to its own shelf on the TV stand.  All is well now!

My conclusion is that the metal chassis of the Motorola set top box was doing something to the 2.4GHz signal.  I recall that my Comcast set top box was Scientifie Atlanta.

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