[SOLVED] Unstable connection with my WISP.

[cnedden]

I pretty much confirmed that the massive lag spikes i have been getting over the course of six months is on my isp's end. I have a WISP that USED to work well and now I believe that they're connecting too many people to one access point. What I'm wondering is if it's more likely that they've connected too many people to that one access point or if it's their Network as a whole. I'm also wondering if my internet can be affected by one other user, I'm specifically talking about my neighbor who lives behind me. I'm inbetween them and our access point so our connections run parallel to each other and I want to know if that is a potential cause of ping spikes. My ISP has also offered to sell me a static IP address for an extra $10 a month. Do you guys think that that would help? thanks

 

[laviniuc]

the static ip wont help, you could try to switch to a different wifi channel if there's too much interference on the default.

there's a phone app wifi analyzer that can help you choose channels, 1, 6 and 11 are the best ones if free on 802.11n. the ac channels aren't usually crowded.

 

[bill001g]

It depends on the equipment they are using. If they are using WiFi then you have all the common problems home users do. The largest is it is half duplex with no control over who transmit when so you commonly get overlap.

If the systems is say something like motorola canopy or another similar system those the central tower controls the end stations. They main tower need to give the end device permission to send. Your neighbor behind you will not be allowed to transmit at the same time as you. You both of course receive the data from the tower but your radio only delivers your data to you and ignores the other.

 

[cnedden]

I'm not able to switch the channel that they're radio runs on.

 

[cnedden]

It depends on the equipment they are using. If they are using WiFi then you have all the common problems home users do. The largest is it is half duplex with no control over who transmit when so you commonly get overlap.

If the systems is say something like motorola canopy or another similar system those the central tower controls the end stations. They main tower need to give the end device permission to send. Your neighbor behind you will not be allowed to transmit at the same time as you. You both of course receive the data from the tower but your radio only delivers your data to you and ignores the other.

I'm not able to switch the channel of our radio.

 

[Solandri]

Unfortunately, that's been my experience with WISPs too. They're fine when usage is low. But after a certain number of users, the service goes to h*ll. In our case, it was during certain hours (coincided with peak business hours) when the service was bad. During early evening and after midnight, it was stellar. That pretty much confirmed that the problem was oversubscription.

As for figuring out if the problem is the access point or the WISP's Internet connection, you might be able determine that from a traceroute. If they've got multiple hops before you get from their access point to the Internet at large, traceroute (tracert in Windows) will show you at which point the dropouts or slowdowns are occurring. But if the WISP isn't working on their own to resolve the oversubscription issue, a traceroute won't get them to work any harder. All it'll do is satisfy your curiosity.

As for your neighbor, if the WISP is running 5 GHz 802.11ac, then yes it could cause issues being that close to each other. 802.11ac is partially directional. The earlier specs (n, g, b, a) were omnidirectional so essentially everyone's signals "overlapped" if they happened to broadcast at the same time. You can test it by having one of your unplug your WISP system for an hour or so during a time when you're experiencing lag. If it fixes the problem and the ISP is unable to resolve the issue by giving you better equipment, you may actually be better off canceling service. Then get an extra router and run a cable to your neighbor's house so the two of you can share the same WISP connection, and split the bill. This probably violates the WISP's TOS, but they're already in violation for failing to deliver usable service to you.

 

[cnedden]

the static ip wont help, you could try to switch to a different wifi channel if there's too much interference on the default.

there's a phone app wifi analyzer that can help you choose channels, 1, 6 and 11 are the best ones if free on 802.11n. the ac channels aren't usually crowded.

It depends on the equipment they are using. If they are using WiFi then you have all the common problems home users do. The largest is it is half duplex with no control over who transmit when so you commonly get overlap.

If the systems is say something like motorola canopy or another similar system those the central tower controls the end stations. They main tower need to give the end device permission to send. Your neighbor behind you will not be allowed to transmit at the same time as you. You both of course receive the data from the tower but your radio only delivers your data to you and ignores the other.

So the neighbor thing is a maybe? I dont think its wifi cause these problems used to not happen.

 

[cnedden]

the static ip wont help, you could try to switch to a different wifi channel if there's too much interference on the default.

there's a phone app wifi analyzer that can help you choose channels, 1, 6 and 11 are the best ones if free on 802.11n. the ac channels aren't usually crowded.

Unfortunately, that's been my experience with WISPs too. They're fine when usage is low. But after a certain number of users, the service goes to h*ll. In our case, it was during certain hours (coincided with peak business hours) when the service was bad. During early evening and after midnight, it was stellar. That pretty much confirmed that the problem was oversubscription.

As for figuring out if the problem is the access point or the WISP's Internet connection, you might be able determine that from a traceroute. If they've got multiple hops before you get from their access point to the Internet at large, traceroute (tracert in Windows) will show you at which point the dropouts or slowdowns are occurring. But if the WISP isn't working on their own to resolve the oversubscription issue, a traceroute won't get them to work any harder. All it'll do is satisfy your curiosity.

As for your neighbor, if the WISP is running 5 GHz 802.11ac, then yes it could cause issues being that close to each other. 802.11ac is partially directional. The earlier specs (n, g, b, a) were omnidirectional so essentially everyone's signals "overlapped" if they happened to broadcast at the same time. You can test it by having one of your unplug your WISP system for an hour or so during a time when you're experiencing lag. If it fixes the problem and the ISP is unable to resolve the issue by giving you better equipment, you may actually be better off canceling service. Then get an extra router and run a cable to your neighbor's house so the two of you can share the same WISP connection, and split the bill. This probably violates the WISP's TOS, but they're already in violation for failing to deliver usable service to you.

okay thanks. All of this helps a lot. One thing I am wondering though about that Tracert I did run a tracert and my ping is good at the router but after that every other IP has massive lag spikes every few seconds I don't know if that means that it's coming from the access point or our radio or what but literally the Ping to the router was the only stable connection.

 

[bill001g]

It greatly depends on the wisp and what equipment they use and how they configured it. One of the ones I used last set a minimum bandwidth for all their users. I forget exactly but lets say it is 1mbit. They set the first 1mbit of traffic as priority and all traffic over that as best effort. So in periods of lots of usage if you kept you usage low you got no delays. If you tried to use more it would depend on how many other people were using the network. So during prime hours you would have issue using high bandwidth applications...say 4k netflix but during off hours these work fine. Even during the prime hours if you played online games or watch lower bandwidth video it was fine.

Now a ISP that does not care will just use normal WIFI that has no controls at all and let the users fight it out. The could care less if a teen decides to run his torrents and kill all their other customers. In most cases there is no other option for ISP so they can be jerks if they really want to.

In any case you can do absolutely nothing on your end to affect this. If they have oversold their network or use poor quality equipment your only real option is another ISP which may not exist.

The WISP are starting to wake up though as the cell companies offer better data plans. The new 5g data service will put many WISP providers out of business if they do not quickly adapt.