It’s funny how Joe says that it may be device-dependent because everyone in the house has an iPhone 6 except for me… Samsung Galaxy S5. Others are complaining that the wifi is sluggish and I’m cruising along. Also funny how Erock mentions some devices working while others are not. Same thing… the boys are downstairs playing an online Xbox Live game (from the basement!) with no issues. Or their both streaming Netflix to 2 Tvs with no issues but meanwhile my daughter’s iPhone is acting up. I’m glad you guys mentioned this because my wife thinks I’m either “tricking everyone” so I get better wifi or she thinks I’m an idiot who doesn’t know how to run this stuff. 
Apple iPhones are pathetic when it comes to WiFi signal strength.
Ooh, this information is clutch. I can’t wait to tell the rest of my family that they have an inferior product. Oh wait, they probably already know. 
Spoiler alert: silly noob question coming. I have Comcast Xfinity for home Internet and cable. Wired all devices reach speeds of 80+mps but wireless, we are sometimes lucky to get over 5 mps. This system has been in place for less than 6 months. My question is can I add a router like being discussed here after the large single. box that they say acts as a router and modem to get better service out of their system? Household running 4 smart phones, 2 laptops, 1 desktop, plus tv
So you are leasing a modem/router from Comcast? It’s odd that you would take a performance hit to that degree over wifi. While you may not get the full pipe down, you should be getting near the theoretical maximum of the wifi standard that your router can support.
I would ask for them to swap it out or verify the settings. You could also check to see if there is any savings in owning your own equipment. Good quality routers are still pricey, but good modems can be had for $50 and very good modems for $75-100
Not sure how it’s being paid for: lease/rental, but I have done speed tests wired up and wireless with my laptop less than 6 feet from their box and those were the results I g ot. The box has been replaced once already, but even then their tech told me he thought it was my laptop, because his phone was getting fast service as long as my laptops WiFi was turned off. I had the laptop checked out and our IT company said laptop and it’s wireless adaptor were fine.
How old is the laptop? If it is using an older wifi standard, like 802.11b or g, it could be the issue.
Some routers can only perform at the speed of the slowest device connected. This was a big issue when 802.11g first became the standard and many items still operated on b. These days routers should be able to accommodate multiple standards at the same time without issue. That said, the Comcast router should be modern enough to work well.
I’ve had the laptop almost 2years, got it in January 2014
It’s a company laptop, so it’s probably almost time for a newer one anyways
In my experience, Ipads are even worse. And don’t get me started on the Apple TV. That thing makes me angry.
Also, if you’re needing to reset your router on a regular basis, and that need is increasing, it’s time to look for a new router. Something inside is dying.
As far as owning a modem, I should probably look into that. Used to own ours, but when we added phone service, they gave us a different modem. I have to assume that you can buy a modem that handles internet and phone, but I’ve never looked into it.
That’s new enough. It would need to be 6+ years old for my scenario. Something is certainly amiss.
Have any of you looked into using Power lines? My son is a huge gamer and we were having issues with WiFi and dead spots. We hooked up the latest technology of power lines and now each room has an available Ethernet port. His gaming speeds increased 3-fold and not one room has a dead spot. Some models allow you to then hook up a router to broadcast WiFi where you need it as well.
I used power lines ages ago. Sounds like the technology has come far as it was junk back then. Be sure to use the encryption settings that are offered as you could be broadcasting to the entire neighborhood.
I can vouch for the Alfa adapters. They are excellent (especially for the price). They’re what I use with my Kali VM for Pen tests. And everything you said made perfect sense to me. lol That being said, I don’t consider most of the NAT/filtering devices that most people call ‘routers’ to be real routers either.
I would probably go MoCA before I would go Powerline. Much better bandwidth potential.
MoCA is also easier to secure with a cheap low pass filter.
What I find surprising is that with my old router I might have had signal issues in a certain part of my basement… like I couldn’t even send a text. Yet one son is streaming The Walking Dead from Netflix in HD on a 55" flatscreen and the other one is playing an online Xbox 1 game… both of which are using the wifi. I’m not sure I understand why that’s happening unless my text won’t go through because they’re sucking all the bandwidth. :P I ask anyone streaming shows or movies to a TV or laptop if everything is good and I get a thumbs-up from everyone. The new router is definitely improving things.
In general SOHO (Small Office Home Office) routers tend to lose signal strength over time. The transmitter components wear out. Normally it’s caused by the cheap electrolytic capacitors the manufacturer used. It’s the same issue every amplifier and radio built in the last 30 years has had. There are lots of articles on the web about people replacing all the caps to “fix” their router.
Sometimes the flow solder systems do a bad job of affixing the chips so they start to fail with heat and dust over time. You can maybe fix this by taking the board out of the router and baking it at 500 to 600 degrees but not always and you may destroy the board in the process.
The average lifespan of a SOHO router is only 2 years or so.
I have a Netgear wireless router (can’t remember the model right now) that supports 802.11n and it does work well. Not all devices support every 802.11n connection even if they say they do. All 6 cell phones in my house say they support N but only half them work when connected the N network. Sometimes laptops say they have a chip that supports N but the manufacturer chose to not install the chip and antenna that makes it work (I have two of these) from Acer and the label on the top stating it has 802.11n support. >:(
As for the Genie app? Ya, it makes setting up the router easy but Netgear requires you sign in on an external site to configure the 802.11 network with a different user ID and Password than you use to login on the router locally. That’s kind of a PITA to me. On top of that, when all the browsers disabled Adobe Flash for security reasons, you could no longer connect to the external site and configure the 802.11N connection. Flash is a POS and full of security holes but to maintain your network, Netgear makes you use it. Sorry, kind of a raw nerve.
Maybe all the routers I’ve had in the last 8 years were too cheap to be expected to work well and last but it’s been a long time since that first Lynksys router lasted for 9 years with no issues. :
Oh well, I hope the NightHawk works well and for a long time for you. Let us know if you start to see any issues creeping up.
Paul
The best router I ever had was pre-wireless. An SMS Barracuda. Totally ancient. I was sad when it died on me.
As far as the Genie app, I don’t even know what that is. I’ve always logged in directly.
The only app I use to manage my security appliance is PuTTY.
Lols… always one in the crowd.