Wi-Fi woes

[Northerner]

Hi Guy's,

Has anyone got any experience with a BT business Hub router? Basically, the place where I am now living is a shared house (made the move to cut costs a few months ago) and we all share a wi-fi network together. There are about 8 of us using it (Big House), and sometimes it is almost unusable to me.

But the strange thing is that I can access this forum but there is not enough bandwidth to go anywhere else on the web - including Google.

Does anyone know how I can improve this?

[Pepe n Pilar]

Hi Northerner,

Unfortunately the bandwidth is divided between each user who is online, so the more people using it, the slower the connection and transfer speeds. This will be worse at peak times when the whole web is busy. The only solution is to increase the bandwidth by upgrading to 10, 20 or even 50 meg (although 50 is only available with Virgin). A wireless router may be slightly faster, but not much.

Regards,

Mr P&P

[JimOttley]

But the strange thing is that I can access this forum but there is not enough bandwidth to go anywhere else on the web - including Google.

Does anyone know how I can improve this?

What actually happens when you try to connect to Google?


Jim

[Northerner]

Thanks P&P.. Just as I thought I did help set it up and have acess to the main settings and was considering allocating more bandwidth to myself than others.. But I can't be cruel. Plus if anyone noticed, they'd all be pretty pd off with me

[Northerner]

What actually happens when you try to connect to Google?


Jim

When it is bad, I can't access the rest of the web.. Except this forum I think it is because I am building up a cache of it so my proxy has the usual images stored already, or my laptop does.. But just Google or any simple site (not much graghics or script wise) still wont download My browser gives up after a while and I get the usual not available message

[bornatbirth]

Thanks P&P.. Just as I thought I did help set it up and have acess to the main settings and was considering allocating more bandwidth to myself than others.. But I can't be cruel. Plus if anyone noticed, they'd all be pretty pd off with me

just change the password so only you can access?

other than that not much you can do if theres upto 8 others online at once unless you get yourself a mobile connection?

[JimOttley]

When it is bad, I can't access the rest of the web.. Except this forum I think it is because I am building up a cache of it so my proxy has the usual images stored already, or my laptop does.. But just Google or any simple site (not much graghics or script wise) still wont download My browser gives up after a while and I get the usual not available message

It's difficult even with a lot of people sharing a connection to completely saturate it so that a low bandwidth site like Google becomes unavailable

I take it you've checked obvious things on your own laptop like rouge processes that are chewing up 100% or at least large parts of the processor?

Afraid I don't know anything about that particular router.

Jim

[Northerner]

It's difficult even with a lot of people sharing a connection to completely saturate it so that a low bandwidth site like Google becomes unavailable

I take it you've checked obvious things on your own laptop like rouge processes that are chewing up 100% or at least large parts of the processor?

Afraid I don't know anything about that particular router.

Jim

The PC itself is ship shape, I never download stuff I think is infected with spyware; plus I never install anything I think might be unreliable. No slow down and no strange processes popping up My PC is fine!

I know a few of my housemates have complained about the same problem. I was just wondering if there was some sort of 'cheat' I could use to keep my PC conected all the time. Guess not..

I did get a mobile dongle from T-mobile. Pay as you go jobby.. When it is really bad I do use it, but I hate the way it distorts images while trying to minimize the size of them Plus it only lets me watch 1 or 2 youtube videos

So, looks like I am stuck with it till I move, and quite frankly that won't be for any time soon.

[JimOttley]

The PC itself is ship shape, I never download stuff I think is infected with spyware; plus I never install anything I think might be unreliable. No slow down and no strange processes popping up My PC is fine!

I know a few of my housemates have complained about the same problem. I was just wondering if there was some sort of 'cheat' I could use to keep my PC conected all the time. Guess not..

I did get a mobile dongle from T-mobile. Pay as you go jobby.. When it is really bad I do use it, but I hate the way it distorts images while trying to minimize the size of them Plus it only lets me watch 1 or 2 youtube videos

So, looks like I am stuck with it till I move, and quite frankly that won't be for any time soon.

Your problem might be wider i.e. at the exchange it's almost certainly a contention problem of some kind, just not so sure that it is a contention problem in your house, you may be really close (in telephone exchange terms) to a lot of big downloaders and that might be the main problem but really hard to tell.

It also might just be an intermittent problem where you are having trouble connecting to the DNS server of your ISP who knows :( internet connections at the street level are a black art these days

I am lucky I get 13MB down and about 750K up pretty much consistently.


Jim

[Northerner]

Your problem might be wider i.e. at the exchange it's almost certainly a contention problem of some kind, just not so sure that it is a contention problem in your house, you may be really close (in telephone exchange terms) to a lot of big downloaders and that might be the main problem but really hard to tell.

It also might just be an intermittent problem where you are having trouble connecting to the DNS server of your ISP who knows :( internet connections at the street level are a black art these days

I am lucky I get 13MB down and about 750K up pretty much consistently.


Jim

Well, I live accross the street to Manchester University, pretty much a student area with gigabytes per second flying through the airwaves So who knows... My previous place, I took out the Virgin 20 meg package so this is a huuuuuuge drop in speed for me

[aromulus]

I found out at my cost that BT is a shower of ****

For years I was paying top money for unlimited downloads, up to 8 meg, blah, blah, blah, and never ever got it.... It was slowed down at the exchange.... I did find out later....
Complaining didn't work, so I took my business to AOL, which has been great and has delivered its promises.
The speed has improved greatly, infact it went from barely a meg to nearly 3, but I am told that BT is still keeping speeds down, at the exchange, for whatever reason.

[KeithD]

I found out at my cost that BT is a shower of ****

Never had a problem with BT, always get over 7mbps, and a 20:1 ratio which I share sod all with at prime times as it's a business account

[somebody]

Have you or anyone else rebooted the surfer and have you checked the settings? Can you sure someone else is not stopping other users go elsewhere via the settings?

Is it also used as a openzone thingy I no one router we had at work was split for internal use (I here guests in reception and open zone they took off the open zone feature as it cause them various issues.