I have Comcast internet, which can sometimes be so slow at night that I can type a sentence, sit back and wait a few seconds for the letters to appear on the screen. Someone from Comcast came out twice and ruled out all of our devices (computers, tablets, phones, etc.) as the problem. He said that the problem is a hidden network and that it would have to be in or close to my home. He had no idea what to do.

I don't have a clue what and where that network could be. My next door neighbor doesn't have a computer, an amateur radio setup, or anything else that I could think of that would cause such interference.

A different ISP is not an option. My wife works from home for a large Health Care Company that has a deal with Comcast. The health care company also owns my wife's work desktop. My office desktop is hard-wired into that system (Comcast did that but it made no difference.) Getting something other than our Comcast modem would be a violation of my wife's work contract.

Do I have any options here?

What does type a sentence and wait mean? Do you mean on this forum for example? Does the same thing happen on your wife’s desktop? Is it a fibre connection or cable via coax?

Did they try replacing the modem? Most of the time it’s that or something they’ll term ‘line noise’ which they can test for - never heard the term hidden network as a reason.

Where are you typing your sentences? In a browser? If your keypresses take time to appear normally that indicates a lag within your machine, not your internet connection.

I'm sorry that I took so long to get back to this. I had a lot going on, including an eye surgery that is messing me up when I read or type. I had one eye corrected to 20/39 vision while the other is still "much worse" (doctor's words) than 40/200. I have to get surgery on the other eye in a few weeks, then get glasses for reading. It's a real pain in the butt. I have to use eyedrops every six hours, which is messing up my sleeping. I'm reading and typing this with my face a few inches from the screen.

I Googled and found some information about hidden networks. What I copied and pasted below in bold print very closely matches what the Comcast Guy told me, that is, that another network is messing with my home network. It's not exactly encouraging, but at least I know what I'm dealing with. I should be back on here tomorrow and we'll see how it goes from there

Just to let you all know, it's an unconfigurable Home Security wireless band that happens to always remain hidden, always match the band you are using, always use the same channel you use for wi-fi, and ALWAYS have either the same signal strength or even HIGHER! This effectively CRIPPLES the wi-fi module that comes with any All-In-One.


https://forums.xfinity.com/t5/Your-H...t/td-p/1742061

i've never tried hard enough to figure out what they are, but i can say that there are (effectively) "hidden network(s)" in my house as well as a result of my comcast wireless router. i figured it was in some way related to comcast's hotspots or whatever other services they might offer. the networks are WPA/WPA2 secured, and i have my own router/firewall inside, so i never really bothered about the hidden networks. my router provides my wi-fi, and i have it set for a different wireless channel than the comcast networks, so i am not affected.

that said, i'm reasonably sure that the hidden network probably is not the cause of your slow internet. a single wireless router (or access point) can sometimes run multiple ssid's. each ssid appears like a separate network when you view them on any of your devices. but in the case of multiple ssid's from one router, they are basically just like vlan's. that is, they share the same hardware and transmission medium, but there is a logical separation between traffic. so multiple ssid's from a single router being on the same channel just means that those ssid's share the available resources. that is as opposed to directly creating issues for each other, like would be the case if you had two or more independent routers using the same channel. this latter statement appears to be what comcast is telling you, and that idea is correct, but (i think) misapplied here.

if one or more of the multiple ssid's from one router isnt using any resources, then the other ssid's (i.e. your wi-fi) wouldnt really notice. so unless there is some device(s) on the hidden network that is actively transmitting or receiving traffic, then it shouldnt be interfering with your wi-fi. so i would set aside the idea of the hidden network causing these issues, and +1 to what thunderbolts said.

The typing was an example, but often everything slows down. For example, there can be times when I'm on a 2+2 page like this, I want to switch to a SNG thread and it can take ten seconds or more before that page comes up.

My hands are tied in a lot of ways right now. I can't play on one of my sites because some changes that they made have "broken" the Holdem Manager Hud for use on that site. I can't change anything on the modem or get a different one because of my wife's work contract and the contract the Comcast has with my wife's employer. I have played online for more than 10 years and I have never had tech problems like this. I have mentioned only some of them.

I put in a request to withdraw half of my bankroll from one of my sites. I'm going to concentrate on playing live for a while. I have played mostly online for the last two years but it's time to make a change.

I might even wind up being mostly a live player. There is a local poker room 10 miles from me and a casino is scheduled to open in 2010 that would be a 17 mile drive.

I'll work on the tech problems from time to time, but I'm not going to focus on it any more. I have spent too much time in the fourth quarter of 2018 dealing with this mess. It's time to move on and concentrate on making money.