Ongoing problems with Bluecurve wifi

[Mike3333]

At May 1 we upgraded to your new Blue Curve service for our Internet and TV and have had internet outages every day since. I've chatted with several tech support people and tried various “fixes” (including a new modem), but the problem persists. The latest advice from Candice 8342, suggested my problem was wifi interference from a neighbour. This now made sense for why my outages occurred entirely randomly in terms of our in-home activities. It's one of our neighbours who usage is interfering with ours. The modem automatically assigns channels for my devices to use on my home network. If the, say, currently-assigned 5g channel gets bombed by a neighbour, then my modem switches to a different channel. BUT to do the switch it shuts down my internet service for a couple minutes. This is a really bad design – an automatic change that has to stop service to make the change.

There is the capability to manually assign the channels for the 2.4g and 5g service in the Gateway modem. The trick is to find channels that don't get overloaded by a neighbor. I presumably can do this by trial and error, but it would make more sense for Shaw to predesignate channels to each customer – Shaw knows who in the neighborhood has its service – I don't. Predesignating channels would avoid conflicts.

Better yet, Shaw should acquire a new modem whose design doesn't have this flaw.

[mdk]

@Mike3333 --  The trick is to find channels that don't get overloaded by a neighbor. I presumably can do this by trial and error ...

But, it is much easier to install the "free-trial" version of NetStumbler onto your Windows computer, to get details on all the WiFi signals that are in range.

Or, the free SPECCY software also does some enumeration of the in-range SSIDs.

"Use the tools, Luke".  🙂

[rstra]

I would start by turning off band steering, if it is enabled. Set separate SSIDs for the 2.4 and 5 GHz networks, and see if that improves performance. It does mean that you have to manually switch between 2.4 and 5, but it may mean a more stable network. Since there is more space at the higher frequencies, you may find there is less interference with the 5 GHz network.