[SOLVED] How to get WIFI direct from Router ethernet port??? ( can it be done)

[travistee]

Our internet provider sells service that claim higher speeds but then we find that is only for the ethernet. They don't even try to
adjust the router for the wifi speed to work at capacity.
They sell a plan that has 7M down and 0.5M up. We wanted to upgrade to the 20M down and 2M up and found out we already had that.
The internet provider says that is the way it is supposed to be and it didn't matter that we only got the minimum wifi speed.
I was able to get their techs to adjust it so we got reasonable wifi speeds. The company says they were not responsible to
adjust for the wifi speed when they installed the router.

Is there a device that can be connected directly to the ethernet port of the router that can broadcast the wifi signal at the
ethernet speed or close to it? This would get the internet provider out of the loop.

 

[rgd1101]

what the router model?

 

[bill001g]

That is very surprising even a 10yrs old router can do faster speeds. I am not sure how you can limit the speed only on wifi. It is not something you can actually set.

You can just buy your own router and plug it into the ISP router. Maybe you can disable the wifi on the ISP router or you can just ignore it.

The problem though might be the wifi in your end device.

 

[travistee]

The internet provider upgraded the settings of the modem remotely. They were able to tune it so the wifi speed was at the correct speed we were paying for. For now it is working correctly.
I think I need a router that can plug directly into the modem ethernet so it will bypass whatever wifi settings they are usings in the modem (they say they updated the modem). I think its a Zyzel router. Is the modem internal to that or is it a separate device?

The internet provider say they check that the ethernet speed is as advertised. Not the wifi speed. I was on the phone with their tech. I ran the speed tests and he adjusted the wifi speeds. Thats what we did. I want to bypass all that by getting a router that will just use the modem ethernet and not he wifi speeds. Could it be that they actually adjusted something in the router not the modem?

 

[bill001g]

So what devices do you have.

ISPcable----modem---router---

ISPcable---modem/router

In the first case you can remove the ISP router and plug yours directly into the modem. You might have to power cycle the modem. In rare cases you might have to contact the ISP to use your own router.

In the second case you might be able to put the device into bridge mode and use it only as a modem. If you have no access to this device you are going to have to ask the ISP to do it.

If you had come to this forum and asked how do I limit only my wifi speeds but not the ethernet I would tell you it is almost impossible to do.

Now you say the ethernet works fine and gets the speed you need. If you just plug a new router into the ISP router it will get the same ethernet speeds. You will then use the wifi radios on the new router you control. Just pretend the wifi signals you see from the ISP router do not exist and set your device to connect to your wifi router instead. This method will work even if the ISP will not place the modem/router in bridge mode.

 

[travistee]

I'm going to take a closer look at the router. I think there is only one box.

This internet provider uses DSL. Is it possible that the modem is in a different place than the router? Could it be outside?

Believe it or not they say that they do not guarantee the speed the wireless devices will receive.
What they do is check the ethernet speed only. So we paid for 20M/2M which tested ok on the ethernet speed test while only 5M/0.34M on wifi. That is the lowest service level they have. They refused to adjust the wifi speed to match or be within 80% of the ethernet speed. I was able to convince their tech that I would find a way to do it myself so he cooperated. I ran speedtests and he tuned the wifi speed after each speedtest. We got the wifi speed up to a range of 12M to 16M down and about 1.5M up.

They say they adjusted the modem. Since the router is connected to the modem by ethernet cable ( I assume ) it makes more sense that the adjustment was in the router. ???

 

[bill001g]

Are you sure it really is a ethernet cable. A DSL connection many times looks like a ethernet cable even though it is really a telephone line.

What is the port marked on the router. Does it say WAN or does it say DSL.

On a DSL connection the ISP will change the speed it runs at in their equipment in their office. The modem on your end will then negotiate the highest rate it can with the office equipment. They do not even have to touch your modem in most cases. I still have no clue what you think you can change on the wifi to change the speed.

What brand/model is the router from the ISP.

 

[travistee]

From what you say about DSL that confirms that they were able to change the wifi speed at their office. I will see if I can find where the modem is. The router takes an ethernet cable that I connected to my windows laptop to check the speeds. So it appears I can't change any speeds on my end.
The problem we had was that they refused to change the speed from the minimum to match the ethernet speed, until I talked them into it. The etnernet speed was as advertised but the wifi speed was the minimum.
I'll take a closer look at the router to check the brand/model. From what you say the connection from the modem to the router is probably a phone line.

 

[gggplaya]

I just want to be clear here. Your ISP is not doing anything nefarious or lying to you in any way. They aren't playing any games or trying to screw you over. 20mbps is not that much, I'm sure they want to solve your issues just as much as you do.

The industry standard as well as my standard is to check internet speed using ethernet. Wifi is prone to noise and signal strength, it's also half-duplex, so using ethernet to eliminate these issues allows us to measure the actual speed coming from the ISP to your house.

Your ISP probably has cheap equipment. If you're standing next to the router and you can't get the same speed as ethernet, then the router is probably bad or you live in a very dense apartment complex or something. I'm thinking they changed the wifi channel or something like that.

DSL speeds can vary alot throughout the day, it uses copper telephone lines that were designed for voice communications. It was never designed to carry data. Even if you pay for 20mbps, it can drop lower throughout the day. It really depends on distance to the telco box, age of the telephone lines and corrosion in various areas.

 

[travistee]

short story is that they were able to give us the speeds we paid for when i got them to do it but they didn't mind charging for the higher speeds since 2018 without bothering to make the changes they did make when I got them to do it. SO YEAH they were ripping us off.

 

[gggplaya]

short story is that they were able to give us the speeds we paid for when i got them to do it but they didn't mind charging for the higher speeds since 2018 without bothering to make the changes they did make when I got them to do it. SO YEAH they were ripping us off.

Unless this required flashing a different firmware profile for the higher speed and those speeds were achievable on ethernet, then I don't think they ripped you off. You have to adjust your understanding of how wifi works. It really isn't within their normal responsibility to change wifi settings for you. They were being extra nice there.

Do you live in a wifi congested building?

 

[travistee]

Unless this required flashing a different firmware profile for the higher speed and those speeds were achievable on ethernet, then I don't think they ripped you off. You have to adjust your understanding of how wifi works. It really isn't within their normal responsibility to change wifi settings for you. They were being extra nice there.

Do you live in a wifi congested building?

I think you are missing the point. It is obviously the ISP responsibility to adjust the wifi speed. This was clearly demonstrated since I was able to get them to do exactly that while I ran the speedtests and they made adjustments based on the speedtest results. It is also obvious that now we have wifi speeds between 12M to 15M with ethernet speeds of about 16m to 18m. They did not change wifi settings for me since I have no access to the modem and they do. Bill001g (above) said they can do that from their office, so how could I possibly do that. Their minimum product has 7M down and 0.5 up. When we upgraded to the 20M product they did nothing to adjust the wifi speeds as I have already said. So the wifi speed remained as with the cheaper product. This was clearly ripping us off since many computers today don't even have ethernet ports so only the wifi can be used. They say they don't guarantee the wifi speed but the problem is that they did nothing to deliver the wifi speeds we paid for.

" It really isn't within their normal responsibility to change wifi settings for you. They were being extra nice there." Is this a joke? How much more obvious can it get that only the ISP could adjust the modem.

Anyway, where is the modem that they adjusted from their office?

 

[gggplaya]

I think you are missing the point. It is obviously the ISP responsibility to adjust the wifi speed. This was clearly demonstrated since I was able to get them to do exactly that while I ran the speedtests and they made adjustments based on the speedtest results. It is also obvious that now we have wifi speeds between 12M to 15M with ethernet speeds of about 16m to 18m. They did not change wifi settings for me since I have no access to the modem and they do. Bill001g (above) said they can do that from their office, so how could I possibly do that. Their minimum product has 7M down and 0.5 up. When we upgraded to the 20M product they did nothing to adjust the wifi speeds as I have already said. So the wifi speed remained as with the cheaper product. This was clearly ripping us off since many computers today don't even have ethernet ports so only the wifi can be used. They say they don't guarantee the wifi speed but the problem is that they did nothing to deliver the wifi speeds we paid for.

" It really isn't within their normal responsibility to change wifi settings for you. They were being extra nice there." Is this a joke? How much more obvious can it get that only the ISP could adjust the modem.

Anyway, where is the modem that they adjusted from their office?

If the internet speeds were achievable on ethernet, then no they were not ripping you off, period.

If you live in a congested area, such as an apartment building, condos, even rowhomes. Then there's probably alot of wifi interference in your area. They can't increase transmit power, so most likely what they did was changed the wifi channel to something less congested. The router is supposed to periodically do this automatically, but some cheaper routers just aren't very good at this.

They didn't adjust the modem at their office, they REMOTED into your router at your house and adjusted it from there. All they need is your IP address which they can look up on your account and remote in easily with their password. You should also be able to log into the webUI of your router and adjust the settings yourself.

Again, you need to adjust your understanding of how wifi works. ALL ISP's that I know of leave their routers on automatic mode. The router figures out what channel to use and automatically selects the channel width. I've never heard of an ISP tune the wifi during a customer install. I, of course, do this for my friends when I set up their routers and go around the house to verify speeds in all corners of the home. But that's not something ISP's normally do.

Thank goodness you just happened to get a service tech on the phone that actually knows how to do more than just reset your modem.

But what boggles my mind is even with congestion and bad settings, it's hard to believe your wifi speed is only 12-15mbps and you cant achieve the same as ethernet. How old is your computer, are you on wireless G or something? How far away from the router are you testing? Are you using one of those little USB dongles for wifi on your laptop?

 

[travistee]

@gggplaya

Lets stop going in circles. Do you agree with this from bill001g (see above)
On a DSL connection the ISP will change the speed it runs at in their equipment in their office. The modem on your end will then negotiate the highest rate it can with the office equipment. They do not even have to touch your modem in most cases. I still have no clue what you think you can change on the wifi to change the speed.

bill001g says the ISP can change the speed on DSL from their office. He says they can change the speed in their office equipment. He also doesn't seem to think they can change the wifi speed.

You both have to explain how I was able to get the ISP to adjust the wifi speed from their office while talking to me on the phone as I gave them results of the speedtests to help them tune the speed.

Reality is what it is. The paid for speed is 20M/2M. Ethernet speed is 16 to 18. WIFI speed is about 12 to 14. Since 2018 the wifi speed was set at the lowest price settings of 7M down and 0.5M up, so it seems to me it was a ripoff. The gave credit for one month service but take no responsibility for not having adjusted it since 2018.
I think that should satisfy the non believers. They admit we didn't get the wifi speed.

Either way, With DSL where would the modem be? I only see one box at the router.

I don't have an immediate problem but I want to understand it better.
If I had a similar problem again, is there a way to run the ethernet cable from the router to another router that I could use for wifi and bypass whatever the ISP is doing with the wifi speeds.

 

[gggplaya]

@gggplaya

Lets stop going in circles. Do you agree with this from bill001g (see above)
On a DSL connection the ISP will change the speed it runs at in their equipment in their office. The modem on your end will then negotiate the highest rate it can with the office equipment. They do not even have to touch your modem in most cases. I still have no clue what you think you can change on the wifi to change the speed.

bill001g says the ISP can change the speed on DSL from their office. He says they can change the speed in their office equipment. He also doesn't seem to think they can change the wifi speed.

You both have to explain how I was able to get the ISP to adjust the wifi speed from their office while talking to me on the phone as I gave them results of the speedtests to help them tune the speed.

Reality is what it is. The paid for speed is 20M/2M. Ethernet speed is 16 to 18. WIFI speed is about 12 to 14. Since 2018 the wifi speed was set at the lowest price settings of 7M down and 0.5M up, so it seems to me it was a ripoff. The gave credit for one month service but take no responsibility for not having adjusted it since 2018.

Either way, With DSL where would the modem be? I only see one box at the router.

I don't have an immediate problem but I want to understand it better.
If I had a similar problem again, is there a way to run the ethernet cable from the router to another router that I could use for wifi and bypass whatever the ISP is doing with the wifi speeds.

DSL relies heavily on the integrity of your copper phone lines to your neighborhood telco box. When an installer comes out, they do line tests to check the highest max speeds your lines can handle without dropping packets. They then change the profile of you router to whatever plan works for your copper lines.

But like I said earlier as well as they said in your first post, IF THOSE SPEEDS ARE AVAILABLE ON ETHERNET, then that has nothing to do with WIFI. That's why we always check your internet speed with ethernet, because there are no bottlenecks between the ISP and ethernet connection. As opposed to wifi which can have other issues which would cause slow speeds.

The Modem you have is a MODEM/WIFI/ROUTER combo unit. It's an all-in-one unit.

There are several questions still left unanswered which would help solve your issue.

1. Your Zyzel router model number.
2. Do you live in a congested wifi area.
3. How old is your computer, does it have built in wifi or are you using a usb dongle?

 

[travistee]

Reality is what it is. The paid for speed is 20M/2M. Ethernet speed is 16 to 18. WIFI speed is about 12 to 14. Since 2018 the wifi speed was set at the lowest price settings of 7M down and 0.5M up, so it seems to me it was a ripoff. The gave credit for one month service but take no responsibility for not having adjusted it since 2018.
I think that should satisfy the non believers. They admit we didn't get the wifi speed.

I appreciate your efforts on this but there is no problem to solve as I said in the post above.
They speeds were adjusted to the "paid for speed" when they agreed to deliver what we paid for and even gave a token credit of one months internet charges. I understand now that they made changes in their location and not to the modem in the combination box as you described it.

 

[gggplaya]

There are several things wrong in your statement in bold. That's not reality.

1. Modern Wifi equipment should easily achieve 20mbps. So yes, you still have a problem if it's not matching ethernet speed. It could just be a super cheap router, but having the model number of the router would tell us that. It's normal for DSL to be a little lower than the plan speed, those copper lines can be noisy and at times won't achieve full plan speed.
2. There's really nothing for them to change to increase your wifi speed at 20mbps. Even setting the lowest channel width on 2.4ghz should be able to achieve that speed.
3. Because they told you it's not something they normally do, I suspect what I'm saying is correct. They REMOTED into your router and changed the wifi channel or reset the router. Reuploading profiles, doing line tests and changing plan speeds is something all ISP's do normally.
4. Again, seems like your ISP is really nice and trying to retain you as a customer. As I've said, and they have said, it's not within the realm of normal responsibility to adjust your wifi settings. Nearly everyone will set it to automatic mode. The fact that you were dissatisfied and gave you a free month of service speaks volumes about how good your ISP company is. I in no way think they ripped you off, as long as those speeds were achievable on ethernet.

 

[travistee]

The statement in bold is exactly true.
The installers don't check the wifi. That makes sense. When I first l started to trouble shoot this I didn't know who was supposed to do what or if they had to come to the house. In fact they said they would come to the house to check the router, but never did, but I later (from here) found out it could be done from their location and I didn't know it was DSL.

This is not my wifi. It belongs to a woman in the building.
This is what seems to be not understood in the replies I got: The lowest speed product they sell has 7M down and 0.5M up. We were getting 5M/0.34. We originally had that product. In 2018 when it was upgraded to the 20M product they simply made no changes at all at their location. They just changed the bill.
When I talked to their customer service they say that the wifi speed is not guaranteed. I tell them not delivering it is not the same as not guaranteeing it. They made no effort to make changes at their location to deliver the product, as I now know is what was needed. The tech I finally talked to was reluctant to do anything but I was able to convince him to do it. I ran the speed tests and he tuned the settings on his end. The 12M to 14M we get now on wifi is acceptable. If anyone thinks they could do better, maybe they can. We don't have any problem to fix now.

They were responsible for upgrading the wifi speeds form their location when the plan was upgraded. They billed for service they did not provide and if that's not a ripoff what is?

Please close this thread. Thank you.

 

[Ralston18]

Closing thread.

From OP:

"This is not my wifi. It belongs to a woman in the building."

"Please close this thread."