Airport Time Capsule question from a newb!

[cperchard]

Hi guys, would very much appreciate some help. I am based in the UK and i currently have Virgin Media as my broadband provider which gives me around 150 meg speeds. They provide their own "superhub" which is a modem and router in 1 which goes between both 2.4 and 5gh bands........which is fine in theory......but i have tried 3 different ones now and none of them seem to be very reliable.

Speed wise it's fine, it does get the speeds that I'm supposed to.....but connectivity wise it's a joke......it will constantly slow down or disconnect completely, needing me to reboot. And gaming wise it's ridiculous.....using an Xbox One i constantly see lag, which i never should with the speeds I'm supposed to be getting.

I was just wondering if getting an Airport Time Capsule may be of use to me.......i need some sort of backup to my iMac anyway which at the moment I just have a stupid little external harddrive where i put all my photos on just in case my iMac dies.....but i suppose the automatic syncing backup to this device could be handy.

What is people's opinion on the Time Capsule.....is it reliable? Do people see great improvements in wifi reliability when switching from their old router to this?

I'm not sure if it's Virgin themselves or whether it's just the router that they provide is pants.......I'm just wondering whether this is worth it or am I better off just getting a different router altogether which will be a lot cheaper?

Thanks for any help you guys may give

 

[MCAsan]

I had Comcast previously (not stable here) and now ATT Uverse (far more stable at our house). In both cases I used the admin ID and password to login to the box and turn wifi off. Then I ran Cat 5 from the box to the WAN port of our Time Capsule. The multiple antenna do a good job of beam forming. The wife's rMBP backups to the TC.

Much of a wife base station's RF performance is in the antenna design, the location where you put the unit (such as up high on a bookshelf, not in the floor behind something), and the sensitivity of the receiver. So a good part of the overall performance is in your control.....the location of the unit.

 

[Weaselboy]

Hi guys, would very much appreciate some help. I am based in the UK and i currently have Virgin Media as my broadband provider which gives me around 150 meg speeds. They provide their own "superhub" which is a modem and router in 1 which goes between both 2.4 and 5gh bands........which is fine in theory......but i have tried 3 different ones now and none of them seem to be very reliable.

Speed wise it's fine, it does get the speeds that I'm supposed to.....but connectivity wise it's a joke......it will constantly slow down or disconnect completely, needing me to reboot. And gaming wise it's ridiculous.....using an Xbox One i constantly see lag, which i never should with the speeds I'm supposed to be getting.

I was just wondering if getting an Airport Time Capsule may be of use to me.......i need some sort of backup to my iMac anyway which at the moment I just have a stupid little external harddrive where i put all my photos on just in case my iMac dies.....but i suppose the automatic syncing backup to this device could be handy.

What is people's opinion on the Time Capsule.....is it reliable? Do people see great improvements in wifi reliability when switching from their old router to this?

I'm not sure if it's Virgin themselves or whether it's just the router that they provide is pants.......I'm just wondering whether this is worth it or am I better off just getting a different router altogether which will be a lot cheaper?

Thanks for any help you guys may give

I have a Time Capsule and it works well for the wireless backup like you mentioned, but it is hard to say if it would help you at all based on what you have said so far.

Are all these connections like the Xbox One etc over wifi or are any of them wired? If any of them are wired and still have issues, I would be more inclined to blame your Internet connection than the router.

 

[cperchard]

I have a Time Capsule and it works well for the wireless backup like you mentioned, but it is hard to say if it would help you at all based on what you have said so far.

Are all these connections like the Xbox One etc over wifi or are any of them wired? If any of them are wired and still have issues, I would be more inclined to blame your Internet connection than the router.

All wifi based but the router is right next to the tv and xbox so they are all close.....i suppose i could wire it up i just thought with 150 meg it shouldn't need to be wired! Thought it could handle wireless fine at that speed!

Not really sure what to do then.....hmmm maybe i should try a cheap highly rated router first.

 

[Weaselboy]

All wifi based but the router is right next to the tv and xbox so they are all close.....i suppose i could wire it up i just thought with 150 meg it shouldn't need to be wired! Thought it could handle wireless fine at that speed!

Not really sure what to do then.....hmmm maybe i should try a cheap highly rated router first.

Yeah... I was just thinking of trying wired ethernet as a test to make sure. Try hooking up the Xbox One with ethernet then in the advanced network settings there is a good test for connectivity and see what that says.