Hello, @victorvdc7
Thank you for posting your concerns to the community.
We know how important it is to have a strong Wi-Fi signal in all areas of your home so you can stay connected. The WiFi Pods should help improve the Wi-Fi signal in your home but we need to ensure that are positioned properly before you can get a strong and consistent signal.
- Can you describe the location of the modem in your home in relation to the WiFi Pod?
- Is the modem located in the basement and the WiFi Pod is located on the second floor?
- Before installing the WiFi Pod did you check the Wi-Fi signal strength in that area? If the Wi-Fi was already poor in that area it could be why some devices are showing a weaker signal.
You'll want to ensure that you install the WiFi Pod in an area that already has a good WiFi signal, in a location that is about halfway to the areas in the home that have poor Wi-Fi. You'll also need to give it a few days in that location for the mesh Wi-Fi network to optimize itself and provide the best possible signal.
Our Resident Experts @-G-, @Gdkitty, @ColdGranite, and @Datalink can also provide you with valuable insight on how you can optimize your mesh Wi-Fi network using WiFi Pods. I've tagged them to this message.
We look forward to helping you improve your Wi-Fi signal.
RogersTony
@RogersTony We have already tried to help @victorvdc7 out in the following thread: https://communityforums.rogers.com/t5/Ignite-TV/Can-Band-Steering-be-Disabled-if-you-are-using-WiFi-...
@victorvdc7 wrote:
After Rogers installation my My Ignite TV Box was on the 5G band and it kept displaying '"Poor Signal" message. I fixed that by manually putting it on the 2.4G network and it jumped to Excellent. So even without pods the 2.4G is excellent.
I installed necessary Pods to improve coverage for my computers in the top floor of house and this forced Band Steering on. My TV switched back to the 5G network and again a poor signal even with pods. One of the Pods is with in 5 feet of the TV set and I still get a poor signal on 5G.
WiFi is excellent on all my computers and phones anywhere in the house with the pods so it is only a Ignite TV problem.
Your devices may see excellent signal strength from the Pod but if the Pod itself does not have a good, strong, fast connection back to the gateway, any devices that connect to the Pod will still see poor network performance.
It is also my understanding that the Wi-Fi mesh will try to steer network clients away from Pods that are either overloaded and/or that have poor connectivity back to the Ignite gateway.
The Ignite TV Box is getting a poor 5G signal so why is it not automatically switching to the better signal on the 2.4G Band?
The TV seems ok with but I keep getting an irritating 'Bad Signal" message
I can't say for sure what is going because I don't know anything about where you placed your Pods, but I'm still pretty certain that you have a sub-optimal installation that needs to be fixed.
If you are using Pods, then the Ignite gateway ideally should be placed in a central location, not in your basement, and the Pods absolutely MUST be placed in a location where they will get a good, strong, fast connection back to the gateway. If you install the Pods correctly then not only will devices connect to the closest Pod but they will also see good network performance over Wi-Fi. If you cannot install Pods optimally, then you are better off not using them at all.
As I mentioned in the other thread, I don't use Pods in my own home but I have installed them for another family member, with EXCELLENT results.
If you are in a situation where you feel that you need to force the Ignite TV set-top box to connect to the Ignite gateway on the 2.4 GHz band, then you have a bad installation, or some other really weird problem. You should not have to do this.
If the set-top box itself is being temperamental, you can try disconnecting from it Wi-Fi and reconnecting. Press the WPS button on the bottom of the set-top box, then let the connection attempt fail. If the set-top box does not auto-connect to your Wi-Fi network again, reconnect using WPS.
Unfortunately, the set-top box does not have an advanced setup screen (that I know of) where you can tweak how it connects to the network. However, there are two information screens that you can access.
To get to a general information screen, press-and-hold the Exit button on the remote for three seconds, then key in "Down Down 2"
To access more detailed information, press-and-hold the Exit button on the remote for three seconds, then key in "Down Down 4"
I don't know whether the "Network Connections" or "In-Home Network" status screens will provide any helpful troubleshooting information. In my home, each set-top box has an 866 Mb/s Wi-Fi connection on the 5GHz band to the closest Access Point, and my Wi-FI APs have an even faster connection back to my router. I'm not seeing any of the problems that you are seeing.
@victorvdc7 I'm not sure what's going on here. Based on what you described, your set-top box should not be reporting a poor signal strength. If you key in "Long-press Exit , Down Down 2", what "Signal Frequency" and "Signal Strength" get reported in the "WiFi Details" section of the info screen?
To troubleshoot this further, you will need to position a Wi-Fi analyzer next to the set-top box to see the signal strengths of each BSSID in that location. The set-top box should connect to Wi-Fi in an optimal way and should connect to a local Pod. It should not connect to the network on the 2.4 GHz band if the 5 GHz band provides better connectivity.
The Pods themselves should also be passively listening to the Wi-Fi network, collecting the MAC addresses and signal strength of each device, and the back-end software should eventually steer the devices to the optimal Pod. (If the signal strength of a device never changes, it should realize that the device is stationary and optimize accordingly.)
It's also possible that a set-top box might be trying to reconnect to the same BSSID that it did when it first joined your Wi-Fi network. If you cannot get the set-top box to disconnect from Wi-Fi, another thing that you can try is to press the WPS button on the bottom of the STB and, while waiting for the WPS pairing to complete, pull the power plug from the STB. Wait a few seconds, power it up the STB, then follow the prompts to re-connect to the network. (A more extreme thing to try would be to factory reset the STB... but you probably should only do this under the direction of tech support.)
You can also just try waiting a few days for the Wi-Fi mesh to learn your network, and hopefully it will optimize itself without any actions required on your part.
Just wanted to add the following info from Comcast's xFi Pods Frequently Asked Questions:
My device is right next to a Pod, so why is it connecting to a different Pod in another room?
In a WiFi mesh network, the best connection point for a device may not always be the one that's closest to it. Pods communicate with each other and the Gateway to monitor the number of devices connected in the home, their location, and the type of WiFi connection that each device needs. This ensures that your device is operating with the best signal. Think of it the same way that your GPS directs you to an alternate route to get you to your destination faster when there's too much traffic on the main road.
Unless its changed.. I know there was something with the TV boxes initially as well.
That they dont just lock into an SSID, they seem to lock into a specific AP itself. So it may be attempting to connect to what it previously was before, and not the newest closest AP.
If it hasnt been done yet (or i missed it in the previous posts), i would try and re-connect the wifi on the tv box.
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