Questions about/problems with home WiFi

[Stinky The Clown]

17. UPDATE:

So . . . . I installed InSSIDer (cool little app!). I was amazed at how many other routers show up. We're pretty far from our nearest neighbors, but bam! Three have what appear to be FIOS default names, they are all on channel 6, and they are all Actiontech hardware, the routers given away by FIOS in this part of the world. There is a Cisco unit on channel 1 and a Belkin unit, also on 1.

My AEBS was on channel 6, too. My antique Linksys WAP was on channel 10.

I moved the Linksys to channel 4 and my AEBS to channel 11.

While watching Netflix, the speed varied from 13.8MB/s down to 1.3MB/s. Still not good enough for a stable stream of HD programming.

Today I ran ethernet cable on a home run from my FIOS router to the BlueRay player. I had a 100' spool of it and have that running along the floor, up the stairs, across a room and into the TV room. We watched streaming HD on Netflix and it was rock solid stable with speeds over 25MB/s with occasional drops to 15 or so.

So it seems my wireless issues remain. It is sufficiently fast and stable for normal laptop use, but not good enough to stream HD. I'll have to figure out how to permanently route the cable and then pull wire to the teevee.