Re: Why your Wi-Fi is slow - Encryption!
Hubrisnxs
Legend

You should get a guest blog on Verizon's website.  This was just a great post, easily the best of the year and probably much of last years.   

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Re: Why your Wi-Fi is slow
Arysta
Enthusiast - Level 2

This is a great post.  I was shocked when Verizon installed a wireless router that accepts only 802.11b and 802.11g connections.  I have the 50/25 plan, and that's just not good enough to get maximum speeds.

 

It didn't even dawn on me at first that this was the reason I was getting bad wifi speeds.  I just assumed I was connected via 802.11n.  I was wracking my brain trying to figure out why my wired speeds were SO much better than my wireless speeds.  I assumed I was getting a bunch of interference, so I checked that out, and that's when I realized 802.11g was the best I could get.  Luckily, I have an Apple Airport router which supports 802.11n.  I turned off the Actiontec's wireless, turned on n/5ghz on my Airport, and now my wireless speedtests are coming out just as good as my wired speed tests.

 

It's really kind of sad that Verizon sets people up this way by default (including the really bad WEP encryption - a hacker can literally crack that in 20 seconds).

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Re: Why your Wi-Fi is slow
tns2
Community Leader
Community Leader

@Arysta wrote:

This is a great post.  I was shocked when Verizon installed a wireless router that accepts only 802.11b and 802.11g connections.  I have the 50/25 plan, and that's just not good enough to get maximum speeds.

 

It didn't even dawn on me at first that this was the reason I was getting bad wifi speeds.  I just assumed I was connected via 802.11n.  I was wracking my brain trying to figure out why my wired speeds were SO much better than my wireless speeds.  I assumed I was getting a bunch of interference, so I checked that out, and that's when I realized 802.11g was the best I could get.  Luckily, I have an Apple Airport router which supports 802.11n.  I turned off the Actiontec's wireless, turned on n/5ghz on my Airport, and now my wireless speedtests are coming out just as good as my wired speed tests.

 

It's really kind of sad that Verizon sets people up this way by default (including the really bad WEP encryption - a hacker can literally crack that in 20 seconds).



Most of this is all changed in the newer routers.  Unfortunately many still get the older routers.

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Re: Why your Wi-Fi is slow
smith6612
Community Leader
Community Leader

Glad to hear you guys are liking the thread so far. I'll be dropping some more into the thread when I have a few moments to write more. I was posting these real time on Saturday.

Re: Why your Wi-Fi is slow - Encryption!
JPLS1
Newbie

I have a very slow WiFi connection too.

The same setup when I initially signed up I used to get the 24Mbps on WiFi connection on my iPhone and I had the speed test logs to prove it. Last time when I called, I was told the max speed can only be possible using the hardwire connection and not the WiFi. Something has changed at the Verizon side which is the cause of the slow internet connection and most tomes I see lessthan 2Mbps connection and the speed for my service supposed to be 25Mbps DL and 5Mbps UP speed.

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Re: Why your Wi-Fi is slow
supernet2
Enthusiast - Level 3

Can you perhaps explain a bit more on the DHCP and wireless bridging aspect, as my entire network infastructure revolves around wireless bridging, and 9 seperate AP's i setup. This is broken down into 9 separate VLANS with INTRANET vs internet. Where they all bridge off via wireless routing, or Cat 5 cabling. Each unit is setup to function as both a multi functional AP (4 SSIDs per device) and 4 VLANS per device, but for me, i just am to lazy to figure out the part where i rebuild new DHCP networks, and then set it up so that ip assigning is based on a Class C network. Any idea?

(The idea is they all are fallbacks having bridging back to the main unit but at the same time can piggy back off each other, and go off ca5 that is also directly connected to another unit that daisy chains off into the main unit)

Ex: assuming a cat5 ethernet port craps out, or a cable goes bad somewhere, the wireless can move onto the next unit autonomously and continue functioning with little to 0 user notification (ill notice it on my side when i pay attention to my console).

I use a vast majority of TP-LINK routing devices, combine with Dlink router/modem units, and set all of them to bridge, but then broke it down into separate VLANS to isolate if someone logs in say from Router A, they canot access router b, or c unless they know the subnet that the network is on.

NOTE im trying to break it down into 9 seperate networks, all on the same subnet but on different IPs, and enable DHCP on each individual device, under CLASS C network parameters.

Ex:

192.168.0.1/24

192.168.1.1/24

192.168.2.1/24

192.168.3.1/24

172.168.1.1/24

Using all on the same subnet (ex: 255.255.255.0)

Another setup is 255.255.255.254 but thats a different subnet and well, i dont wanna figure out on my own on how to basically setup another network on a different subnet, but bridge both networks, via wireless interface (with out use of cat 5).

I understand i can plugin via WAN port, and extend it and piggy back off via INTRANET but to what extent im not sure (as im not going that much indepth) as i use to.

Any idea/advice?


My idea is just to relearn this as its been a few years since i took the classes to do TCP/IP and also extend what i do know into the bridging aspect while also making my entire place of residency literally a insanely huge wireless zone. (and multiple different wireless encryption types) to enable different types of devices onto the network and still share them (if their not on the same subnet though not sure how i'd share something unless its hardwired into the network and then a static ip is assigned)

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Re: Why your Wi-Fi is slow
armond_in_nj1
Master - Level 1

@Smith6612 wrote:

Glad to hear you guys are liking the thread so far. I'll be dropping some more into the thread when I have a few moments to write more. I was posting these real time on Saturday.


 A veritable textbook on how to do it correctly.  Great stuff.

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Re: Why your Wi-Fi is slow
texasluva
Newbie

I have read some of the Posts on here and they are great. I still do not understand why all of a sudden my Wi-Fi speed is so slow. It usually works great on everything I try and play or watch. Today and for the past few days I have played some YouTube videos and they just stop in the middle of a song or video. When I first received Wi-FI it worked great on everything and now it seems to have gone kaput. I have the 50-25 speed package from Verizon. Is the signal provided by Verizon now slower then it use to be or should be? How do I get this to work properly as before? Should I contact them and relay this information? Could it be just a day it's slow or? Anything you can contribute I would appreciate.

Regards,

Alan

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Re: Why your Wi-Fi is slow - Encryption!
Mcgintymc
Newbie
just wanted to note. Great posts here. Lists of useful info. I recently upgraded from the actiontec wireless G to N router and had similar slowness. As soon as I read about the encryption. The light went on. If you leave your router in the default setup even if you set of a password you get WEP only and hence intermittent slowness. Quickly updates to WPA2 AES and and in minutes I was 3 times faster on all my devices. Have to re-log back into your wireless SSID for all your devices but with the speed 3x faster downloads streaming movies is a breeze. Thanks again for the great info. I will be tweaking my network to get the most out of it in the coming days. 🙂
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Re: Why your Wi-Fi is slow - Encryption!
smith6612
Community Leader
Community Leader

You're welcome. Glad to hear this helped. 🙂

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