Internet speed Issue
 

Hi Folks
I wonder if anyone could give me a few words of wisdom about routers v wireless.
We are rural so have dsn connection at around 6mb/s due to line limitations.
I had a netgear Dgn2000 router which was working fine but I was starting to have issues with cold spots and speed as more of the family was connecting. 4 iPhones, 4 laptops, 1 IPad, Xbox tv etc. so decided to try a new router.
I purchased a netgear dual band hi speed unit Dgn gn3700 and installed it without any snags. The problem is the range is no better and in some areas worse and the speed is significantly slower than the old one currently .2mb/s!
Any ideas on how to improve performance?

Have you checked the speed delivered to the router via the CP? Put the old router back and check it also is not giving 0.2mb

Hi BOAC
The previous one was delivering about 5.5 to 6 on a normal day.
I've tried changing the MTU to 1450 which has seen a slight improvement to .65mb......

I've seen a fair number of those DGN3700 routers fail "out of the box"

Its not really much of an update over what you already had, except cosmetically. Get your money back and try something else - or revert to what you already had.
The declining speed issue with the increased number of devices is not going to be improved with a new router - you're simply hitting a data bandwidth problem and no new router is going to fix that
What MAY help is making sure that all the devices are working on "N" and not "G". One device working on the "G" protocol will cripple the data rates of the whole network. Check the xBox, all the laptops, any printers, all the phones....everything. They ALL need to be "N"

Thanks Milo
I was hoping that with the dual band ( 2.4 & 5ghz) the load would be spread with priority given to the 5g net. The 3700 also gives me the option of scheduling when access is avaliable. As it is I've denied access to the Xbox & when testing speed only the desktop was connected ( via wired LAN).
But if there is not a significant improvement on range and the speed is actually worse then there's not much point & I'll revert as you suggest. The settings as far as I can tell are the same so can't figure out why it's so slow.
Thanks for the help.

DGN2000 is a 300mb/sec router anyway - i.e. its already dual channel.
From what I've seen of the DGN3700 its overcomplicated to set up, offers services that most don't need and is unreliable anyway. It doesn't give you anything extra except possibly a VOIP connection socket (at least on some versions)

Thanks Milo again
I'll return & revert!
Cheers

Tried disconnecting bell wire in master socket? I gained a meg in speed simply by doing that.