Wi-Fi SLOOOOOOOW!!!???

There's only two other networks visible from my house. One has my neighbor's name on it, and the other looks generic and is probably the same router offering a second SSID, maybe a guest network.

I did change my default channels, to no effect. And the desktop computer gets 10 times the speed of the iPod. I have concluded, after talking with several people, including the Apple store, that the gen 3 iPod Touch simply is not capable of reliable Wi-Fi. It's "good enough" for email and weather reports while traveling, which is why I chose it over a music player only, but not capable of sustained high speed streaming.

Note that the desktop gets speed test results ranging from 20 to 40 mbps, a 1:2 ratio of worst to best, while the iTouch gets results from 1 to 8 mbps, a 1:8 ratio of worst to best. That does not make sense unless the Touch just cannot handle the job.

I've given up on the Touch for streaming media. In any case, it cannot stream NetFlix to a TV. NF does not permit it from the gen 3. And watching movies on the iTouch is a novelty that won't last.

I've decided to get a Roku.

As for twittel's idea of "cutting the cord" and using the free Wi-Fi at Micky D's or some such place, I admire your chutzpa, and I think we'd all be better off without the internet, but sadly I'm addicted to having connectivity at home. (BTW, there was a news item a while back about a guy who was sued by a store for parking outside and using their Wi-Fi. He reasoned, it's free, and the signal reaches the public street. The store claimed the free Wi-Fi was for customers who bought something. I'm not sure, but I think the store won. OTOH, your public library probably has free Wi-Fi and you don't have to buy anything. And a library is a much healthier place to hang out than Micky D's.)

 

The Roku arrived yesterday. (Isn't next-day delivery great?) What follows is a tale of lousy customer service.

Plugged it in, told it the name of my network, entered the password, and it told me it could not connect to the router. (It has three steps during connection: Connect to the router; connect to the local network; connect to the internet.) So I tried connecting to my "guest" network. The Airport creates two networks; the Guest network allows access to the internet but not to my local network, so if I want to let someone use my internet without having access to my computer, I can allow that. This time it connected to the router, but complained that it could not connect to my local network (because the router does not permit it) and so it never even tried to connect to the internet.

So I called customer service and spent an hour on the phone with a man in India. He had me change all sorts of settings on the router, including eliminating the password protection from my Guest network (he wanted me to eliminate it from my main network, but I refused), and changing the channels, and he wanted me to change the radio mode but I refused to do that also. Half of what he wanted me to do made no sense, given the problem, but I did it all except for the two things just mentioned.

Nothing worked. So finally he said he'd have to research it and he would call me back in half an hour. I ate supper, pondered, and decided that either the unit was defective, or it was incompatible with the Airport. I decided to send it back. But after supper I decided to try one last thing. The only thing the guy in India had not suggested was to restore all factory defaults. At this point my Wi-Fi connection had slowed to a crawl.

I restored the defaults, set up the Airport using the "easy" setup, accepting all the defaults, then I turned everything off, re-set the Roku and then turned it off, and then rebooted everything one at a time. Cable modem, then router, then computer, and then the Roku.

Lo and behold, my network was fast again, and the Roku connected immediately (to my main network). It took a while, but it did all the stuff it needed to do (loaded updated software, asked me to set up a Roku account, set up my NetFlix account) and then allowed me to watch a program.

The one difference was that with the default settings, SSID broadcast was on. Before that, I had had it turned off. The Guest network always broadcasts SSID, which is why the Roku could connect to the router. But the Roku insists on connecting to the local network, which Guest does not permit. Apparently the Roku needs two things: It needs SSID to be on, and it needs access to the local network, even though they tell you you don't need a computer.

The Indian man had all the necessary information, because as he was telling me to try one network and then the other, I was telling him everything I did, including typing in the network name for the main network, but not for the Guest network.

He never asked me to turn SSID on, and he never suggested restoring factory settings. There is nothing in the owner's manual telling you that SSID broadcast must be on, or that it needs access to the local network.

The unit works. I am pleased with it. But don't expect any useful advice from Roku customer service. And FWIW, I have not gotten one of those emails that so many other companies send out after you use customer service, asking for your opinions of the service.

Nice unit, lousy customer service.

 

The performance is very acceptable. Some programs are better than others, obviously because the source material for the older TV shows lacks the resolution of newer ones. Xena the Warrior Princess does not have good resolution. Monk comes through as good as DVD to my eye. Note that my projector is NOT high-def.

I never removed password protection from my main network, and I turned off SSID broadcasting after the Roku was set up and I made sure it was working. The Guest network got its password protection back as soon as we determined that turning it off didn't help. Since the Guest network is not a security issue, and my neighbor is not likely to try to get into it, and anyway it is now password protected again, I'll probably leave it on. Nobody is going to park outside my home to use my internet access, and if any of my neighbors asked to use it I'd let them. And if anyone did sniff my main network name, they'd still have to get my password, and I don't use guessable passwords.

Note also that after the fiasco with customer service, I restored all the factory defaults and restored my passwords, and so it's now as secure as it was before I got the Roku, unless somehow the Roku itself is a back door into the system. But I've never heard that a streaming internet player can be used to hack into the system.

 

I'll check it out.

That might be the story I heard about. I had not remembered that the coffee shop owner didn't care.

But if the coffee shop invited customers to use the connection, and didn't care if the guy used it from outside, where's the crime? Unless it was a no-parking zone or he failed to feed the meter. Otherwise, this guy was in the same legal position as a customer inside who failed to ask for and receive explicit permission. If there was an offense, it was against the coffee shop, and if the owner did not sign a complaint, there should have been no prosecution.

An analogous incident happened to me once: While I was working at the homeless shelter, one of the homeless men got angry with me over my anti-war activities. He threw paint on my car, which is certainly illegal. The cop who saw him do it asked me if I wanted to file a complaint. I declined. So the cop gave the guy a ride home because he was drunk. He was never charged because I didn't want him to be charged, and so I didn't file a complaint.

The cops were (in my opinion) out of line filing charges against the computer user if the coffee shop owner did not want to complain.

Still, it's wise to go inside and buy a cup of coffee if you want to use the wireless, because another coffee shop owner might not be as generous.

By the way, this is something that happens often in our so-called "justice" system: A person who would never be convicted in court is charged with a felony, and then offered a plea deal down to misdemeanor. The more innocent and law-abiding the person is, the more likely he is to plead guilty to a crime he never committed, out of fear of being convicted of something worse. I met a guy in prison who pleaded guilty to something a jury never would have convicted him of, because the cops threatened to charge his wife if he did not. There's no way she ever would have been convicted, and probably no prosecutor ever would have actually charged her. But he didn't know that, and so to protect his wife from an unjust charge, he pleaded guilty to something he would probably never have been convicted of.