Switching off wifi router at night.

Almost every one i know in India has this annoying habit of switching off their wifi router at night. So for a visitor on an international time zone who is wide awake at night has no access to wifi as it has been switched off. Indian readers may agree with this comment as it is a widspread habit.

The reasons given are…save on electricity bills and …increase the lifespan of the router.

I have heard that switching off the wifi routinely at night is bad for the connection speeds as the switchbox in the severs will assume that constant switching off every night is a fault with the line and thus reduce speeds to the line as a precaution.

So what is the dope on this. Is there any truth in the bit about lifespan or connection speeds. I know electricity consumption by the unit is very low…but Indians in India do not believe you.

I’ve certainly understood that too frequent switching off will reset one’s speed — I don’t think once a day will actually make that difference, though.

It shouldn’t affect the lifespan whether you keep it on all the time or keep switching it off. It’s when it gets very hot one should think of replacing it…

I leave it on all the time, except when going out ( since I don’t like leaving any appliance on when out ), or if I want to clear it to improve speed.

A dual-band wi-fi router uses about 3 kW-hr per week or less; less demanding units may use only 1. Whether this is significant depends on one’s utility rates and financial situation.

Switching off will do nothing to connection speeds unless the ISP is run by complete idiots. There is no reason for an ISP to be initiating connection to a consumer router, so how would they even know? Besides, if this practice is widespread in India, surely Indian ISPs know about it.

Well, British Telecom for one — and they own the telegraphy that all British ISPs must use ( in an excessively complicated way due to privatization ) —:

However unless one is getting less than 5MB broadband, I don’t see how you’d ever notice. 45MB and 50MB are pretty similar for surfing.

Actually, an elderly friend of mine used to switch her router off and her internet speed went up several times after leaving it on permanently.

Anyway, I’m somewhat confused: are we talking about turning off routers or turning off wifi functionality?

Since the OP specified saving electricity I don’t believe he was just turning off the WIFI bit.
Which would be difficult anyway since most routers would require one to use the browser interface to stop WIFI, and I refuse to believe millions of Indians are doing that nightly, but leaving the router on.

I am missing something here. Why does this annoy you? Are you using someone else’s wifi without permission? Or do you mean that even the hotels turn it off?

When staying with relatives and friends in their homes during visits to India. Hotels keep wifi on 24 hrs.

Wifi APs and routers are designed to be always-on, so at the very least, leaving them switched on should not shorten their life below the designed lifespan.

As to whether turning them off daily shortens the life (in actual elapsed days/years) compared to being always-on, I think the answer is going to be a very definite ‘perhaps’.

Turning off a router or AP for hours at a time will allow it to cool down - turning it back on will warm it up again. This repeated temperature cycling can place stress on solder joints and even the small connections inside the integrated circuits (the wires connecting the die to the pins, etc).
For a perfectly-designed and perfectly-built device, this won’t make a measurable difference to the life, but in reality, consumer electronic devices are built to a quality tolerance that is somewhat short of perfection.

There aren’t many things in these devices that just ‘wear out’ from simple usage, like a pair of shoes. Electrolytic capacitors dry out over the space of a decade or so, and probably more so when they are warm and in use, but most solid-state components work until something breaks them.

Turning them off nightly may just save power, or it may also shorten the lifespan of the device.

thanks!

Don’t you just turn it back on, yourself?

So, I’m supposed to regard as authoritative this random comment from another message board? Cite from BT that this is even true?

Of course, I’m perfectly willing to accept that it is true, and that BT is run by idiots. Wouldn’t be unprecedented.

BT like most entrenched quasi-monopolists is run by idiots — and no change will permanently alter institutions.
Not BT, just their community boards:

Does turning router off every night affect speed?

*The recommendation is that your router remains connected 24/7 however there are many who switch off before going to bed The problem would be if you were to switch back on and then off quickly or the router reset and you switched it of shortly after as the exchange might see this as a noise problem and drop your speed. *
*I would advise that you leave the HomeHub on 24/7 this could be the cause. DLM in the exchange will change your SNR and speed accordingly, I would give it 10 days to see a notable increase.
*
*Dynamic Line Management (DLM) is a process which continously monitors your line to ensure that a stable connection is being maintained.

This works by data being sent to the DSLAM every time you connect to the Internet, including line data and any errors on the phone line.

The information is collated by the Data Collector which in turn sends it to the Dynamic Line Management system.

Should the DLM detect an issue on the line it will adjust SNR and Interleaving settings or decrease your connection (sychronisation) speed to a level which will provide you with a stable connection.

If on the contrary your connection proves stable at a higher sychronisation speed, DLM will increase your profile to operate at this level.

It’s important to note that your connection must remained sychronised at the higher rate for 3 days before DLM will update your BRAS profile.

If any changes are made, DLM sends the information via the flow stream to NCAS. NCAS then reports to the DSLAM which then makes the relevant changes to the individual users line card.‘’*
Disconnection due to Turning off Router?!
*
The reason that it is recommended to leave your router on 24/7 is that turning it off and on can be interpreted by the DLM (Dynamic Line Management) as a possible fault on the line. If it does, the DLM may lower your speeds to a speed that it has deemed the “faulty” line can support.

See this link about DLM
http://www.thinkbroadband.com/files/broadband-max-myths-and-legends.pdf*

Other sources:
United Kingdom internal phone systems

This “degradation” appears as a reduction in the signal to noise ratio (SNR), and as CRC errors counted up by the modem and in some cases cause disconnections, or prevents the end user getting the speed their line should be capable of. As we move to faster speeds and to "rate adaptive” services where the ADSL goes as fast as the line allows it, the dear old ring wire will slow down our connections.

Broadband SNR Margin Tweak ( Guide )

The exchange equipment attempts to set the downlink connection speed such that there is a sufficiently high SNR margin to guarantee a reliable connection (without regular drops and/or an unacceptable number of errors). This specific margin that the exchange tries to achieve is called the target SNR margin. The higher the target SNR margin, the lower your connection speed.

When your broadband service is first switched on, the target SNR margin is set by the BT exchange equipment at 6 dB. On a good line, BT generally considers that a 6 dB SNR margin is appropriate to maintain a connection without a significant number of drops or errors. The corresponding target margin for TalkTalk equipment is 9 dB.

As part of the Digital Line Management process, the exchange equipment continuously monitors your broadband connection, for example recording the number of times that it drops and the number of errors it suffers. If the line experiences any issues (such as bursts of errors at a particular time), the exchange equipment can increase the target SNR margin – usually in steps of 3 dB. This action – aimed at stabilising the line – reduces the connection speed.

ADSL broadband over copper typically requires ‘training’ - this is a process by which the modem performs trial and error speed settings, attempting to negotiate the fastest stable connection.

The modem will do this every time it is switched on - so if a temporary fault causes a disconnection, and that same fault impedes connection speed, the modem will negotiate the fastest stable connection at that time (which will be slow), then it will stick to that.

Restarting the modem after the temporary fault has gone will allow it to renegotiate a fast connection.