I have upgraded my Xfinity internet service now rated at 1000 Gbps (under ideal conditions). When I test the speed at my device, sitting right next to the XFI Gateway (cable modem), the numbers are all over the map when running several tests back to back (without introducing any variables). Also, the Xfinity online test to ping my XFI Gateway claims there is some problem preventing communication with the XFI Gateway, but it does not give any further information*.
Why would the speed at a device (client) - especially near the wi-fi source - be all over the map?
Is there any self-test I can perform at the co-ax cable (or cable jack) to test the incoming data stream?
Is there any way to find out if there is firmware in need of an update on the XFI Gateway (which just arrived today)?
What else can I try on my own before calling the knuckleheads of Comcast?
What diagnostics should the Comcast customer service representative be able to run from their side - signal strength, etc. - without coming out to the house?
(*I had the same result with my previous cable modem, and when I asked the customer service rep about this online test, they had no clue what I was talking about nor did they know what I meant when I asked if they could ping my modem from their end. I could swear in the past, they knew how to run some kind of diagnostic. Maybe I should use that word “diagnostic” explicitly?)
Perform all tests first with your computer connected to the router. If you have a wireless connection, test it via wireless AND then via hard-wired to the router. Then test it again with the computer directly hard-wired to your modem. Do it for every test site I listed below. It’s a lot of work (three tests per site) but should offer you plenty of data to better determine your true speed.
Test your speed using a neutral site. Use fast.com (owned by Netflix).
Then test it by other speed sites, each one owned by various ISPs, and each with their own biases. I use the following:
Duckster, thanks for the suggested methodology. But, to clarify, let me ask:
It is my understanding that the XFI Gateway (provided by Comcast) is a modem and a wi-fi router. So, the two are one and the same, correct? Is there any benefit to using my own wi-fi router (downstream of the XFI Gateway)? I wager placing my wi-fi-router between the signal source (i.e., the XFI Gateway) and clients downstream would only serve to reduce the signal.
FYI - About routers: I own an Archer AR-1900 router (presently not in use with the XFI Gateway) which I’ve Googled was an adequate router in 2019 but may already be obsolete - superseded by newer technology in 2020. Still, I was under the impression the AR-1900 remains adequate technology for most uses…other than gaming, perhaps. (Aside: I think it’s now the AC-1900 that is preferred, …or AC-900? I’d have to look up the model number again.)
On this same subject, I should ask: Advice on the internet says to purchase a “rubber duck” antenna to boost wi-fi, but I see they typically come with a co-ax connector (e.g., RP-SMA). My XFI Gateway has only one co-ax connector for the input signal. Shouldn’t I be able to find a “rubber duck” antenna with a RJ45 connector to plug into an ethernet jack and give me boosted wi-fi (about 9dB, typical) as output?
WiFi is prone to many different problems, mostly interference from other nearby networks, but it can be underperforming WiFi adapters or drivers. Windows updates like to mess with the driver on the USB WiFi adapter on my PC.
I would try several different WiFi devices placed near the router, and also a wired connection wired directly to the router.
If a wired connection to your router gives good and stable results and WiFi does not on any of the devices, then you may benefit from installing your own WiFi router. I added a WiFi router with antennas to get me better range and control, and disabled the WiFi on the router.
Control-Z, yup! You’re on to something here! Your words confirm what I am finding this evening. Foremost, our PCs’ wi-fi speeds are grossly underperforming vs. cell phone wi-fi speeds. My son and daughter have the same PCs. Her performance is significantly worse placed in the very same spot. They have the same wi-fi interface (Realtek … 802.11ac), but her PC says “Wi-Fi Protocol Wi-Fi4 (802.11n)” whereas his wi-fi protocol agrees with the interface: Wi-Fi5 (802.11ac). Why would this be? Is it a typo by HP (the manufacturer)?
Also, for both PCs, the specs claim 300Mbps. I guess this is the ideal speed, but a Forbes article says 802.11ac should get 1300Mbps and 802.11n should get 450 Mbps, ideally… …or, real world speeds of 720 Mbps for 802.11ac and 240 Mbps for 802.11n.
Your thoughts on why these discrepancies (802.11n protocol vs. 802.11n protocol) stated under the hardware specs on my daughter’s PC? …not to mention 300 Mbps max speed?
Can I do anything to make my daughter’s PC wi-fi specs match my son’s? If the specs are correct, is wi-fi protocol related to hardware or software, such as a wi-fi driver perhaps?
Still just educated guessing here, but you probably need to either tweak the settings on the network adapter, or download a driver straight from the manufacturer. The reason this may be necessary is Windows has a habit of replacing drivers with their own more generic versions, which may not have all the options or capabilities of the manufacturer drivers.
You need to know the model of your WiFi adapter, click Start, type Device Manager, click on Device Manager. Then look under Network adapters and see what’s there.
Once you find the WiFi adapter, right-click on it and pick Properties, and hopefully you will see an Advanced tab. In there there may be settings you can tweak to force or enable faster speeds/protocols.
If the driver doesn’t have an Advanced tab or the settings don’t help, then I’d suggest you find the manufacturer’s site and download and install their drivers for your adapter. The manufacturer drivers often include a tweak program. Beware, while you’re searching I wouldn’t suggest downloading drivers from any third-party site.
The external antenna is just dumb piece of metal that is (possibly) better at transmitting and receiving radio waves than the antenna built into the wifi router. Many modern wifi routers do not have any external antennas, because they use an internal antennas. These are often pretty good.
The RJ45 ports are for ethernet, so you can only connect something smart enough to speak ethernet. That may be a computer, switch, or other device.
I’ll start with the simple bit, and then do a (much) longer explanation.
Here is what to check. Are both computers connected to the same wifi SSID? If not, fix that. If they are connected to the same SSID, then try disconnecting and reconnecting on the slower one. If that doesn’t work, then check the wifi settings on the slow computer and make sure they are not limiting the connection.
802.11ac uses the 5Ghz band, while 802.11n uses the 2.4Ghz band. 5Ghz is faster, but 2.4Ghz is better able to penetrate walls, so provides a stronger signal.
Your Comcast router may be doing one of several things. It have both 2.4 and 5Ghz wifi network with different names. So Xfinity-abc and Xfiniti-abc-5, for example. In that case, your daughter’s computer is connected to the slower (2.4) network, and just needs to be told to connect to the 5Ghz network.
The other possibility is that your Comcast router is only creating one wifi network, but it is available on both 2.4 and 5Ghz. In that case you will only see Xfinity-abc. When this is happening, devices will see both a 5Ghz and 2.4Ghz access point and will always connect to the 2.4, because it has a stronger signal, even if the 5 has a good enough signal, and will be faster. Better wifi routers will play games with kicking devices off the 2.4, so they connect to the 5 network, if they get a good 5Ghz signal. This is called band steering, and sometimes works well, but other times not.
If your Comcast router is using band steering, and there is a good chance it is, your daughter’s computer might have dropped down to the 2.4Ghz network because for some reason it didn’t get a good 5Ghz signal. It is unlikely to automatically reconnect to the 5Ghz network without manually being disconnected and reconnected to wifi.
There are also other options, like the settings for the wifi on the computer are set to only use 2.4, or restricted to 802.11n.
To answer some of your other questions. It may be possible to connect to your router’s web interface and see statistics about the quality of the cable connection. It will be stuff like “Channel ID” and “QAM256”. If you can see that, it will probably also show information about correctable and uncorrectable errors. Some errors are not a big deal, but lots of errors may be a problem. What is “some” and “lots”? It really depends on how long your router has been up. My cable modem has been running for 90 days, and I have a 500-2000 errors per channel. When there was a problem with cable “plant” in my neighborhood, I would have millions of errors.
On a 1000Gbps connection, it is very likely that wifi can be the limiting factor in speed. The maximum speed of even the best wifi is slow compared to gigabit wired. Wifi is also shared, so some other busy device on the network will use some of your speed. It is also subject to interference, so a neighbor’s wifi may cause problems sometimes, but not others.
If possible, connect a computer with gigabit ethernet directly to your router, and run the speed tests like that. Run 5-10 over 5-10 minutes, and see what it looks like. Don’t be surprised if the maximum speed is around 800. If you do that and get an average speed over 700, then it’s probably fine. For the best results of just your connection, use Comcast’s speed test https://speedtest.xfinity.com/ Others will be affected by things outside of Comcast’s network.
It is probably best to just use Comcast’s bundled modem/router/wifi.
Wow, lots of good stuff here to consider. Let me print out the last few replies (above) to digest and delve into. Meanwhile, two basic questions:
Is there a reason why our iPhone wi-fi speeds are consistently and significantly faster (like 10x faster) than any of our PCs, (including PCs with 802.11ac) - all on the same wi-fi network and measured from practically the same spot (around the kitchen table). What wi-fi adapters do iPhones have? Looking under “Settings -> General”, I could not find specifics on a wi-fi adapter model, but my wife and I both have modem firmware 1.06.00 (although my iPhone is always faster by 30-50 Mbps - both the same model iPhones). Oddly, I have more things running in the background, but she has more apps and hence less overall available memory.
Does Apple have some magical, proprietary and top secret wi-fi adapter to assure awesome speeds?
When testing the iPhones, consecutive Comcast speed tests still give numbers that jump across a wide range within minutes (if not seconds) between tests. For example, iPhones jump from 595 Mbps down to 271 and roughly back again. Could their test be giving bogus results? (My apologies: I have yet to run through all the tests suggested way above. I still have to try other websites’ speed tests which may shed light on any Comcast bias…never enough time!)