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Paid for 150/65 but I'm only getting about half.....What can I do?

Hello,

This is my first post on the Verizon forums and I need some help optimizing my internet speed/router etc.... I recently upgraded my Fios from 25/25 to 150/65. I live in a fairly new home and my house has all the wiring needed for this speed. Also, the Verizon tech replaced all my equipment including my router to Gen 3 Actiontec MI424WR. However, although my speed is super fast wireless avg. 75mbps and wired avg. 89mbps I am not anywhere near the 150mbps' that I am paying for. How can I optimize my connection? Or what could be holding back the speed?

Also, I am a gamer. I play a lot of games online mainly Black Ops 2. I tried to create a static IP for my PS3 and port forward the ports indicated on portforward.com to optimize my playing, but my PS3 is only averaging about 6mbps down and 2 up. I haven't tried connecting to it with a wire and will do so shortly once I have the proper length cable, but my other wireless equipment around the house I can get about 35mbps down easily. Hfas anyone tried opening the ports on this new Gen 3 Actiontech MI424wr router?

Thank you for the help.

Mark

Comments

Hubrisnxs

The best way to get your full speed (and the only garunteed way) is to hardwire your machine.

If you have a 2nd actiontec lying around, you can do that easily by hooking it up like this

If you HAVE to do wireless for that area, then you have to realize that there are a LOT of things that interfere with the signal strength of a wireless antenna. That router can do a potential wireless of 130mb. BUT that is under immaculate and pristine conditions. Everything minus's from that high point. So:

Distance over ten feet begins to degrades that signal
Each wall the signal travels through degrades that signal (double insulated walls are worse double paned windows are worse)
If you have multiple story's in your home, Floor's will degrade the signal
Baby Monitors operating on 2.4ghz range will degrade that signal
Blutooth devices will degrade that signal
2.4ghz Cordless phones will degrade that signal
5ghz Cordless phones will degrade that signal in standby mode (in standby they drop to 2.4)
Microwave Ovens will degrade that signal
CFL Lightbulbs will degrade that signal
Competing Wireless Routers will degrade that signal.

So with wireless, you have do a few things to get the BEST out of it.

Have the router elevated to the height of where the PC's Sit. That means if your PC is on a desk, have your router sitting at that same height.
Experiment with the router standing upright or laying flat.
Adjust the antenna's
Try to place the router in the most central spot you can (pictures below will help explain what I mean)
Make sure the drivers for your wireless device are the most current drivers (check manufacturers website)
Experiment with channels 1, 6 and 11 in your router settings. (instructions are below)

So here are the instructions for the last one, which I would do first. open a browser, and go to http://192.168.1.1

user name is admin. and the password is most likely the serial number found on the service tag of your VZ router unless you changed it. Once you login succesfully, go to the top and hit wireless, then on the left basic security. then go to option 3 which is channel 1, 6 and 11 and are the only channels you should try.

So it will likely be set to auto, change it to 11 and put the check for keep settings even after reboot (Directly under the channel) and then hit apply. after you hit apply, test your connection out, if you notice a difference, leave it like that until the problem happens again, and if it happens again, go back into the router, and try channel 6, test it out. and then finally 1 if the first two don't work.

Also take a look at page 2 of Actiontec's Wireless PDF File. It gives you some idea's with regards to position and orientation of where the router sits and how it can best be positioned for maximum coverage.

http://support.actiontec.com/doc_files/MI424WR_Rev(all)_Wireless_Networking_Guide.pdf

Hubrisnxs

Also don't trust the sony speedtest inside the playstation. Take a laptop plug it into the same hardwired line, and run a speedtest.

You'll find the sony test servers are notoriously slow.

modria01

This is awesome information thank you! I can't wait to get home and try it.

ConsultingSvcs

Hubrisnxs has provided an excellent response here, both in terms of improving the quality of your wireless connections and in terms of switching to ethernet (EDIT: ethernet over MoCA I mean). Two things I would add are:

- To check to see what channels nearby networks are using, I really like inSSIDer by MetaGeek. It's free, simple to use, and shows the network traffic in a nice graphical (and cool looking) layout. For example, you might see a lot of nearby networks on channel 1, but none on 11, which would mean 11 is worth trying. It won't show non-network interference though, like the interference from cordless phones and microwaves Hubrisnxs mentioned.

- I don't know whether the Actiontec supports this because I use a separate, standalone wireless access point, but if it does, consider forcing wideband (40MHz) 802.11n. This will allow a theoretical connection of up to 300Mbps and may bring you closer to getting that elusive 150/65.

modria01

Awesome information! I'm really getting the hang of it. My next little project is bridging my two routers together any instructions or information would also be very helpful on that.

billjoy

Hi Mark,

I recently acquired 150/65 internet. I did not get the faster speeds because i did not have a gigabit router and network card. I now get all 150/65 since i have a gigabit router (10/100/1000).

bill

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