582n Wi-Fi Test Results
Quote from: Kelly Are you sure on that?
Yes, you could buy one from ebay and check your self
They are locked to O2 though, you can not even configure them as cable routers
-- will not accept the ppp username and password.
I've got 2 x O2 582n still waiting for a returns bag 
Quote from: Graham21 So the question for me now is why are some people getting shockingly poor performance from this router? I'm talking aobut the people haivng trouble accessing it in the same room or the people who get 75Mb/s where the router is and then almost nothing one floor up or one room over. I can only assume that it has something to do with the environment in which the router is used.
Graham, thanks for clarifying the background and also for taking these issues seriously - more than many ISPs would do!
My own view is that interference/noise handling is the main underlying cause of most of the problems people experience with this particular router. I think you've proved fairly effectively that in a relatively quiet radio environment the wifi on this router performs fine. From my own experiments with it in my house, and from reading the symptoms posted on this forum over the past few weeks, it seems that the wifi performs much less well in a "challenging" radio environment. In my case, I can see around 20 other wifi APs on the 2.4GHz band, I have solid brick walls between rooms, and the geography of the house is long and narrow, with the router at one end. This is a difficult environment for any wifi router, but I found the PN TG582n performance dropped off more markedly than other routers I've tried (including other Technicolor models) as I moved my laptop from room to room away from the router.
The question is why, especially as other ISPs use the same router apparently with fewer problems. There are basically 3 factors: hardware, firmware and configuration. Possibly there are different hardware versions of the same router model, as npr has pointed out, although we don't know what the differences are between them and whether they use the same radio chips. Possibly of more significance is the firmware and the settings used for the various radio parameters. As ejs pointed out, there are a lot of settings that are pre-configured, some of which are "tweakable" via telnet commands. It would be interesting to know if your firmware uses the same radio driver as, for example, O2's firmware, and likewise whether all the radio parameters are set up in the same way. Having just played with 3 different firmware versions on my own Asus router, each with a different radio driver, with all the user accessible parameters set the same, I can definitely say that the performance varied markedly between the 3 drivers/firmwares (and only one of them gave me acceptable performance at the far end of the house).
A small number of users also reported poor wifi performance when only a few metres from the router (and only free air between the wireless devices). I wonder if this is an incompatibility between the radio parameters on the router and their laptop or whatever they were using, that results in successful communication but poor performance. It seems unlikely at this distance that interference is so bad the two radios can barely "hear" each other.
Quote from: Graham21 Would people be willing to pay more for their broadband to get a better router? Or would you rather have the lowest monthly price and go out and buy the router that best fits your needs? (It's a serious quesiton) I think that for most people they would rather have inexpensive broadband.
Agreed. I would rather have cheaper broadband and buy the router that fits my specific needs. Most people probably don't need a premium router. The trick would be to bundle an inexpensive standard router that has better wifi performance (or fix the wifi on the current router)!
Quote from: Graham21 I am intrigued when I hear of a 2x2 2.4GHz N router performing better than ours but comparing ours with the obvious ones, that's not what I am finding.
As I said, I think that's because you need to do the tests in a much more demanding radio environment - not easy, I agree.
Quote from: Bright O2's firmware, and likewise whether all the radio parameters are set up in the same way.
You raise some good points there Bright
Looks the same to me in all the important details.
O2 TG582n wireless default config:
[ wireless.ini ]
radio state=enabled channel=0 rts=2347 interop=802.11b/g/n protection=auto protmode=ctstoself prottrigger=local&overlap shortslot=auto frameburst=disabled locale=Europe dtim=3 srl=7 lrl=4 channelwidth=20 sgi=disabled cdd=disabled stbc=disabled frameaggregation=ampdu radio_id=0 htsecurityrestriction=enabled
radio interferencemode=auto interferencechannel="1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13" radio_id=0
Plusnet TG582n wireless default config:
[ wireless.ini ]
radio state=enabled channel=1 rts=2347 interop=802.11b/g/n protection=auto protmode=ctstoself prottrigger=local&overlap shortslot=auto frameburst=disabled locale=Europe dtim=3 srl=7 lrl=4 frameaggregation=ampdu radio_id=0
radio channel=1 channelwidth=20 sgi=disabled cdd=disabled stbc=disabled interferencemode=auto interferencechannel="1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13" radio_id=0 htsecurityrestriction=enabled
Quote from: Graham21 .
To Everyone:
Clearly if we had a router with 3x3, external antennae, dual concurrent Wi-Fi some of you would not have bought an alternative router. This would definitely cost us more though. Would people be willing to pay more for their broadband to get a better router? Or would you rather have the lowest monthly price and go out and buy the router that best fits your needs? (It's a serious quesiton) I think that for most people they would rather have inexpensive broadband.
I was paying FAR more with my previous ISP but I had a TG587n V2 which felt far better performance and wireless wise than the 582n. I also had uptimes in months rather than days or hours. So I would be happy to pay a bit more for a decent router/modem
Having a internal antenna, the router may be better stood on it's edge. This certainly gives better cooling, the router does run hot which could also be part of the problem.
Perhaps all that's needed is a stand
Perhaps all that's needed is a stand
Well having had a 582n since fibre was installed Friday I can already say that in my home it's far worse on wifi
My house is 15m front to back open plan. Router is 2/3rds of the way down this length.
Steaming YouTube it now buffers if I am at the 10m end something I never encountered with my previous tpLink 8960n anywhere in my house. Streaming was fine when I moved a bit closer to the 582n
Don't get me wrong I can still see it everywhere in my house but the signal meter on my nexus 4 is lower.
To put it into context this afternoon I realised my skyhd box couldn't get an Internet connection. Realised that I had not reconfigured my little tp link wr702 nano router that is attached to it which was still looking for my old ssid. Intrigued by the lower wifi signal I decided to set it up as a repeater rather than just as a wifi client.
Well that proved interesting as the same wifi analysis app v3.5.2 predictably shows the signal is higher from the nano router when I am in the end of the house it is situated in.
What was remarkable is that when I go the other end I.e. 5m past the 582n router and some 15m from the nano router the signal strength is the same -60dbm for both of them
So a £15 nano router a mere 5x5cm in size located behind my av stand is better at wifi than the 582n lol
My house is 15m front to back open plan. Router is 2/3rds of the way down this length.
Steaming YouTube it now buffers if I am at the 10m end something I never encountered with my previous tpLink 8960n anywhere in my house. Streaming was fine when I moved a bit closer to the 582n
Don't get me wrong I can still see it everywhere in my house but the signal meter on my nexus 4 is lower.
To put it into context this afternoon I realised my skyhd box couldn't get an Internet connection. Realised that I had not reconfigured my little tp link wr702 nano router that is attached to it which was still looking for my old ssid. Intrigued by the lower wifi signal I decided to set it up as a repeater rather than just as a wifi client.
Well that proved interesting as the same wifi analysis app v3.5.2 predictably shows the signal is higher from the nano router when I am in the end of the house it is situated in.
What was remarkable is that when I go the other end I.e. 5m past the 582n router and some 15m from the nano router the signal strength is the same -60dbm for both of them
So a £15 nano router a mere 5x5cm in size located behind my av stand is better at wifi than the 582n lol
Quote I can't yet as shouldn't really move the 582n until my 10days are up
I thought that this didn't apply with fibre?
