How does upgrading my modem improve WiFi connections for my router?

[YoungBlade]

I upgraded my modem from an old Arris Surfboard SB6190 to a Hitron CODA56 - the main reason I did this is that Comcast swears the reason they couldn't give me better than 6Mbps upload speeds was because of my modem. After the upgrade, I am now getting about 120-150Mbps up - so it did solve the problem.

 

I'm also getting noticeably better ping (from about 25ms to 14ms according to Speedtest) which is a nice plus, and makes sense considering that the modem mediates the Internet connection. All good things.

 

However, a problem that I did not expect this to address was poor WiFi connectivity, particularly to smart devices at the periphery of the range of the router. That makes no sense to me.

 

From my understanding, all a modem does is modulate and demodulate digital/analog signals and establish a connection to my ISP. And that's it. It shouldn't have anything to do with the WiFi, which is entirely controlled by the WAP built into the router. The devices should be unaffected by the modem change as far as simply being connected to the router is concerned.

 

And yet, for some reason, the smart bulb on my garage (I like to set colors for holidays) and the one on my wife's nightstand, which is physically as far away from the router as possible in the house, both now have much more stable connections.

 

Why would upgrading my modem have an impact on these? Shouldn't WiFi connection be completely determined by the WAP in the router?

[Mark Kaine]

err, idk the technicalities,  but A the signal could just be much stronger, B it could be better directionally focused aka have better antennas... notice how all these "gaming routers" have gigantic antennas? 

 

its just radio,  bigger/ better antennas = more better! 

 

 

"802.11 WLANs use radio waves having frequencies of 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz."

 

 its *radio signals*, aka am iirc.

[YoungBlade]

10 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

err, idk the technicalities,  but A the signal could just be much stronger, B it could be better directionally focused aka have better antennas... notice how all these "gaming routers" have gigantic antennas? 

 

its just radio,  bigger/ better antennas = more better! 

 

 

"802.11 WLANs use radio waves having frequencies of 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz."

 

 its *radio signals*, aka am iirc.

But that's the thing - I didn't upgrade the thing with the antennas. That's still the same and in the same spot. I upgraded the Internet box next to the radio box.

[Lurick]

The latency improvement I 1000% understand, the 6190 used a Puma6 chipset which has a host of awful issues which aren't present in newer DOCSIS 3.1 modems.

As for the signal the only thing I can think of is down to maybe a firmware update on the WAP or a reboot at that time which reset the TX power but honestly that's about all I can think of right now that might have just been a coincidence around the time the modem was upgraded since they are separate units it doesn't make sense otherwise.

[Mark Kaine]

20 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

But that's the thing - I didn't upgrade the thing with the antennas. That's still the same and in the same spot. I upgraded the Internet box next to the radio box.

so the modem has no built-in wifi basically? 

 

20 minutes ago, Lurick said:

The latency improvement I 1000% understand, the 6190 used a Puma6 chipset which has a host of awful issues which aren't present in newer DOCSIS 3.1 modems.

As for the signal the only thing I can think of is down to maybe a firmware update on the WAP or a reboot at that time which reset the TX power but honestly that's about all I can think of right now that might have just been a coincidence around the time the modem was upgraded since they are separate units it doesn't make sense otherwise.

maybe it's actually using a different standard/ codec /whatever so the signal is cleaner /stronger?

[Mark Kaine]

ohh... one thing we didn't think of:

 

your internet is faster now and has more bandwidth? 

 

well,  umm, that means less dropped signals especially on a "wonky" wifi connection... i guess? 

[YoungBlade]

29 minutes ago, Lurick said:

The latency improvement I 1000% understand, the 6190 used a Puma6 chipset which has a host of awful issues which aren't present in newer DOCSIS 3.1 modems.

As for the signal the only thing I can think of is down to maybe a firmware update on the WAP or a reboot at that time which reset the TX power but honestly that's about all I can think of right now that might have just been a coincidence around the time the modem was upgraded since they are separate units it doesn't make sense otherwise.

It could be that it's just a coincidence. It doesn't make any sense otherwise.

 

9 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

so the modem has no built-in wifi basically? 

 

maybe it's actually using a different standard/ codec /whatever so the signal is cleaner /stronger?

The CODA56 is only a modem. It has no WiFi or other wireless capabilities. All of the WiFi is in the router - a TP-Link AX1500.

 

It does use a different standard for the modem - DOCSIS 3.1 instead of 3.0 - and it has much better latency, so I guess maybe for fringe devices at the edge of the connection area that are trying to connect, if they have some kind of limit for how long they wait for the signal, maybe the new modem has improved it just enough to let them think they have a connection to the Internet? The "download" latency on Speedtest improved from about 300ms to just 50ms - so that's a 250ms improvement, which is fairly significant if that metric somehow matters for connecting those devices.

 

Another thing that makes me think of is electronic interference. The modem and router sit right next to each other. If the old one has an issue where it produces more EM interference than the new one, that could also be just enough of a difference for devices on the edge of having a good signal. In theory.

[Mark Kaine]

1 minute ago, YoungBlade said:

It could be that it's just a coincidence. It doesn't make any sense otherwise.

 

The CODA56 is only a modem. It has no WiFi or other wireless capabilities. All of the WiFi is in the router - a TP-Link AX1500.

 

It does use a different standard for the modem - DOCSIS 3.1 instead of 3.0 - and it has much better latency, so I guess maybe for fringe devices at the edge of the connection area that are trying to connect, if they have some kind of limit for how long they wait for the signal, maybe the new modem has improved it just enough to let them think they have a connection to the Internet? The "download" latency on Speedtest improved from about 300ms to just 50ms - so that's a 250ms improvement, which is fairly significant if that metric somehow matters for connecting those devices.

 

Another thing that makes me think of is electronic interference. The modem and router sit right next to each other. If the old one has an issue where it produces more EM interference than the new one, that could also be just enough of a difference for devices on the edge of having a good signal. In theory.

yeah, so newer, different standard *and* higher bandwidth... it's odd, but not that surprising,  you upgrade one thing and other thing(s) benefit from that, right? 

[Lurick]

9 minutes ago, YoungBlade said:

It could be that it's just a coincidence. It doesn't make any sense otherwise.

 

The CODA56 is only a modem. It has no WiFi or other wireless capabilities. All of the WiFi is in the router - a TP-Link AX1500.

 

It does use a different standard for the modem - DOCSIS 3.1 instead of 3.0 - and it has much better latency, so I guess maybe for fringe devices at the edge of the connection area that are trying to connect, if they have some kind of limit for how long they wait for the signal, maybe the new modem has improved it just enough to let them think they have a connection to the Internet? The "download" latency on Speedtest improved from about 300ms to just 50ms - so that's a 250ms improvement, which is fairly significant if that metric somehow matters for connecting those devices.

 

Another thing that makes me think of is electronic interference. The modem and router sit right next to each other. If the old one has an issue where it produces more EM interference than the new one, that could also be just enough of a difference for devices on the edge of having a good signal. In theory.

EMI is something I didn't think about but yah, even if the old and new modem's had similar EMI emissions a few inches away from the router could make all the difference.

[jaslion]

14 minutes ago, Lurick said:

EMI is something I didn't think about but yah, even if the old and new modem's had similar EMI emissions a few inches away from the router could make all the difference.

This can make a biiig difference. Had many a tech supp call where just moving the power adapter away a lil more or mkving other network equipment away from the ap (not moving the ap) just made it work better.

[Donut417]

2 hours ago, YoungBlade said:

upgraded my modem from an old Arris Surfboard SB6190 to a Hitron CODA56

Well the Docsis 3.0 modem vs a Docsis 3.1. The standard matters. If you are getting over 100Mbps up that means you’re in a upgraded mid split area and I didn’t know the Coda56 is supported on those upload speeds as only a few Docsis 3.1 modems are supported on the faster upload speeds.