WiFi range question

[bluepoole]

I have a 3G dongle from Vodacom, plugged into a TP Link MR3220 wireless router, when I sit on my couch in my living room, I have a direct line of sight with the router (no obstacles, walls, etc) and the distance is 4 meters (measured), yet the signal is so bad that the devices I use, "fall" off the wifi network completely.

The devices are an iPhone 5S and an iPad Air.

Is the router of poor quality? Or could it be the Apple devices? Any other factors that might cause this?

 

[pinball wizard]

What's the wifi connectivity like elsewhere in the house?

 

[bluepoole]

What's the wifi connectivity like elsewhere in the house?

The router is in one of the bedrooms - when I'm in that room, or in the other room (distance wise about a meter away from the router but a wall in between), then the signal is fine.

 

[deweyzeph]

Have you used a wifi scanner to see if there are any neighbouring wifi networks that are operating on the same frequency as yours? It sounds like you have some hectic interference.

 

[flying_sheep]

by default, most routers use channel 11, change yours to 3 or 6. Turn off tkip+aes and only use aes. tkip authentication is finnicky with iphones.

 

[robass]

by default, most routers use channel 11, change yours to 3 or 6. Turn off tkip+aes and only use aes. tkip authentication is finnicky with iphones.

Can you tell us how to do that ?

 

[Hamish McPanji]

1 , 6 and 11 because they are non overlapping channels

 

[flying_sheep]

Log onto your router and check under wireless advanced settings.

 

[robass]

Thanks

 

[robass]

Doesn't seem to work for me . As soon as I change to any channel other than auto then none of my devices can connect to the internet ?

 

[Aquadyne]

Doesn't seem to work for me . As soon as I change to any channel other than auto then none of my devices can connect to the internet ?

I use a few of these routers.

Upgrade the Firmware to the latest available.
In your wireless settings, set your region to South Africa, Channel to the best one as detected by a Wifi Analyser App, the mode to 11n only and channel width to auto.