I've been having a few relatively minor (but hopefully solvable) problems with WiFi roaming and association with my Epic 4G Touch. My current baseband version is EL13.
At home, I have two access points to improve coverage. One of them is a relatively new 802.11n/g/b D-Link router. This is the one connected to my modem and set to router mode. The other is an older 802.11g/b Linksys router set to access point only mode connected to the other router via ethernet. In order to allow easy roaming between the two, I have both APs set to the same SSID and security settings. I have them set on channels 1 and 11 respectively to avoid interference (most of my neighbors use the intermediate channels).
With laptops, roaming works well. Not perfectly, possibly because of the lack of 802.11n on the second AP, but they automatically reassociate to the router with a stronger signal at a reasonable difference in strength. There's rarely a time when the link speed falls below 30 mbps.
With my E4GT, roaming is more hit-and-miss. For some reason, once it's connected to an AP, it doesn't like to reassociate until it loses its current signal completely. This can be a problem when I reach the outer reaches of either AP's signal zones. With the 802.11n AP in particular, the E4GT tends to stay connected even when the link speed (as stated by the router) is 1 mbps. The actual performance is, of course, even worse. Latency is at least 500 ms, and often times, data isn't transmitted at all. I might as well be on 1xRTT. This happens when I'm in the same room as the other AP.
Another annoying quirk is that the ET4G seems to prioritize the 802.11n AP over the 802.11g one when it makes its initial association. When I turn WiFi on in the room with the older router, half the time, my phone decides to connect to the very weak 802.11n signal instead of the full bar signal from the AP in the room.
So, my questions:
Has anyone else noticed this problem?
Is there a way to increase the threshold signal strength before the phone tries to reassociate? This would hopefully make roaming more functional.
Is there a way to de-prioritize 802.11n signals, or alternatively, disable 802.11n connectivity altogether? I don't want to disable it in my router because the extra bandwidth comes in handy for my PCs, but 130 mbps is unnecessary for a phone.
Wow you must have a huge house lol.... Maybe you could try adjusting the transmit power strength on one or both of the routers so that the signal will drop off completely and switch to the other access point. Hope I could help.
Related
I just bough my XDAIIs. Live in Sydney Australia.
I'm generally happy with it but the wifi reception is really bad.
I work at a Uni where we have a huge wireless Network with over 150 basestations and I work in the ITS department where we have at least 4 wireless access points. 3 of them a A radio and one is the BG radio.
From what I've seen the XDAIIs used the BG radio and not the A but I have been reasing several posts and it looks like the wifi antenna is very weak.
I too took my XDAIIs right in front of the base station set the reception to FULL and could barely manage a signal and even when it did manage a signal I couldn't connect.
I have
ROM Version 1.12.62
ROM Date 10/04/04
Radio Version: 1.02.00
Protocol: 1337.32
ExtROM Version: 1.12.925WWE
Is it possible to update the ROM on the XDAIIs yet with a later version such as ROM 2.02.t1WWE. I see posts inidcating its possible on XDAII but not XDAIIs
Peter Birkle
Peter,
I haven't bought a Blue Angel yet, primarily for this reason. However, I've been watching these forums closely to see if anyone knows what the problem is with WiFi reception.
So far, no one has posted a solution, and I fear it's not a ROM or software related issue, but a hardware design issue. My guess is that the WiFi antenna design is extremely poor and either:
1. Internals are interfering with the reception of the WiFi signal
2. The case (which I do believe is some metal alloy) might actually be preventing the internal antenna from receiving external signals.
Hope it helps. By the way, the Blue Angel only supports 802.11b, not 11g or 11a.
Some wireless defination
802.11a - almost proprietary wireless network (All PDA based devices are 802.11b, as per other reply)
802.11b - standard 11mb, and what has been mainstay of most wireless devices up until past 6 months
802.11g - standard 54mb wireless.
Sure there are some others in the range afterwards, but next comes configuration.
Most A wireless networks only communicate with other A networks, few were bought out with interopaeratibilty.
B networks will communicate with B Networks
Most G networks are set by default as communicate with G only (The fast setting), and are not changed to support both, as with many wireless networks, slows the entire speed to the lowest connected speed.
Nearly all G wireless networks are backward compatible with B networks and hence why is displayed on box B/G
Hope this clears it up.
For some real run, get wififofum and a bluetooth GPS, and plot out the access points, then hand to your security audit guy, watch those eyes turn red.
I'm not sure it is a hardware issue because mine works absolutely fine and I've spoken to others who have no problems. Anywhere in the house I get a really good signal (about two thirds on the signal quality indicator) and even outside I get a signal. And that is on best battery setting. A friend of mine lives three doors down (i.e. a lot of bricks in the way!) and I JUST get a signal in his house with best wi-fi performance set.
This would suggest the hardware is fine. Certainly it is on a par with my Dell 510m laptop with a centrino chip.
The only thing I've noticed is that the signal indicator drops off VERY quickly as I move away from the house. So it will stay on two thirds for quite some time and then suddenly drop down to almost nothing about 30 meters away.
ROM 1.12.62 WWE
Rom Date 10/04/04
Radio 1.02.00
WiFi fine on Cingular Siemens Sx66
Following these posts led me to have low expectation of the WiFi capability of the SX66, but having received mine on Monday, I am pleased to state, that at least on my unit, the WiFi is working great. On my AP, I run MAC filtering, 128bit WEP and shared authentication. To ease the installation, I turned my AP back to OPEN Authentication, WEP OFF, and MAC filtering OFF. In this config, the SX66 immediately found and connected to my AP. This also gave me an easy way to determine the MAC address of the SX66 for inclusion in my AP and my router tables (ie PPC Wireless LAN Manager MAIN tab). The WiFi signal strength indicated was on par with what my two other WiFi notebooks indicated(ie around 3/4 max). Taking this one step at a time, I then added the SX66's MAC address to my AP and router tables and turned on MAC filtering. That worked okay, so I then set the AP to WEP encryption and entered my 128 HEX (yes HEX) WEP key into the SX66. BINGO, that worked as well. Then I set the AP and the SX66 into Shared Authentication mode and that worked as well. So, I have my SX66 connected my well guarded WiFi AP with full filtering, encryption and authentication active.
As I mentioned, in testing the WiFi capability, I am finding it at least as good as what my Dlink DWL650+ PCCards running in my notebooks and it also seems to have similar range.
I did note that if you leave the Power Save Mode in the default setting ("Best Battery"),it really dogs down the perfomance of WiFi. I moved mine back to "Best Performance" and the web browsing speed is on par with my notebooks.
All in all, I am very pleased with the WiFi connectivity.
david
wi fi reception
Hi, I don't know about wi fi and all, but could it be an issue where there just isn't a good signal..or the signal you receive depends on where you are as it does if you have a tower close by or not? Sorry if I seem like I don't know what I'm talking about...because I don't. I've just been getting into these devices in the last 6 months and really behind...I'm wanting a blue angel (early next year), but want to make sure it's right for me and weigh the good against the bad
Is it possible ? I have been disappointed with the browsing speed on my TP2 and thought it might be something to do with MTU settings or something like this. However, last weekend I decided to change my router mode from 801.11b/g to 801.11g only. WOW, suddenly my browsing was perfect (the same speed as browsing with my laptop)
So I wondered if it's possible to set something on the TP2 to allow it to connect at g Only - for when using in areas which have a Free Hotspot (like Cafe's or Hotels), since I cannot control the speed that they allow me to connect at.
It's very possible that my TP2 was connecting originally at g speed but that rates were in some way competing against each other.
C
WM will normally default your connection to the better of the two choices. If the option is between b or g, the connection would default to g. There are some things that could be affecting your connection, however. This is most likely a problem with your router broadcasting both signals at once. If you have no use for a b channel, then have it simply focus on sending the g channel.
This is exactly what I have done - shut down the b channel. However, I am trying to ensure that I connect with g ONLY whenever I find a Hotspot in public places.
C
Maybe the problem with browsing speed isn't your phone!
Better check if you are in an area with lots of wireless networks... Try to set your router to use a channel which is 3 channels distance from other WiFi networks.
For example if you have networks on channels 1,3,5,11 you should set your router to use channel 8.
Also try to set "802.11G Protection" to ON, if your router has it!
Any solution? (I know it's old, but I also want to restrict to 801.11g on my android tablet only and I have found nothing on the internet).
Jazzist2014 said:
Any solution? (I know it's old, but I also want to restrict to 801.11g on my android tablet only and I have found nothing on the internet).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The issue is not with the phone in this case, but the access point. When running in mixed mode, data transfer speeds on wifi access points slow down unless they have multiple dedicated radios. If you want the faster wifi speed, just don't use 802.11b. It's antiquated anyway, especially considering we now have not only g, but n and ac standards on the 802.11 rfc.
CaptJosh said:
The issue is not with the phone in this case, but the access point. When running in mixed mode, data transfer speeds on wifi access points slow down unless they have multiple dedicated radios. If you want the faster wifi speed, just don't use 802.11b. It's antiquated anyway, especially considering we now have not only g, but n and ac standards on the 802.11 rfc.
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Click to collapse
i've noticed, however, my phone's (samsumg g-s5) battery drains much quicker when connected to 802.11n network compared to 802.11g. there is no real need for more than 54 Mb/s on my phone, but on my laptop there is. therefore, a way to restrict the phone to use only 802.11g in a mixed-network environment would be beneficial.
scarlion said:
i've noticed, however, my phone's (samsumg g-s5) battery drains much quicker when connected to 802.11n network compared to 802.11g. there is no real need for more than 54 Mb/s on my phone, but on my laptop there is. therefore, a way to restrict the phone to use only 802.11g in a mixed-network environment would be beneficial.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
As far as I know, you can only restrict the mode of the access point, not the phone. I have yet to see any wireless client device, in fact, that lets me restrict which radio mode it uses, save perhaps some homebrew stuff running embedded linux.
EDIT: Pardon the grave-dig. I had been off the site for a while and only just noticed the above reply to my posting from last year after having last night posted a question of my own.
Hi everyone,
I have my Nexus 7 connected to an verizon actiontec router. I am getting terrible wifi with WPA2 security enables. Loading websites takes forever and youtube constantly gives network error. I changed the encryption to WEP and its not disconnecting as much but I would prefer to run WPA2.
Anyone have any suggestions on what is causing the lag and disconnects? 2 laptops and 2 android phones no issues.
Try switching to 802.11g. The N7 is quite flaky in 802.11n mode with a lot of routers.
If you are using WEP, you are in effect forcing 802.11g mode, since 802.11n requires WPA2.
tni.andro said:
Try switching to 802.11g. The N7 is quite flaky in 802.11n mode with a lot of routers.
If you are using WEP, you are in effect forcing 802.11g mode, since 802.11n requires WPA2.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the reply tni,
Is this a hardware issue or a software issue? Could hardwiring and IP number and switching back to WPA2 possibly fix the issue?
cloves said:
Is this a hardware issue or a software issue?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Driver and/or firmware. The Nexus 4, which has pretty much the same Wifi hardware, also has quite a few complaints about Wifi issues.
Could hardwiring and IP number and switching back to WPA2 possibly fix the issue?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's highly unlikely that a fixed IP will make a difference.
Not sure if that came across, but you can use WPA2 with 802.11g (you need to configure that at the router).
Well I changed the router over to WPA2 and then in the advance preferences set it to 'Legacy Mode' to support only 802.11bg and the tablet seems to not be having many hang ups even with youtube. I'll post back if anything changes. Thanks and hopefully this helps a lot of people out there.
I'm using N7 2013 with two different routers,
Both with WPA2, and 802.11n.
No problems at all.
Well, I just did a heck of a lot of work on the IEEE 802.11 protocol suite. I am in no way an expert, but I picked up a bunch of interesting factoids.
- In the 802.11n protocol implementation, all devices must have 802.11n supported NICs. This includes all the clients, not just router. If you have even a single device that is doing legacy 802.11b/g while all the other client NICs are doing 802.11n, then the router will not do 802.11n for any device. Yes, all or nothing deal and the router does not show it. I used Wireshark to confirm this situation exists by drilling down a ton of 802.11 data frames. Despite the router staying set in the drop down menu to 802.11n, under the hood, all the devices dropped to 802.11g.
- Even worse, I know I have clients and router NICs that all support 802.11n, yet I get dropped into the 802.11g protocol. To try to find out what happened, I started from scratch. I put my router into 802.11n which lists it as "performance", then added a static IP to my Nexus 7. I immediately had 58Mb/sec. since 58Mb/sec > 54Mb/sec, I figured maybe I did get 802.11n this time since 802.11g gets 54Mb/sec in optimal conditions. When I went to check which protocol my Nexus 7 is using, I moved it in front of me, a distance no more than 18 inches, and saw my signal drop to next to nothing. I pulled up the Nexus 7's WiFi advanced settings to find out that I now only have 5Mb/sec and the protocol is now 802.11g. This means while roaming, if you hit a sufficient enough degradation in the signal, the Nexus 7 drops your 802.11n status like a hot potato and no, you can't get it back unless you reset everything. I mean at least, to date, I have not found a way to keep a device configured to stay with 802.11n even if the bandwidth drops.
Since I was given a drop down menu in my router as to which protocol I wanted to use and since the 802.11n specs say it is all or nothing, I thought that the router would enforce 802.11n and not allow a legacy NIC to connect to it. This is far from the case. Why they even give us a drop down menu if they are always going to do 802.11b/g/n anyway is beyond me.
Now that I have seen Nexus's wireless protocol drop from 802.11n to 802.11g outside of my control, I want to find all devices that misbehave like this and see if there is anything I can do to force the client to stay on 802.11n. Obviously, I also have to eliminate dead and near dead zones.
Just thought I'd share the all the fun I've had getting to this abysmal point.
I will dig into our smart phones and tablets another day to see if I can force it to stay with 802.11n even its Rx signal attenuated for a few seconds.
I hope this helps others and if your experience is different then mine, I'd love to here what your findings are.
You may be fighting interference not only from the neighbor's WiFi, but appliances in your home. Possible sources for rf noise would include dimmer switches, CRT and plasma screens, microwaves, cordless phones. An rf detector can be bought or built or an am radio tuned between stations can work.
I've seen anywhere from 5mbps to 300mbps connect speed, it can change in one session if the router dynamically adjusts throughput. Also, there may be a power level setting in the router setup to get your signal farther above the noise floor.
Sent from my Le Pan TC1020 using Tapatalk
---------- Post added at 09:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:17 AM ----------
An easy rf detector: single coil electric guitar pickup and cheap practice amplifier sourced from a guitar shop. Ask the guitar tech for a good used p/u, they swap them out all the time.
The wider channels used for faster throughput will be more susceptible to interference than the g standard,IMO.
Sent from my Le Pan TC1020 using Tapatalk
I wonder if anyone can advise how this problem might be fixed:
I have a fire-tv stick in my bedroom the latest version which has a voice remote and connects using WiFi direct instead of bluetooth. I'm using 2.4Ghz wifi (using a TalkTalk hg633 super router). I can't use 5Ghz because the signal to my bedroom isn't good enough on 5Ghz. On 2.4Ghz the link score from inSSIDer is 91 with the fire-tv stick unplugged, with a signal of -50dBm. With the fire-tv stick on a WiFi Direct AP appears on inSSIDer with a signal of -39dBm (ie stronger than my normal wifi signal). The link score drops to 71.
If I test download speeds and pings, then with WiFi direct off, i get decent downloads speeds (around 20Mbps) and 18ms pings in my bedroom, in the lounge its a little higher. With Wi-Fi direct on, download speeds drop below 7mbps, sometimes 1mbps, pings increase to 200ms (although I have seen 10,000ms) and the connection often disconnects so the download speed test or ping is unable to complete. (I get about 2 tests that work out of 6, the others fail due to connection issues).
The upshot of all this is that I can't get a reliable streaming service on my fire-tv stick. especially in the evening. The network often disconnects, or slows to a crawl so I get frequent buffering, inability to stream at all or a poor quality picture. In the lounge, I often find my PC disconnects when wifi direct is on though streaming is less of a problem (because there the wifi signal is about 5dBM greater than the WIfi-Direct signal
I contacted amazon, and they suggested changing the channel of my wifi so it isn't on the same channel a Wifi Direct. That doesn't work because the WiFi Direct signal follows my wifi onto the same channel.
I can't use a lan cable (no option for this on a fire-tv stick, and I shouldn't have to in any case). I don't want to add extra extenders / APs to my wifi network as that might just make things worse.
Does anyone know of any way to switch off WiFi direct and use bluetooth for the remote or the FireTV app on my phone instead? Or to decrease the power of the wifi direct signal, or any other solution?
I wonder about switching to an older fire-stick with bluetooth remote - but that I think would mean I lose the voice search facility?
If I swapped to a full Fire TV with voice remote - do they use bluetooth or Wifi Direct?
Same problem. Not as dire a situation because it's in my kid's bedroom and not mine. :silly: But it interferes with the WiFi signal in areas that are closer to her room than my home router.
Not sure why AMZ chose to use the same channel as the FireTV stick talks to your WiFi network on to do their communication to their remote. That seems like a really bad design - if it's messing the 2 of us up, it has to be doing the same for a whole lot of people.
I tried changing my home WiFi from channel 11 to 1 in troubleshooting and had the same experience as you - the FireTV stick's WiFi changed right along with it to continue to clobber my home WiFi signal. Been through the menus in FireTV stick - no way I can see to change its behavior. Google search led me here.
Hi,
Whilst I stand by everything I said, in attempting to get Amazon to replace my remote with one that used bluetooth instead of wifi-direct, they sent me exactly the same remote in replacement. It still uses wifi-direct. However, it has worked fine, despite being on the same channel. That suggests that some remotes are faulty and causing or exacerbating the problem. Exactly why that would be I don't know, but it's all working fine for me now.
Roku has been doing this for years Here is a link to there form maybe amazon will listen I just got a new one for another room but no network problems and is faster on menu loading so I can live with it.
You're always gonna have problems with a ton of stuff on 2.4ghz. If your router has 5ghz, I would recommend reorganizing if possible, or getting a stronger router. 5ghz means no headaches, no problems with other things, controllers\remote work fine, etc.
I've always thought that newer means better but it looks like with Wi-Fi it's not the case.
Here's my case: I have a Wi-Fi 802.11ax router which provides 2.4 and 5GHz networks.
2.4GHz wireless is configured this way: Mode AX, channel 11 (the least occupied here), bandwidth 40Mhz.
5.0GHz wireless is configured this way: Mode AX, channel auto (nothing in the vicinity), bandwidth 80Mhz.
Everything else is set by default.
What I've noticed that when my smartphones are connected to the absolutely free 5GHz network (no interference, zero competing 5GHz routers), all of them consume roughly 50-60mA more than when they are connected to a congested 2.4GHz (two more 2.4GHz Wi-Fi routers occupying the same channel).
How can you test it yourself? Start playing any Internet radio station (which means a steady very light Internet traffic). Open something like AccuBattery at Discharge Status -> Battery current. Do not touch the phone or do anything in the process - observation takes roughly half a minute. Switch between your 2.4/5GHz access points.
I'm now trying to find out how to keep my phones connected to 5GHz while reducing the Wi-Fi power consumption. The Wi-Fi standard allows to force clients to limit their transmit power. I don't see this option in OpenWRT settings unfortunately.
birdie said:
I've always thought that newer means better but it looks like with Wi-Fi it's not the case.
Here's my case: I have a Wi-Fi 802.11ax router which provides 2.4 and 5GHz networks.
2.5GHz wireless is configured this way: Mode AX, channel 11 (the least occupied here), bandwidth 40Mhz.
5.0GHz wireless is configured this way: Mode AX, channel auto (nothing in the vicinity), bandwidth 80Mhz.
Everything else is set by default.
What I've noticed that when my smartphones are connected to the absolutely free 5GHz network (no interference, zero competing 5GHz routers), all of them consume roughly 50-60mA more than when they are connected to a congested 2.5GHz (two more 2.5GHz Wi-Fi routers occupying the same channel).
How can you test it yourself? Start playing any Internet radio station (which means a steady very light Internet traffic). Open something like AccuBattery at Discharge Status -> Battery current. Do not touch the phone or do anything in the process - observation takes roughly half a minute. Switch between your 2.4/5GHz access points.
I'm now trying to find out how to keep my phones connected to 5GHz while reducing the Wi-Fi power consumption. The Wi-Fi standard allows to force clients to limit their transmit power. I don't see this option in OpenWRT settings unfortunately.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This might help.
[SMALL FIX] Increase Wifi TX power ("signal strenght")
Hi, I noticed that our wifi driver can be controlled via iwconfig to increase TX power. It's not too impressive change (from default 14dbm to max 15dbm), but still it's a ~25% transmission power increase considering miliwatts (25mW->32mW) :)...
forum.xda-developers.com
What do you expect? 5GHz is using the twice the bandwidth. Of course it's going to consume more power. It's also more prone to attenuation at a shorter distance which increases the power needed to maintain the connection.