Your network is experiencing this because it's encountering an issue that needs investigation.
Your network is experiencing this because it's encountering an issue that needs investigation.
Hi everyone, I’m trying to figure out something that’s really frustrating. My home network uses Cat 5e wiring with an unmanaged switch. One port connects a Draytek router, while another links into the network via an old Draytek AP700 access point. I can also connect my laptop and iPhone through the AP700 for internet access. The problem is that when I connect my iPhone to the network and start streaming something like Facebook or YouTube, it plays briefly before buffering and then stops. It happens with photos too. I’ve tried setting up bandwidth management by IP address, but it didn’t help. Recently, I bought an Ubiquiti AP, yet the issue persists. Even though I’ve been uploading large files for weeks, this problem has been going on for a long time and is really annoying. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Unmanaged switches often handle bandwidth differently when several clients use them together. Many ISPs also face challenges with many simultaneous connections to various servers, especially coaxial ones. If your access point isn’t the issue, it would be useful to see if a wired device experiences the same problems and whether they remain if you connect directly to your router.
There appears to be a problem with the iPhone connection when using Wi-Fi. Switching to 4G resolves the issue.
Different devices have different ways that they can deal with wireless signals. If your wireless router allows for MU-MIMO then it can communicate with more devices simultaneously rather than having to wait for one before starting the other. In the same vein, some client devices don't have multiple antennae to support more simultaneous data streams from wireless access points, so they will suffer when the AP gets busy with other clients. I wouldn't completely rule this out as being a cause of your connection issues. If your upload is being saturated, so will your download at some point because data has to be requested/sent before it can be received/downloaded.