Internet? 

"GeorgeyBoy" (georgeyboy) 02/25/2015 at 23:31 • Filed to: None

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Is anyone familiar how internet works in large apartment complexes? I went from having 100+mbps download and upload speeds to occasional under 10mbps.

Pretty much all connections (xbox, printers, etc.) are through ethernet. My computer uses wifi through a Nighthawk router. Just recently, it sometimes goes to a crawl. Like 2mbps download speeds for no apparent reason. Do I share a connection with my building through one modem or what?

iltaliano > GeorgeyBoy 02/25/2015 at 23:39

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What I've been told by Comcast techs (since the same thing happened to me) is that when a bunch of different wifi networks are operating in the same area, they can kind of cancel each other out (in extremely technical terms). It's possible that an increase in the number of routers in your building, or more importantly, the number of routers at the same frequency as yours, could have caused this.

SVTyler > GeorgeyBoy 02/25/2015 at 23:42

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Do you have your own separate modem? If you do I'm kind of in the same boat. Customer support said that signal strength can vary depending on the number of wifi networks in the area; basically most routers go through a small number of channels (read: frequency) and those channels can get clogged up with a lot of people trying to use them at the same time. You can manually change the channel of your router to a lower-use one.

GeorgeyBoy > SVTyler 02/25/2015 at 23:47

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No I don't have my own modem. I'm not entirely sure how it works. There are ethernet ports in every room in my apartment. The router is plugged into one. Even the ethernet ports are slow sometimes, I'm not sure if all these ports are connected to one modem somewhere.

GeorgeyBoy > iltaliano 02/25/2015 at 23:49

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Not sure since the ethernet ports have the same symptoms. I don't have my own modem so I'm not entirely sure how these ports are wired. I would assume I have a separate modem somewhere but maybe not.

rcwrewqcrewq > GeorgeyBoy 02/26/2015 at 00:47

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Crowded airwaves. 2.4GHz is overcrowded, too many devices share that spectrum. So, if you can, switch to the 5GHz band, which is most of the time empty. There are a lot of channels to choose from, so you shouldn't have a problem finding an empty one.

If you still get that kind of slow rates, it could be your internet connection or you're too far from your access point.

NotUnlessRoundIsFunny > GeorgeyBoy 02/26/2015 at 02:10

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It depends. Real helpful, right?

Anyway, there may not be a modem per se, but at some point the connection is shared. That is, there's a certain amount of bandwidth available that's shared across everybody in the building who's using it. There are ways to manage that (like to reserve a certain amount for each apartment, or just cap each apartment's bandwidth at some max rate) but without knowing exactly how the building is set up it's hard to say.

Might be able to diagnose a little more with more info, such as: is there a pattern to when things slow down? Like right in the evening when everyone gets home? Or are several devices in your apartment trying to do backups at the same time?

Whatever the issue though, it will likely take your provider to fix it. Start with what your service is supposed to provide (do they say you'll get at least x speed?) and look for patterns of when things slow down or speed up.

uofime > GeorgeyBoy 02/26/2015 at 09:45

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part 1.

Interference between the wireless networks is a problem in apartment complexes. used to be they'd all say get a 5ghz router and you'll be good, trouble is everyone has a 5ghz router now, so interference on the 5ghz channels can be just as bad as the 2.4 ghz channels...

part 2.

just like how traffic through your router is limited, so is traffic through your isp's "router" (its not really a router necessarily, buy you can think of it as one since it connects everyone behind it to the greater internet) with both cable and dsl internet there is a link to the larger internet that serves all customers in a particular geographical area. the upshot of that is that at 8:00 when everyone and their brother is streaming (or trying to) HD Netflix the link gets overwhelmed with traffic and speed gets cut.

///Mvious > GeorgeyBoy 02/26/2015 at 11:59

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The way you've described it, it sounds like you don't actually pay for a separate network connection from an ISP, but instead just have ethernet jacks in the wall which are included with the apartment price. The entire building probably has the same setup, and goes through a single (likely undersized) router in the basement and out to an ISP.

In short, your entire apartment complex is running off a single router owned and operated by the building managers. You're SOL when everyone gets on the 'net / watches TV at night.

GeorgeyBoy > NotUnlessRoundIsFunny 02/26/2015 at 15:48

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After further research, turns out there are 3 modems for the whole complex. Not sure how it handles traffic from separate units.

GeorgeyBoy > ///Mvious 02/26/2015 at 15:49

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Seems like you're right. Only the complex had 3 modems it routes to.

NotUnlessRoundIsFunny > GeorgeyBoy 02/26/2015 at 19:41

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Well, that makes some sense. Not a lot you can personally do to fix it other than complain; depending on the setup it might already be tapped out, or there might be some room to grow. I'm assuming these are cable modems, and the simple layout would be each modem is tied to a third of the units through a switch. If the infrastructure of the cable provider is capable, modern cable modems can actually be pretty fast. How many units altogether in the complex?

GeorgeyBoy > NotUnlessRoundIsFunny 02/26/2015 at 20:21

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Rough estimate, 300. No one really knows how it is all connected, the ISP claims the development knows. The development really has no idea other than they have access to reset the modems.

I wasn't able to play very many online games on xbox for some reason (closed nat type or something). Now I can. I'm assuming some stuff was recently changed around or updated.