Rubbish Router

[#1]

Can you be certain that the bottleneck is the router and not the wifi interface on your PC?
Have you checked that the wifi drivers on the PC are up to date?

[#2]

Quote from: Roostie

I'm on WPA-PSK / WPA2-PSK Security settings.  I do not think there are any other 802.11g devices other than the laptop. Do you think this is adding to the problem then?

so the router is operating correctly then. it's providing the fastest possible wifi bandwidth that your laptop is capable of receiving.
the laptop is not 'Adding" to the problem, it IS the problem

[#3]

I have been reading this post with interest.
I have not gone live yet with Plusnet Fibre (2 days to go).
I did my research on what kit Plusnet provide & it became clear very quickly that the basic router Plusnet offer is cheap & cheerful.
I also took into consideration that Plusnet are one of the cheapest Fibre broadband providers in the UK so therefore this did not bother me at all. We can't have it all :~)
Thanks to all the help I got on this very good forum I decided to stick with a 2 box solution & purchase a very good spec'd wireless router (ASUS RT-AC56U AC1200). It was not cheap!! But only a one off purchase.
The only room for improvement would be that Plusnet should offer at signup a choice of say a couple of really good quality combined vdsl/routers or 2 box solutions at a reduced price (Plusnet buying power).
Plusnet then could help with the setup & support of these couple of offerings.
There are plenty of techs on this forum that would gladly help Plusnet in the choice of which routers to offer at discount.
Just my thoughts on the subject :~) xx

[#4]

Hope that you enjoy your 56U as much as I have, great piece of kit. 

[#5]

It's really weird as I have had speeds of 35mb Download and 10mb upload on my iphone 4s via wireless, but that has now dropped to 16Mb

[#6]

Quote from: Townman

Can you be certain that the bottleneck is the router and not the wifi interface on your PC? Have you checked that the wifi drivers on the PC are up to date?

My PC is connected via Ethernet cable and gets 49Mb Download
Laptop is on Wifi - correct drivers installed and gets 16mb download over WiFi
Iphone 4s on Wifi did get 35Mb Download but now thats dropped to 16Mb too.

[#7]

Quote from: Roostie

I do not think there are any other 802.11g devices other than the laptop.

So that explains the laptop speed.
Was the laptop connected when the iPhone dropped to 16Mb? If yes, try with the laptop off (ie no 11g connections).

[#8]

Quote from: tonyAtplus

Quote from: Roostie Quote from: chenks76 yep, some people want everything for nothing. It's not a case of " something for nothing", the cost of your Router is incorporated in the price you pay per month, PlusNet or whoever dont " give" you a Router out of the goodness of their hearts. My point is though, that if you do a little research, you will find plenty of people with the same problem, so obviously a problem exists with the Wifi speed for a lot of people. Yes, perhaps there are those of you who are quite happy not to rock the boat and accept a poor transfer speed.  Go get a car and be told it "can" go up to 78 mph but in reality, when you get it, it does 16mph, but hey, "lots of other people" are happy with 16mph and don't complain so shut up and accept it. I'm sure a lot of you would be straight up the garage..... Do you complain and take the car back when it can only go 10mph in a traffic jam? Think of radio interference (including microwave ovens as well as other nearby networks, other devices on the wifi etc etc) as traffic.

Traffic Jams tend not to be constant though do they, so occasionally you put up with a drop in speed knowing it will in all probability resolve itself. This, however, if it is a traffic jam, is a constant one.
I've checked the channels, and as I said before, used InSider to check which channels are less crowded than others. In fact, Ive gone trough every channel and done a Speed test, they used to average out at about 30Mb/s but now that speed on all our devices has dropped to around 16mb.
No new tech has been added and no settings changed and by virtue of the fact that 3 separate smart phones and a laptop are all showing a reduction in WiFi Speed leads me to suspect that its not the devices but something else  

[#9]

Laptop is using an Atheros AR5007 802.11b/g Wifi Adapter
Just done another speed test  
TEST1:
Laptop 22Mb Download
iPhone 4s - 35.41 Mb/s
TEST 2:
Laptop 17Mb/s
iPhone 4s - 10.5 Mb/s
TEST 3:
Laptop :  20Mb/s
iPhone 4s - 35mb/s
This was about 8ft away from the router.

Freakin' odd - Do you think it could be something that a neighbour has thats causing interference? Nothing here has changed.
Guess I'll have to live with the changes in speed.

[#10]

the laptop - you aren't going to get much better than that as it's only a g capable device.
that is just a limitation of your laptop hardware.
35Mbps on a 4S isn't too bad really for a phone.
and yes, it's possible there is something outside your house but close enough to cause wifi interference... garage doors, cordless doorbells have all been known to cause havoc.

[#11]

Smartphones aren't really designed for high speed downloading. They generally contain "n150" class wifi which in reality means a maximum wireless rate of 65Mbps (which isn't much more than 11g devices with 54Mbps), and speedtest results will be much less than that. At best, a smartphone is only capable of receiving half of the speed the 582n's wifi is capable of.

[#12]

I had a similar problem with my old laptop, bought one of these to replace the inbuilt wireless adapter.
http://www.netgear.com/home/products/networking/wifi-adapters/WNDA3100.aspx#tab-techspecs

[#13]

I agree with the aforementioned idea of options at ordering. If plusnet bought in a job lot of dual band routers and then sold them as an option for say £40 extra over the 582n. They may not be making much profit, but that's what the monthly charge is for right?

[#14]

AIUI, if you connect a single 11g device the 582 drops to 11g speeds for ALL devices (including devices that had previously been running at higher speeds).
Question 1: If the 11g device is disconnected do the speeds return what they were are do you have to do something to the router (e.g. stop/start the wifi or reboot)?
Question 2: Could 11g devices of neighbours make the speed drop back (e.g. just getting the names of available networks in the area)?

[#15]

Thank you hillyfields123, nice to know somebody else agrees with me.
It just seems the kit is the weak link in what Plusnet are offering.
If you offer the customer a nice shiny new good looking/spec'd kit they may think well it's a one off purchase.
The 582n makes Plusnet look cheap & a bit outdated.
With Sky you get the Sky Hub SR102 which looks good but has had poor reviews.
With BT you get the Home Hub 5 which also looks good but has mixed reviews.
With Plusnet you get a bit of kit that looks like a 56k dial up modem from the early days, BUT as I have already stated Plusnet are cheaper than Sky & BT.