Assumptions about this subject… Many homes in Sun City utilize Internet services for entertainment, education, work or all of the above. It is unlikely you wish to devote “too much time” to getting your internet service to work properly . A little bit of knowledge can go a long way towards avoiding waiting for technical support to answer the phone or understand your concern. Fixing it can consume your time and your dollars. Home networking is simple, if it works properly , but the devil is in the details when it does not work. Identifying the details that are important for the problem you think you may have, requires some understanding of the Home Networking puzzle. If your network is working “good enough” to read this page, be patient. One of the details you discover in the rest of this page, might be the clue that clears your mind and leads to the resolution of the problem.
This video, Home Networking 101 is a “starting place” for understanding home networking. This video is more of a “hands on” Home network setup . If the first two videos are not for you, one of these might be better.
The first tool I reach for when trying to help someone with a home network/wifi concern is : Wifi Analyzer. The free version of this tool and lots of alternatives are available on the Google App Store. The tool is an Android application that lets me “see” the networks and devices in a location. If you want to really understand network traffic , Wireshark is the answer.
If you just “want it to work” and/or the cost is not important, then the list of providers in the next section is probably all that you might find helpful. If you have some concern for “privacy” as relates to your use of internet services then the pages of the Cybersecurity SIG of the Computer Club contain a lot of information. A recurring “theme” of maintaining security in a home network might be: Use your own router . There is a section about routers, below. If you have performance or reliability concerns with your internet service and you want to understand “why”, then the Network Performance Thoughts, below, might be a first step to discovering a root cause of the issue.
If you have a router in your home that provides Wifi, for devices in your home, then using/keeping the “default” password for the router might be an “open door” to someone with “skills”. Often routers have their default (factory installed) wifi password printed on the bottom of the device. Anyone that has access to your router might “take a picture” of the device and thus “have the password”. Changing the wifi password is a “good practice”. Knowing how to change the wifi password is usually documented in the router documentation. This may not be the case for Optimum supplied routers since optimum usually supplies a modem/router combination and limits the set of “things” a customer can change in the modem/router they “rent” to you.
In addition to changing the wifi password, you might consider using the “guest network” of the router for devices that just need internet access and are not used by your computers or phones. Why? Smart TV's and similar devices are yet another “computer in disguise”. It is not uncommon for Smart “devices” to be “out of date” as relates to the “system software” or applications that they execute. Keeping devices with higher possibilities of “security issues” on the “guest network” is one way of mitigating the concern.
May 17, 2024 … I was researching “concerns” with my Linksys WRT1900 router that is configured/using OpenWrt. This led me to routersecurity.org. Suggestion… If you want to learn/know a bit more about Router Security, routersecurity.org can lead you down the path. However, as with almost any “free site”, some of the links you find might have a bit more “clickbait” than you are accustomed to. Be careful with the clickbait!.
The choices you have for an ISP in Sun City are not the same across all of the roof tops in Sun City. Your location in Sun City does impact which ISP can deliver broadband internet access to your home. Today(March 1, 2023) the options include: Optimum , Rock Solid, Verizon, T-mobile, Starlink or using the “tethering” feature of your cell phone provider.
Today (March 2023) Optimum is the only company that provides “cable based” internet service to every house in Sun City. The other providers utilize radio based services. Rock Solid requires a small roof mounted antenna aimed at a “visible” cell tower. T-mobile and Verizon require that your house be “visible” to a 5G (fifth generation) cell tower. Starlink is “satelite dependent”. Tethering to your cell phone requires a “decent” cell tower connection. A 5G connection might perform better than a 4G connection, but 5G is not available all over Sun City, yet.
If you are fortunate enough to have a home that does give you alternatives for an ISP, that fact may give you bargaining power with one of the providers. Bargaining power might mean: you need to “change your ISP” for a few months until a competitor offers a better value. Communicating with the “retention department” of your ISP when you have alternatives can also be beneficial to your bank account. Switching between providers will be “easier” if you have your own router.
Reference this page of the wiki…. Internet Service Provider Help
It is not uncommon for someone to indicate their “computer” is slow and after some conversation discover their “use case” for slow computer performance involves an internet browser and/or an internet service.
When trying to understand poor computer performance when the “network” could be part of the problem, the next question might be… Is your computer connected to the network with wifi or an ethernet cable? Why? The best wifi connection is unlikely to match the capabilities of most cable modem connections to the internet. Wifi connections to your router are often “the neck of the funnel” when it involves the speed of network connections. However, even an older technology of wifi connectivity, is most often “good enough” to not be the cause of poor performance at the computer, unless you are doing “gaming” over the internet.
Why all the words in the previoius paragraph. Because more often than not, performance of an application that requires network resources is a reflection of the “network server(s)” and not your computer or the ISP(Internet Service Provider). This statement is based on the fact that it takes only a small part of a second, for data on your screen/monitor to arrive from your router/modem, even when you are connected to your router with older generations of Wifi. However, poor wifi signal strength can contribute to poor performance. Wifi signal strength does degrade with distance from the router and number of walls between the device and router.
If you have reason to suspect your computer is “slow” because the “internet” service is slow or unreliable, then what follows “might” be helpful.
Peformance factors of your internet access that “might” be contributors to poor performance are speed, latency, DNS(Domain Name Service) and distance.
ISP's often identify the speed of your internet access in “bits per second” and charge more for more “bits per second”. The “typical” house hold in Sun City will probably be satisfied with the lowest speed service available from any of the “broadband” providers in Sun City. You can confirm the speed your ISP is providing to you with an internet browser and using the services available at speedtest.net or nperf.net. However, if you are connected to your router with WIFI, you may not get the speed you are expecting. Why? Wifi connections between your device and the router are often not capable of the speed that is possible betweeen the router and cable modem or the cable modem and the internet.
Streaming 4k video (3840 x 2160 content ) requires about 20 megabits per second. Streaming HD (1920 x 1080 content ) requires about 5 megabits per second. The numbers imply a 100 megabit connection has enough speed to stream 4k video to 5 TV's at the same time. My personal experience… I used Rock Solids 50 megabit service for a year. Simultaneous streaming and other “internet stuff” worked fine in my 2 TV , multiple computer home. I also have a broadcast TV antenna that provides about 50 TV channels.
Repeating… If you use your internet connection to surf the internet and have a couple of TV's streaming Netflix and/or Amazon at the same time, 100 megabits per second is probably “plenty” of speed. Gigabit speed (sounds cool) but in many cases is unlikely to provide tangible benefit to your internet connected devices or your experiences with the devices.
March 2024… More details about the “How much speed do you need”.
Latency is another component of network performance. You can “see” the latency between your device and the “server/service” you are accessing with the “ping” program or the “tracert” program. Here is a youtube video that demonstrates ping and tracert. There is an internet site that offers similar tools from a web page. Reference : IP Tools at dnschecker.org. Latency numbers greater than 100 milliseconds could be “suspicios”.
What is DNS (Domain Name Service) Here is DNS explained. If DNS is not working, accessing services on the internet is difficult. DNS services are usually provided by the router in your home, which usually gets its DNS server address from the ISP. DNS configuration can be changed/configured on your computer. If your computer is windows based this might help: How to change DNS in Windows 10
If you are using your “own” router, not one rented from the ISP, usually the router can be configured to use DNS servers that you prefer. By changing the DNS servers in your router, you can impact all the devices in your home network.
The speed and latency of DNS services can be visible when they are slow. By visible I mean…. When you are viewing a “web page” there can be “lots” of different sites providing the data for the page. Each site that provides content for a web page will require your device resolve its IP address with DNS services. If a “page” from an internet site is “slow”, slow DNS services “might” be one of the contributors.
Wifi is a technology that uses radio frequencies for data transmission. Reference: Wif For Beginners The strength of the signal does matter. The amount of power a Wifi device is allowed to transmit is limited, which means the distance and number of walls between one wifi device(your router) and another wifi device (computer, printer, TV, phone) might impact all of the previously mentioned performance metrics. The two “common bands” of radio frequencies used for wifi in you home include 2.4 gigahertz and 5 gigahertz. Devices operating on 2.4 gigahertz will usually operate “properly” through “more walls” and at greater distance between the devices, than devices operating on 5 gigahertz. The speed that is achieved with 2.4 gigahertz can be slower than 5 gigahertz, but your device may not care or need the speed that 5 gigahertz can provide.
This video about Wifi 6 touches on the history and details of wifi. Wifi 6 and wifi stuff. Today (March 10, 2023) the wifi provided by your ISP will probably be “fine” for most houses in Sun City, if the router is centrally located in your house. If you experience “problems” with devices using the wifi, installing mesh devices, a “better” router or relocating your router, might help with resolving Wifi problems.
References… Toms Guide how-to-buy-cable-modem Toms Guide about routers.
March 2, 2033: Optimum allows either Docsis 3.0 or Docsis 3.1, customer supplied cable modems on their cable. Surfing/shopping on the internet today suggests Docsis 3.0 modems can be about 1/2 the cost of Docsis 3.1 modems. If you are going to want/need internet speeds that exceed 500 megabits per second, then Docsis 3.1 might be the better choice. My personal experience/requirements are: I have been satisfied ( 15 months and counting) with a refurbished Docsis 3.0 (16 x 4) cable modem and 100 megabits per second from Optimum. (note… Is a Docsis 3.1 cable modem more efficient from the perspective of resources that Optimum must supply?)
Removing Cable Modem mystery. There are cable modem standards. Docsis 3.0 and Docsis 3.1. Please read the paragraphs in this: Toms Guide how-to-buy-cable-modem that touch on Docsis. If you want a deeper understanding of Docsis start here: Docsis as described on Wikipedia. If you have questions about Docsis, visit/try the chat bot at openai.org.
What is the bottom line. It is possible, with judicious internet shopping, to purchase a cable modem and router for less than a cable company charges for renting similar equipment for a year. However, if you read Toms Guide how-to-buy-cable-modem and determine it is “over your head”, paying your ISP for the modem and/or router and support, should there be a problem, is probably the better choice. However, if you discover your network requirements (speed latency) are satisfied with Docsis 3.0 technology then you could discover that it is “inexpensive” to have a “spare” cable modem and/or router (just in case), compared to the rental cost of similar products from your ISP. My experience… My cost for a Docsis 3.0 (refurbished) cable modem from Amazon was about $25.00 in early 2022. I do “keep” a spare cable modem and router. The cost is less than an Optimum service call that does not find a problem.
Personal experience… I have not had a cable modem failure in 17 years. My cable modem and many of my “connected devices” are on a UPS, so they are semi-immune to power surge and lightening. But…. I have upgraded/changed my router a few times and used OpenWrt.org firmware in the router. I have always purchased a router that allows the installation of OpenWrt. Why OpenWrt? Flexibility and Open Source.
As to Router Security… September 22, 2024… I surfed/stumbled into this site. RouterSecurity.org Worth your time… There is a NEWS tab and “other” interesting stuff.
Routers intended for home use ,keep evolving as has the Wifi technology that enables use of the services the Internet provides. Buying a router can be intimidating simply because there are so many choices from each brand that you might see on the shelves at Best Buy, Walmart, Office Depot or Amazon. When you need a router, you are lucky if you have the time to evaluate the available products that make your choice a “good value” for your requirements.
Location of the router in your home can be important. Why? Todays routers usually provide connectifty over 2.4 ghz channels, 5 ghz or 6 ghz channels. 2.4 ghz channels provide better distance and wall penetration characteristics at slower speeds. If you can place your router in the “Center” of your house then there is a better chance the wifi signal will be adequate for your devices throughtout the house. How might you deterimine if the wifi signal in a room is “weak”? There are “free” applications for cell phones that display wifi signal strength. Here is a link to the one I use: Wifi Analyzer
Mesh references: What is Mesh Networking?
This might be helpful… Cable modem thoughts.