So, I just read an article about a newfangled device called SuperBoost Wi-Fi. What is this little device, you ask? And do I need one, you ask as well? The simple answers to those questions, it’s JUNK, and HECK NO! If you'd like to read the same article I did, you can find it here:
Now, I will be the first to admit that Internet Service Providers (from here on in referred to as an ISP) are a bit crooked and greedy. They seem most keen on discovering new ways to exploit their customers rather than looking for new ways to improve their goods and services. I've seen examples of this time and time again. However, the article above is definitely fiction. It's an advertisement disguised as a friendly article with the intention of convincing gullible ISP frustrated people to purchase their completely unnecessary Chinese made junk. I know this, not only because I know what I'm talking about (and the obvious red banner at the top that says “advertisement”), but also because their comment section is a farce. When you attempt to leave a comment (which I did multiple times from different devices, and even a few IP addresses via a VPN) it simply states:
"Server is busy, please enter your commment later." (And yesss, it actually had 3 letter m's in it, I just copied and pasted).
They conveniently only have 10 comments and all of them conveniently positive recommendations from people telling their supposed personal experiences with the device. And would you like to know where I found such an article? The Google App on my Android phone. It frequently delivers articles ranging in topics from total nerdy to just slightly Geeky. Most of which, I truly enjoy reading, as I am totally nerdy and sometimes just slightly Geeky. I get tech articles, comic book articles, comic book movie articles, and the list goes on and on. However, it thoroughly surprised me that Google decided to deliver this completely fake garbage. As a result, I decided to write this blog to help the less informed with their internet - more specifically, wireless internet - woes.
Now, if you’re like most people who subscribe to a “High-Speed” broadband internet service, you quite possibly use equipment rented or leased from your ISP. Lately, a few ISPs have been offering more current options for wireless networking including the current generation (gen) AC routers – but usually only if you call them and give them an earful. But let me give you a little background info on that AC thing, and no it doesn’t mean Air Conditioning. The previous routers we’ve seen up to this point are A/B/G/N, and the current gen routers are AC (AX being the improved version), with letters such as AD/AY being the next gen. Though AD is never going to be mainstream and is pretty much already on its way out. Funnily enough, with all those fancy new letters out there, most ISPs are still stuck on N routers.
What should all these letters mean to you? Not much, actually. They’re really just labeling the different antennas and wireless technology with letters (there’s an even more confusing naming convention that goes by 802.11 plus the letter/letters, or the simpler one: Wi-Fi 4/5/6 and so on, but no one uses that for some reason). The older routers were slower and only used one frequency of wireless technology, which had serious limits depending on the letter and corresponding frequency. Then they got progressively better and combined multiple frequencies in one device giving manufacturers a lot more options and technologies to include with their latest routers.
If you really care to know more about the various frequencies that routers use, read on. If not, continue on down 3 paragraphs. The 2.4 GHz frequency is possibly the most common frequency that you’ll find around your home, and I don’t just mean in your router. It was used in B, G, and N routers (AC, and AX as well) that could go up to 11Mbps (Megabits per second), 54Mbps, and 300Mbps respectively, but it’s also inside things like 95% of wireless mice and keyboards out there, Wi-Fi Direct printers, and even baby monitors. With that being said, it’s a frequency that can be used over longer distances and when those distances have objects such as walls in the way.
The 5 GHz frequency is quite a bit faster than it’s 2.4 counterpart and is the primary ingredient in the current gen AC (and improved version AX) routers. The tradeoff is distance. It can’t travel as far, nor can it go through solid objects (like building materials) as well. So, it’s best for close by stationary devices such as game consoles, TVs and set-top boxes. AC (also known as Wi-Fi 5, but only known by a few…for some reason) use the 5 GHz frequency and can go up to 3.46Gbps (Gigabits per second, dang that’s fast), and it is currently the standard. Though it’s been slow getting to the corporate sector. AD has been around for a while (since 2012), but the reason it never became a standard and something we all know and love: it’s only capable of going 11 feet. Yes, you read that correctly. You have to be within 11 feet from an access point and have no obstacles between you. Also, it’s not backward compatible, nor does it play well with other frequencies. It uses the 60 GHz frequency, which is really fast, up to 6.7Gbps (almost twice as fast as the AC limit).
But is speed worth sacrificing the distance? Not at our current ISP speeds. Until Fiber Optic becomes the standard across the ISP industry and everyone’s made it past Gigabit internet speeds, there’s not much of a reason to sacrifice the distance the lower frequencies can cover. So, in comes AX to the save the day! It’s supposed to be roughly 4 times the throughput of current AC models. Then we have AY which is the next generation (should be coming sometime in 2020 or later…) which improves upon the distance of the 60 GHz frequency and may give speeds of up to 20Gbps. That’s just crazy-go-nuts!
Getting back to the ISP issue at hand, I’ve recently been seeing some newer Netgear AC routers in people’s homes, coupled with a standard cable modem. While they’re much better than all of the previous options I’ve seen from ISPs, they are still not quite up to the level of quality, speed, and signal strength you can get from purchasing your own equipment. Up until recently, ISPs have mostly been providing modem/router gateways or combo units (as we nerds commonly describe them in layman’s terms). These combo units are almost as bad the repeater from the article above, and are really only useful if you’re covering a small apartment or tiny house. They are also quite often outdated, used, and previous generation equipment (meaning N).
So, back to the ad…cough…article. “Groundbreaking Device Fixes Slow WiFi And Exposes Greedy Internet Service Providers.” Does it though? I know ISPs are greedy, but I’ve never run into a situation where an ISP would purposefully adjust people’s routers to give them poor Wi-Fi speeds. The gateways just have poor Wi-Fi speeds naturally, and even worse wireless range. AND the fact that the so-called “technician” who supplied this so-called “miraculous” gadget said the ISP “split the speed between two channels, so they can tell you you’re getting the same speed. But you’re only using one channel at a time, so really it’s divided in half. It’s all so you buy the next ‘upgrade’ in their package.”
What? That doesn’t even make sense. It might sound good to the average internet consumer, but it’s actually just a bunch technical jargon (the wrong jargon, I might add) thrown together to make it sound like he knows what he’s talking about. Which leads me to believe that the whole thing is just a made-up story…but who would lie on the internet? Especially to make a profit?!
Now, what do I mean by the wrong words? A wireless router will put out wireless network on specific channels (or it will adjust its channel automatically depending on how advanced your router is), but a channel can’t be split. At least not on a router. There are multiple channels within a frequency though. Think of it as all the channels or stations on an FM radio. Most gateways use 2 different frequencies to supply wireless internet (similar to AM and FM), and you should be an expert on all that if you read those paragraphs above on frequencies. Each of those 2 frequencies has its own strengths and weaknesses, as previously discussed, but most of the N generation gateways that ISPs provide don’t utilize many of those strengths very well.
That doesn’t mean your ISP is splitting your internet to get you to pay for an upgrade, just that they give you crap and charge you monthly to borrow it (as I understand it, Spectrum is currently not charging for the use of their networking equipment, but that doesn’t mean it will work any better). Maybe there’s some dark magic being woven somewhere else in the world to allow an ISP to split channels. But here in the good ol’ US of A, we keep our channels quite unsplit, thank you!
Another thing that made me suspicious of our good friend “Barry the cable guy,” was his choice to give the narrator a Wi-Fi repeater for free. I didn’t find it odd that the guy went against company policy, or that he accepted alcohol while on the job (is that sad…probably). Those things usually aren’t the cheapest gadgets. They usually sell for about $35 or $40 for a cheaper model, and they can go as high as $150 (or more) for a higher AC rated extender/repeater. Not only that, but I was an in-home installer/repair tech/agent for a company that's got a squad of guys and girls that rhyme with weeks. In my 6 years of experience with them (and many years in the private sector), I only ever ran into 2 ISP technicians that actually knew anything about their jobs or were at all competent beyond following the instruction manual included with the equipment (and that is across at least 6 different ISPs).
However, the biggest issue I’ve seen is the equipment the ISPs provide or lease to you for a monthly fee (or if the client has DSL, the DSL is just an issue in and of itself). The ISP’s buy these things in bulk, and they are almost always refurbished when they end up in your home. Fortunately, to fix any speed or network range issues you’re having, there are 2 easy fixes (or 3 depending on how you look at it). You could purchase your own modem (or put the ISP’s gateway into bridge mode) and purchase your own router. The latter being HIGHLY recommended.
Firstly, as I said, buy your own router. If you have a midsize or larger home (especially with multiple floors you wish to saturate with Wi-Fi), get a mesh system or a whole home Wi-Fi system that includes multiple nodes or units. A 3rd party standalone router will provide you with better wireless coverage than a gateway, and a mesh system will provide you with seamless coverage throughout your home (and beyond). The reason that even a single 3rd party router is so much better: when you have a device that does both jobs (that of a router and a modem) it can never perform as well as two separate devices that are specifically designed to each do one thing and do it well.
Buying your own router is only half the battle, though, because if you just connect a new router to a modem/gateway you have both routers attempting to do the routing (commonly referred to as double NAT, or double Network Address Translation). Now, if you ask an ISP tech to set up your personal router, 9 times out of 10, they will do it for you, but they generally just plug it in and make sure it's working. They generally never bother to fix the double NAT, change or personalize your Wi-Fi name/SSID and password, adjust DNS settings, adjust Wi-FI channels to reduce interference, setup QoS (Quality of Service) or parental controls, or even connect more than 1 device in your home to it the new network leaving you with a bunch of Wi-Fi devices not connected to Wi-Fi. So it may be wiser to just hire a professional Geek.
The big fixs for the Double NAT situation is to buy just a modem, place the gateway your ISP gave you into bridge mode (disables all routing capabilities of the gateway, just remember to disable the built-in wifi first), or by placing the new router into DMZ on the gateway (which turns off the routing capabilities for just a single device, namely, your new router). The best part about this is, you don't even have to do the bridging yourself (which can be complicated). All you have to do is call your ISP and ask them to do it for you remotely, and they have to do it if they're able. Or, if you purchase a new modem, you can call your ISP and have them activate it for you. All they need to do is plug it in to power and your cable line and give your ISP the MAC address of the new modem which is listed on the box or a sticker on the new modem.
Now, back to the “miracle gadget. This SuperBoost looks just like every other Wi-Fi extender/repeater on the market. Maybe it does a bit more, but I doubt it. All a Wi-Fi repeater does is repeat the signal from a router. It doesn't intelligently route your internet traffic to the devices that are supposed to receive it. Instead, it just blindly launches repeated data from the router out from its location hoping the right device grabs it.
Think of it like this: an extender is like mailing hundreds of letters out to a bunch of people by just randomly grabbing a bunch of addresses from a phone book and hoping one of them will eventually get to the right person. A router is like knowing the exact address of the recipient and only sending one letter to the right location. And worse, the more devices you connect to a repeater/extender the more it cuts down your overall bandwidth and network speeds. And I mean it cuts speeds exponentially with each new device. Whereas mesh systems aren't just repeaters, but rather each node is in itself a router.
So, to finish this off, if you're having bad Wi-Fi signal or have dead spots/zones in your home, and that’s your main concern, don’t buy any of the crap you see out there promising to fix or boost the speeds from your current setup. Just spend a little extra now to save yourself from a headache down the road. Eventually, everything will be mesh, and you’ll be hard pressed to find a single solitary router sold in stores unless it’s just a new single node intended to be added on to an existing mesh system. As far as mesh systems go, I would recommend Google Wi-Fi, Eero, Linksys Velop (only the tri-band versions), and Netgear Orbi. There are others out there, but those are the ones I've had the best experiences with, and each has its strengths and weaknesses. I would thoroughly recommend doing research on any new device you are looking into purchasing by reading specific reviews. Though, you may end up seeing some reviews of those products on our blog down the road.
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