Eliminating internet bottlenecks

Hey guys,

I'm about to move into a new apartment next month. What sort of things do we need to check? I came up with:

- ISP Plan
- Modem
- Router
- Wireless cards
- House layout (not much we can do about that)

Are there any of these things most important or not important at all to prioritize? I was thinking about getting an expensive router, but my roommate insisted I do some research before putting down the cash (sound idea). Could the modem also be a bottleneck? Could the ISP itself be the issue where anything we do is futile? We have Cox Communications.

The issues we've experienced in the past are lots of disconnects and throttling to low speeds.

 

MOST internet service providers will throttle you if your data usage is too high any given month. I personally have clear internet $50/mo for unlimited 4g--

Unlimited yes, unlimited 4g? No. They throttle down to 400kbps if they detect an excessive amount of file sharing.

 

This is the simplist thing to do and free

Speed up web browsing with OpenDNS

 

I've had Cox for years when I was living in Florida and actually still use them for my email. I only had one problem with them and they fixed it instantly. They'll provide the modem for you, so no worries there.

For the router I would get something that does 2.4 and 5 Ghz range as the 2.4 can handle the older stuff and the new 5 can handle the newer. Which is also faster and has a better range.

If you need wireless cards, make sure it has the 5Ghz range as well.

 

5GHz has worse range compared to 2.4GHz.
The higher the frequency the lower the range.

 

Thanks for correcting an error of mine.

 

Thanks for the input guys.

How big of a factor is the modem? I never see that being discussed often. Will any cheap modem do?

 

Well you are getting Cox you said so hopefully you'll get a DOCSIS 3.0 modem. They are all the same once certified compliant so make sure to check their list of ones they allow on their network. As for any issues though, you would have to narrow that down.

-Modem can be excellent but you pay for 3Mbps speeds and complain of issues streaming Netflix while doing X. Nothing else will fix that other than faster speeds.

-If you are loosing connection to the internet you'd need to figure out if you are loosing your network, as in WIFI/LAN (router) or if it's the modem that lost signal. You can pay for fast speeds but live in a congested area and therefore wireless will suck. Others mentioned 5Ghz and yes it's lower range but even "2 bars" of 5Ghz will give you better speeds than 5bars of 2.4Ghz with 30 other wireless networks around you being noisy as hell. Signal quality is far more important than "bars" That's why I wish phones came with a "connection quality" signal rather than "signal strength" - 5 bars on a mobile phone and still dropping calls because the quality sucks.

So of all the things you mentioned, there are some things you just wont know till you are at the location. You can't buy the "best" modem and you get there only to find out that Cox has issues with the node you are connected to. Obviously they'll fix that but nothing you can do about that. Then there's the wireless thing and then the bottleneck based on your budget as well. So once you are in, get connected and see what issues you will need to solve if any!