In late 2019, do we still need to manually set wifi channel?

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biggles

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Router is TP Link Archer AC1750 c7. Watching 1080p amazon video using roku express on 2.4 ghz. Video quality drops occasionally, I assume due to network performance. Living in a townhouse with neighbors on both sides. Roku says 4/5 bars connection strength.
 
StealthMonkey said:
2.4? You should switch to 5ghz and your problems will disappear.
Click to expand...

That depends on your distance from the router or access point. 5Ghz has a noticeable shorter range than 2.4Ghz.

OP, I would suggest using wifi analyzer on your phone. It will show you all networks within range and the channels used. You may find multiple networks already using the same channel as yours.
 
You need to coordinate with your neighbors and set channels together, or pray they have a smart router. The Fritzboxes actually scan and avoid neighboring channels, quite neat. So with them you can just set a channel and they will stay the hell away.

Run a network connection test and a wifi sniffer for a while and see if ping or rate changes and what channels are being used..
 
N4CR said:
You need to coordinate with your neighbors and set channels together
Click to expand...
Your kidding, of course.
, or pray they have a smart router. The Fritzboxes actually scan and avoid neighboring channels, quite neat. So with them you can just set a channel and they will stay the hell away.

Run a network connection test and a wifi sniffer for a while and see if ping or rate changes and what channels are being used..
Click to expand...

OK I would be happy to a a wifi sniffer on my phone. Which ones are recommended? Any to avoid? When I run this sniffer, do I need to set certain parameters on my phone. I have an iPhone, BTW.
 
I have the same router so I know it already is supposed to use a less crowded channel by default.

Wifi Analyser on the Play store will plot the channels on a graph which will tell you which channels you should prefer.

I would fire it up to see which channel your router is using and if there is indeed a less noisy channel

Other than that, using the 5GHz band should help. When I was in a apartment close to downtown Montreal, the chart in wifi analyser looked like a clown took a dump all over it. There was no escaping that wifi jungle
 
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Brute-force the problem. Run 3 access points at the same time, with the same SSID, on channels 1, 6, 11
 
GotNoRice said:
Brute-force the problem. Run 3 access points at the same time, with the same SSID, on channels 1, 6, 11
Click to expand...

and if you want to really go for it, do so with a Ubiquiti Unifi AP.
Has been my go to in multi-living / condo situations for clients and does an impressive job of keeping strong client connections amongst the noise.
 
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