Router recommendation + question

[taq8ojh]

Maybe the question first.
Our house is connected through wifi (something more advanced I assume, because it has wired-like latency), there is a router (Linksys WRT320N), and after that there is a switch (TRENDnet TEG-S80g) where everything is connected together.
I can say the connection is perfectly stable without any latency spikes 99,9% of the time, but occasionally it looks like something completely dies over at the ISP, or something is being worked on for a short time. Like, once in a few months. Last year it was a bit worse, but nothing that could qualify as too much.
At least for the past two months I didn't notice one bit of a problem.
This morning, internet was weirdly slow, and after a short while, it looked like there was no connection anywhere at all. Then it looked like such enormous packetloss it was pretty much dead anyway. For brief moments it seemed normal, but quickly returned to useless state. I tried to ping and trace various servers, eventually realizing it was dead from the beginning. This happened several times in past and was always a confirmed problem with some of the ISP's network, either a short temporary problem with some hardware, connection somewhere at their own ISP, or some hardware upgrade/failure.

I called my ISP and this imbecile started to tell me all sorts of crap.

I learned that:
- he could ping my antenna just fine, but he couldn't get any response from my router, thus it was a router problem (no sh** sherlock, I have ICMP packets disabled)
- the fact I didn't have a single problem in at least two months of pretty much nonstop usage was completely irrelevant
- the fact that I can't even ping the gateway clearly shows my router is bad
- having the house network working fine doesn't mean the WAN port on the router isn't bad
- that I shouldn't talk to him like to an idiot

He kept going on and on, until I just hung up on him out of pure frustration and anger.
I don't know much about networking so I couldn't argue with him (and it would have been be pointless anyway), but please honestly tell me which one was the idiot here.
I've had this router for like five years, and at some point I had it connected to fast fibre connection and was seeding/downloading torrents almost nonstop at 3MB/s for two years, and not once did it act weird, unless there was some problem at my former ISP. I also never needed to reset it once (unless I changed some settings).
Having said all that, how could it be even remotely possible anything about the router was bad? Of course everything was back to normal within an hour after the problems started.

I am open to new ideas though, and since the router is pretty old, and I was curious about trying Openwrt anyway, I wouldn't mind buying new one. That's the second part of this thread: depending on the answers to the initial question, I might need some tips for a new router.
At least I could prove it's not problem over here next time the connection goes kaput.

 

[Enigma102083]

You should have turned ICMP on for him to test.

 

[SecurityTheatre]

Your router is connecting to the Internet via wifi? Or you are using wifi in your house? And what do you mean "it must be something other than wifi because of latency"?? Is that based on something... or just a random aside?

I don't know much about networking so I couldn't argue with him (and it would have been be pointless anyway), but please honestly tell me which one was the idiot here.

Did you do any troubleshooting?

Can you ping your local gateway from the PC?

Did you reboot the router?

Just because something worked for 2 months doesn't have any bearing on why it's broken now. Many consumer-grade ISPs seem to have 1-2 hours per month of outage, in my experience. Unless you're paying for a business-class SLA, expecting more is just wishing and hoping.

But without ANY troubleshooting steps that you did, there is absolutely no way to help you.

What kind of line? VDSL? DOCSIS cable? Does it use PPPoE? Did you check the router logs for errors? Did you even log into the router console?

 

[taq8ojh]

I have no idea what you mean by your first paragraph.
We are connected through some modern wifi because I get 1-3ms ping to the ISP's network (normally wifi is roughly 100ms from what I could see in past).

Yes I did troubleshooting, as you can clearly see from my post. I was trying to ping and traceroute stuff outside of local network (which worked perfectly, and I was logged in the router's interface).
I did not reboot the router because there was no need to do so (in fact I did it yesterday).

It didn't just work for two months, it worked for FIVE YEARS. And it works perfectly as I type this.

I don't understand your last paragraph again. I said wifi, what are you on about with DSL?

 

[lif_andi]

Essentially he is asking if you are connected wirelessly to your ISP, which is pretty rare, or non-existent, or if you have a cable connected to your router, and if so, what connection type is it ? (VDSL, DOCSIS etc.)

I really doubt you are actually connected to your ISP wirelessly.... just never heard about a connection like that, other than 3G or something similar to that, but I'm no expert though.... Also the range of WiFi is very limited, few hundred meters at the very best... so just no

 

[taq8ojh]

Yes we are connected through wifi. Yes we are.
Through one of these.
I have no idea what's so rare or unbelievable about it. I live in Europe, where cable connection of some sort is not in every house on the continent.

 

[lif_andi]

Ok. With 1-3 ms latency ? Pretty cool tech actually... had actually forgotten about microwave ISP's and such, which I myself actually had once, which sucked at the time though

EDIT: Just ignore my previous post. I've refreshed my knowledge now and will refrain from such ignorance in the future

 

[Fardringle]

There are actually quite a few wireless ISPs in the U.S., so what Octopuss is describing is not 'unbelievable' at all.

Now to the original problem...


Intermittent problems can be very hard to track down. The next time you are having this problem, connect a computer directly to the WISP's modem (completely disconnect your router) with an ethernet cable to see if the problem continues. If it does, then the issue is either with the modem or something else on the ISP end. If not, then you may have a problem with your cables or your router.

 

[taq8ojh]

Yea that's what I'd try next time. I didn't do it today, partially because I forgot about it in my frustration, but also because it didn't help at all when similar problems appeared last year.
The other problem is that these problems usually persist for very short time, so typically by the time I realize something is not right and start checking, it goes back to normal within minutes.
It also makes trying to make support do anything pain in the ass, because they just reply with "I just pinged your antenna and it's fine" and refuse to do anything else and I get nowhere.
This time it was unusually long for the connection drops I am used to.


P.S. Microwave is this tech called? Good to know. It's really working absolutely flawlessly even for FPS games. I have no problems with BF4 at all. Smooth as butter. The speed is not bad either, or at least I am fine with 15/3.
What's the correct term to use for "regular wifi" then?

 

[lif_andi]

Actually you are not using microwave tech, just wi-fi. I just wasn't aware that such advanced wireless tech existed. My old one was microwave and it was crap, but that is like 7-9 years ago. Yours is working through a lot of the conventional 802.11 bands and technology with some added things to boost efficiency. It's all actually very interesting.

If you are running a /b or /g connection (2.4GHz), it is possible that there will be intermittent interference from various devices. Seeing as you have short intermittent problems, it is possible that it's just interference from some device emitting waves on the 2.4GHz band and as soon as the device is turned off your connection will be fine again. If your whole neighborhood all turned on their microwaves at the same time, you might get connection problems... but this is just speculation, since I don't know anything about your location or type of connection you are using.

 

[taq8ojh]

So if I was to buy new router anyway, what would you recommend? Am I right thinking I don't need anything expensive when I have all the devices behind a switch, and the router would only do the routing?
I was looking at €90 Neatgear WNDR370, but that might be complete overkill for what I need. I like how it looks though, and it supports (or soon will) Openwrt, and has fairly powerful wifi (which is not a priority anymore, but comes handy).

 

[SecurityTheatre]

Yes we are connected through wifi. Yes we are.
Through one of these.
I have no idea what's so rare or unbelievable about it. I live in Europe, where cable connection of some sort is not in every house on the continent.

Cool. Microwave wireless systems are a bit uncommon because they tend to be expensive to deploy. I've seen them at residential locations a few dozen times, but usually servicing and entire building, rather than just one residence.

That said, if he can ping the AP/modem on your side ("your antenna") then the problem is likely in some device on your end, unless he is completely clueless on what he's doing and is pinging the wrong device.

That said, some routers need to be rebooted now and then and the frequency of these issues can increase with age.

However, microwave wireless is very sensitive to weather. A heavy rain or snow (for example), or some large tree limbs thrashing in the wind can block point-to-point microwave wireless transmissions entirely. Remember, microwaves are absorbed by water (generating heat). It gently warms the raindrops rather than passing through them.

Also worth pointing out that a leafy tree branch looks like a giant sack of water to a microwave.

If the weather was just fine, however, and there were no obstacles that might have blown into the path, it's not unreasonable to assume that it's a device on one end or the other that is misbehaving. It's really 50/50, so if/when there are issues, it's just as likely to be on y our end as it is to be on their end, unless it's further up the link toward the network edge. It's not like there are a lot of hops between you and the other antenna.

 

[SecurityTheatre]

Actually you are not using microwave tech, just wi-fi. I just wasn't aware that such advanced wireless tech existed. My old one was microwave and it was crap, but that is like 7-9 years ago. Yours is working through a lot of the conventional 802.11 bands and technology with some added things to boost efficiency. It's all actually very interesting.

As far as I'm aware, much of the Ubiquity carrier-class stuff uses 900Mhz and 3.5GHz TDMA microwave tech, rather than 802.11 compatible wifi.

They do have some proprietary extensions on Wifi for some networks, but I'm not sure how common they are. Using 2.4Ghz in a populated area for backhaul is a bad idea. At my office, there are 25 and at my home, I see 50+ networks fighting over those 3 channels.

 

[taq8ojh]

It wasn't even expensive at all. The AP (the antenna, eh) cost like $90 around here.
I know about some of the basic limitations of wireless technology, but whatever the AP is getting signal from is about 2km away with completely clean line of sight. And I get excellent signal with super low ping even in heavy rain/whatever.

It's really not surprising he couldn't get any response from the router, I simply have any such traffic disabled in the interface.
I am trying to remember what was the longest uptime without a reboot... probably like a year. Back when I was using fibre connection couple years ago. Without any problems at all.

I hope something happens soon so I can test it.

Now, can I get any answer regarding the new router possibility?

 

[lif_andi]

Yes, the fight for wireless is intense at times. I thought it wasn't microwave, since their webpage, or the wiki page didn't mention anything about microwaves... but again, I'm not good at wireless tech, so it doesn't surprise me that I'd be mistaken.

 

[Enigma102083]

As far as I'm aware, much of the Ubiquity carrier-class stuff uses 900Mhz and 3.5GHz TDMA microwave tech, rather than 802.11 compatible wifi.

They do have some proprietary extensions on Wifi for some networks, but I'm not sure how common they are. Using 2.4Ghz in a populated area for backhaul is a bad idea. At my office, there are 25 and at my home, I see 50+ networks fighting over those 3 channels.

They have a whole slew of 2.4Ghz stuff. Just not used for back-haul.