Shift from Router to Powerline. How to improve?

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Dj3go83

Commendable
Aug 14, 2016
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1,510
Hello everybody.
I am experiencing an issue with my Wi-Fi network at my parent's house.
I have a modem-router Fritz!Box 3272 (really the best I've ever had) and generally access this network with multiple devices (windows 7 laptop, macboox, iphone etc).

My house is not tremendously huge, but still I had issue in reaching some corners, for instance my bedroom was covered so bad that I couldn't even use internet.

For this reason, I decided to go as a solution for a powerline, with which I have a good experience at my own house, and bouth a d-link powerline, composed of one plug from modem, and one receiver lan+wifi, that I placed in my bedroom.

As a practice, that I read on manuals, I set the repeater of powerline with same SSID and password of the main wifi connection, in theory to have a seemless network.

The overall coverage is now much better, I basically get excellent signal everywhere. On the other hand, my issue is that now, when I go for instance from my bedroom, where Ihave the powerline wifi, to living room, where the modem is, the devices remain connected to the powerline in the bedroom.

This is a bit capping the benefit of doing all of this, because the signal will be still stronger than before, but of course I lose some strenght and speed.

My questions:
- Aren't the device supposed to connect to the closest strongest source, shifting between them if necessary?
- Is there any option I can set to ensure that the devices connect to either modem or powerline automatically depending on where I'm closer too?
- Anything else I can do to sort this?

Many thanks in advance everybody
Diego
 
Solution
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The easiest solution is to cause the wifi to drop and it will reconnect to the stronger source in most cases. The problem is the radio chip is being used for your connection and can not scan for other devices without dropping your connection constantly so it won't even look until l the signal get really bad.

The only way to be 100% sure it connects to what you want it to is to use different SSID.
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bill001g

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Aug 9, 2012
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The easiest solution is to cause the wifi to drop and it will reconnect to the stronger source in most cases. The problem is the radio chip is being used for your connection and can not scan for other devices without dropping your connection constantly so it won't even look until l the signal get really bad.

The only way to be 100% sure it connects to what you want it to is to use different SSID.
 
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Dj3go83

Commendable
Aug 14, 2016
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1,510
Thank you very much for your answer.
May i add an additional sub-layer to my question?

I m realizing that he device that looks struggling the most in this situation is my IPhone 6 (iOS 9.3.4). When connected to main hub (fritzbox) it looks working well, when connected to the range extender, sometimes really gets stuck, and cannot surf, or update Facebook. The strange thing is that if in that moment I do a speed test for instance, that works, so it looks like only some services face this issue.

Any idea of what it could be or how to sort?
Many thanks again!
Diego
 
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bill001g

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Aug 9, 2012
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It is really hard to say because there are so many variable involved. The powerline itself is pretty stupid it has no concept of application so it should not care what you are running. It pretty much only knows about mac addresses. You could have wireless issues or you could have issues with the powerline connection back to the main router, both will give you similar appearances.

Now if you are somehow causing a switch between the main router and the powerline device it can take much longer to switch than if you were using say a AP on the end of a ethernet cable. Powerline devices tend to not time out the mac address as quickly as a normal switch or router which makes the roaming problem even worse.

I would change the ssid so you can be sure your problem is it not attempting to switch. Make sure you use different radio channels on the 2 devices also.

If it still does it then you are likely going to have a hard job finding it. The powerline device have little diagnostic abilities to help you.
 
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Dj3go83

Commendable
Aug 14, 2016
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Thank you. IT makes sense. It s true that powerline is not the most insightful item.

However, as you said, I noticed that apparently my devices change the source when the closer is stronger. They are just extremely slow in doing (pc looks faster than iPhone though)

However I noticed that the issue with the iPhone getting stuck or not working peoperly happens mostly when connected to the extended, not the main hub.

I noticed in the powerline wifi portal, that there is a value in the "wireless stats" where my iPhone scores pretty low: "RSSI%".

The strange thing is in fact that my PC on my knees scores 100% while iPhone, in my hand at the same time scores 70% or less, strange considering the same distance from the extender.

I have a decent knowledge of this stuff, but never happened to know what RSSI% is. However considering the significant difference, instarted thinking that this might be the cause of the iPhone not working properly in my bedroom.

Any view? What s RSSI% and why is so lower on iPhone vs PC? is there a way to improve on my iPhone?

Thank you so much again.
Diego
 
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bill001g

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Aug 9, 2012
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You can't really compare RSSI between devices. The number of bars on a cell phone generally are the same measurement and cell phone manufacture have been known to manipulate it to make their product look better. Now some give you number in dB but even that is greatly affected by the particular radio and antenna etc.

Even if you could compare there is little you can do. You can't add antenna or anything to improve the signal on a cell phone.

A cellphone in general will not gets as good signal as a laptop. The antenna in the laptop are huge compared to a phone they are placed behind the screen in a laptop where they generally work best. Everyone remember apples poor placement of the cell antenna where if you held the phone wrong you would drop your calls. The wifi and the cell antenna are different antenna though.
 
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Dj3go83

Commendable
Aug 14, 2016
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1,510
Thank you again for Answer. The situation for me is extremely weird. I m connected to the powerline extender wifi with my iPhone 6, and surfing on safari gets stuck, then I try Facebook, that s also stuck. In the same moment I do a speedtest and it regularly performs at 13 mbs. How can it be? I really struggle, it looks that the connection is working but some services get stuck. Any other view on what can be? Again many thanks!
 
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Dj3go83

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Aug 14, 2016
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Thank you. The speed is consistent. It s driving me crazy. Safari stuck, Facebook stuck, speed test (hence downloading) working at full speed. I already set on the phone the DNS of Google. Don t have any benefit. This happens only when connected to powerline wifi, doesn't happen when connected to main AP. Powerline goes back directly to fritzbox, and is d-link. I don t know which option I could tweak, there Isn t many in the configuration portal of the powerline :(
 
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bill001g

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Aug 9, 2012
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There is nothing you can configure on the powerline other than maybe encryption keys.

Generally if powerline is having a issue you will get a lot less download speed than you do connected directly to the main router. The powerline is really stupid it doesn't really know anything about applications. It doesn't even understand IP and ports, it only uses mac addresses.

Not sure what to suggest. The brute force method is to load wireshark and capture the data. You can actually see the delays between data but it takes quite a bit of time to get good at using wireshark.
 
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Dj3go83

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Aug 14, 2016
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1,510
That WOULD BE great But IT looks quite advanced and time consuming, I ma fraud I would not be able to go for it. This is truly annoying. Same powerline, PC and MacBook work seamlessly. Only iPhone has issues...
 
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Dj3go83

Commendable
Aug 14, 2016
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Update from my side. I was almost giving up and considering using the powerline in Ethernet mode only, attaching to it another modem/router I have configured as AP (although this would have been annoying as I paid the powerline to have wifi on purpose and would have had to reshuffle plugs in my bedroom) it looks I sorted. I played with radio channels. I know this would be the first thing one does, and in fact I did,but the didn t work before. What I think I did differently this time was to put the powerline wifi on ch1, but more than that I changed the channel of fritzbox, from 12 to 11. I m in the middle of
Many buildings in the city, hence channels will always be full, but 11 is less than others. I don t know why this is supposed to work better, as before I had powerline on ch6 and fritz on ch12, so distant enough anyway and not overlapping.

In any case, since yesterday night, it looks iPhone doesn t clog anymore in any app, nor disconnects from wifi.

Is it possible that ch1 and 11 are really a better configuration, and I really sorted through this, or do you think this cannot be a real solution, and I m just being randomly lucky and potentially face the issue again sooner or later? Thank in any case for all your support so far!
Diego
 
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bill001g

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Aug 9, 2012
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Yes it likely will have issues...your neighbors are changing the channels also or their router does automatically on boot. Channel 6 tends to be the default for inexpensive routers that do not try to select a best channel on boot.

The other reason channels 1 and channel 11 are better is because most routers use 40mhz of bandwidth. The 1,6,11 recommendation is based on 20mhz of bandwidth. There is only 60mhz total so 1,6,11 divides it best. With 40mhz it either uses the bottom 2/3 or the top 2/3 meaning channel 6 is overlapped by both. It almost guarantees every router is running on channel 6. So you can actually get better performance at times forcing your device to only use 20mhz and then select channels 1 or 11.

Wireless used to be so much simpler when you only had to worry about your own devices not the 100s from all your neighbors too.
 
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Dj3go83

Commendable
Aug 14, 2016
9
0
1,510
Thanks for your answer and explanation. That's bad to hear. I will keep monitoring and hope it stays better as it is now.
Unfortunately the power line is such a stupid device, as somebody correctly called it previously, that I can only select the radio channel, but not the width of band, so cannot set 20 Mhz for instance.
I agree, it's quite complicated. Also, I have a bit of ease with this stuff, and if cannot sort on my own, I'm at least able to apply the guidance of somebody else. Think the average consumer (90% of population) that when they have an issue, they need to spend hours at a customer care that won't provide a solution. Too bad.
Thanks in any case
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