My wireless sucks, can it be made less sucky?

I live in a small condo with my partner. We have three mobile devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, Android phone), a laptop (Win7) and a desktop computer (Vista) that connect to the wireless. Typically only one or two devices will be in use at any one time.

I am using Telus (Canadian telecom) as my provider for both TV and Internet. They have supplied me with an Actiontec V1000H as seen here: http://www.actiontec.com/products/product.php?pid=191. It is connected via ethernet to my PC and sits in my computer nook/mini mancave.

The main problem is the wireless fairly regularly fails to connect (it happens several times per week, on average). The device trying to connect either needs to be completely shut off/restarted (which may or may not work) or the wireless gateway has to be reset. This is annoying and it can happen even if the device (eg. my phone) is sitting a few feet away from the gateway.

Is there any way to improve the stability of the wireless connection short of getting Telus to swap out the gateway for another and hoping the replacement works better? Is wireless normally this flaky and I'm just being unreasonable and junk by expecting better?

Any answers and/or advice is appreciated!

Yours is worse than normal; there is huge variation in the quality of wireless implementations out there, and "Actiontec" is on the top of nobody's list for awesomeness. The tricky part for you is that the modem/router/wireless stuff is all crammed into one box, so you can't just buy a regular wireless router and hook it up. It looks like you can disable the wireless part on that thing, which means that you can use it in conjunction with a wireless access point, which should work better for you.

I recommend looking at Smallnetbuilder.com for recommendations/reviews on a wireless access point, but have no personal experience with anything.

That gives me a starting point for alternatives, so that's something. Thanks!

He absolutely can use a regular wireless router. Access points are for suckers.

A regular wireless router will let you disable DHCP and then plug the Actiontec into the LAN ports of the router so that DHCP is being handled by the Actiontec and not the router. The router will then act as an AP. This will prevent a double-NAT situation with the two routers, BUT, big butt here, you may not want to use the Actiontec as a router either if it is flaky in that department. I don't have any experience with that piece of hardware, but as an example, the Business Class modems for Comcast have routing table issues that frequently cause network issues and require a reboot, so I'll endure a double-NAT situation with those any day of the week to prevent overall network problems.

Heh heh heh, you said 'big butt'.

The Actiontec is fine as far as the wired connection goes, so I don't want to chuck the whole thing in a fire or anything. I think I prefer the simplicity of using a WAP because I've moved beyond the point where configuring all this junk entertains me. I just want something that works. If that makes me a sucker, I can live with that.

Your best starting point is just seeing if it's simply that the selected channel is crowded. A tool like inSSIDer will let you see what else is out there. Check what channel your wireless router is using and see if moving it to a quieter one (use 1, 6 or 13 as these channels don't overlap others or have the minimal overlap possible or something - I don't think the US has 12 and 13 so maybe 11 is good) helps. My wireless router was set to automatically select a channel, but kept picking 6 and we had connection problems. When I moved it to 1 things improved.

Also, if your router is in 300Mbs mode then it is using two channels and this can be less reliable than 144Mbs and below which only use one. Or you can use OBSS (if your router has the option) with 300Mbs and it will drop to one channel when it detects that its space is crowded.

If all your equipment is n (as opposed to a, b and g) then ensure you're using Greenfield Mode as well as this allows for faster and more efficient connections which can improve reliability.

Another option is if your channel space is really crowded and all your equipment is n AND supports the 5Ghz frequency you can switch your router to that. It's a much, much quieter space, even though the range isn't quite as good.

EDIT: So looking at the manual of your router channel width would appear to determine whether you're in 144Mbs or 300Mbs mode. 20Mhz is the former and 40Mhz the later.

There doesn't appear to be a Greenfield setting, though it might default to this if you set wireless mode to n only. If all your equipment is n you should switch to n only mode.

tl;dr

1. Download and install inSSIDer
2. Use inSSIDer to see what channel you're using and what channels other APs in your area are using
3. Manually set your router to 1, 6 or 11 depending on which is quietest. Ideally it won't be the one your router has currently chosen.
4. If all your equipment is 802.11n rated then set your wireless settings to 802.11n only
5. If the wireless is for Internet access only (assuming your connection is less than 100Mbs) and not transferring large amounts of data around the LAN then set Channel Width to 20Mhz rather than 40Mhz

inSSIDer states "No Wi-Fi interfaces found!"

However, I'd forgotten about trying different channels. It was set to auto so I'm going to try channel 1 and move through a few others to see what happens. It looks like everything here support at least 802.11n so I've set the router to that instead of compatibility mode (which goes down to b). It was already set to 20MHz rather than 40 so I'll leave that be.

I shall now monitor things for awhile. And by that I mean go out shopping.

Thanks to everyone for the tips and advice thus far!

You're using it on a machine with wireless, right?

Yeah, I downloaded the Android app. It may have just needed a restart to update. It's showing an assortment of neighboring wireless connections running on a mix of channels, with 1, 6 and 11 showing up most often.

1, 6 and 11 are the best to use. APs using a channel width of 40Mhz will be using two channels e.g. 1+5

Just find the quietest of the three that you're not using right now.

THIS. So much this.

I'd never use whatever crappy modem/router combo my telco ship me - I immidiately hook up a good quality router bought with my own money and only used the original as mys ADSL-modem and for DHCP.

The good router basically acts as a WAP and handles everything else.

I don't understand this. A regular wireless router is an access point.

No shit sherlock. ;)

I was responding to this though:

You wouldn't be chucking the Actiontec, you'd just be disabling the wireless portion and using another wireless router to handle that, and/or disabling DHCP and essentially turning it into a dumb bridge.

I don't think it's a good use of money though. You play with the channels and other configuration, and if that fails you switch the antennas. I don't think having a second device purely for wireless is a good investment, it's unlikely to improve anything. Really the major failings of ISP routers tends to be heat dissipation and handling torrents, consumer wireless routers are all about the same when it comes to signal.

That's demonstrably not true. Every test we do (and we do at least one a year) show a big difference in signal strength and range.

Please link to the relevant studies to demonstrate.

You first. You said they're all the same.

My evidence is in Danish and not readily available online.

Actually, this comes off the back of the suggestion that he get another device and use that for wireless instead. I'll happily counter-point that should someone support it with evidence.

You got me. The renowned Actiontec V1000H is just as good as the Asus RT-N56U. It's just a scam, what we do.

Go change some channels and buy new antennas. You'll be happy.

I'm sorry, but there's a limit to the amount of work I'll put into helping people for free.

Sure, but you don't get to play the magic "But I know best" card unless you're willing to back it up. If it's a lot of effort and you don't want to, that's understandable, but the melodramatic flouncing is a bit much.

We all need a good flounce once in a while.

The 'I know best'-card was played on the presumption that it was known that I work for a pc-magazine - the guy who test routers for us is very thorough in his measurements. I also didn't bother providing links, because I didn't find it in anyway controversial to state that there was a great difference in range, speeds and signal strength consistency between router models, because this has been the case in every comparable test I've ever seen - if they were all so alike, that some no-name Asian brand given away for free by a telco was likely to be just as good as a top of the line brand name router, then I think I would have stumbled upon the exposé somewhere outside this thread.

I'm not going to dig up links to prove a very simple point like "you usually get, what you pay for", but here's the first simple showing of the difference in speed and ranges that Google brought up.
http://reviews.cnet.com/routers/asus-rt-n56u-dual/4505-3319_7-34200558-2.html

I don't know the Actiontec V1000H and I've never seen it tested. It might belong on top of that list, but I doubt it.
There's nothing wrong with trying the free part of your advice before buying anything - personally, I'd do both.

My first question would be how many of each router did he test?

I understand that, I'm just saying the wired part of the Actiontec is working fine. I have no problem with its speed/stability so I'm reluctant to replace the wired portion with something else that may arguably be superior, simply because I want to minimize the number of things I'm messing around with and I don't want to introduce new things to configure/spend time on unless I really need to.

Yes. Yes, you do.

The wired stability is fine.
The wireless stability is less so.

Are you saying the wireless part can't be improved without replacing the whole thing?

1. This does not match my experience, particularly around wireless stability. I got so frustrated with the Linksys that I bought a couple years back that I got rid of it and replaced it with a Netgear that significantly improved wireless for me, what with not dropping connections all the time.

2. Look at the charts on smallnetbuilder.com. They do pretty solid, repeatable-style testing with routers and access points, and there are major differences between units.

If Quitch's suggestions didn't help, then no.

Again, adding a router isn't the same as replacing the whole thing. But if you don't want to, then calling your telco support with the goal of getting a replacement would be the next course of action - I have no idea how that works in Canada, but here that would entail a lot of waiting and then a lot of talking to incompetent people going through rigid scripts. ("Go into Internet Explorer", "But, I don't use Internet Explorer and this issue has nothing to do with my browser", "Please sir, could you start Internet Explorer and...")
Perhaps it's better where you live and perhaps your new Actiontec router won't have the exact same issues.

Well, you can still fiddle with router placement and antenna alignment.

Thanks, I'll check that out.

Why do you believe this? I think a lot of the flakiness of bad wireless routers is specific to the wireless parts -- i.e., you can have a wireless router that routes fine, and has no problem with wired connections, but drops out wireless connections. And if you plug in a wireless access point (or a wireless router that you've tweaked to a point of non-interference with DHCP and such-like), you can leave the wired part of the router intact while replacing the wireless part.

I don't disagree with this. That was RyanMM's original suggestion that I agreed with.
Unless I'm misunderstanding something you wrote.

Ah, I think I was misunderstanding the answer "no" in response to a "can't be improved" question.

No. I'm suggesting keeping the Actiontec to handle certain duties, and then using a second device to handle others. What duties you split off to the second device depends on your tolerance for issues like Double-NAT.

The tweaks to the wireless settings seem to be working fine so far.

http://www.freeantennas.com/projects/template2/index.html