Router Question

[Dave Fritz]

We have Viasat internet service and rent their modem/router. They conncet fine to our LG TV and android devices but they don't play nice with Apple products. My hearing aid app on my Apple 15 Plus will loose the bluetooth connection and internet searches are hit and miss. To resume I have to clean my phone, restart and I'm good a bit.

I've seen discussions regarding this problem on both Apple web sites and Viasats. Viasat reports this router has worked with their system: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KJF5BS7...t_details&th=1 A term I've heard used but don't understand is a possible latency issues? Is this router worth trying? I can always return to Amazon if it doesn't help but I'm sort of tired of messing with it.

[Curt Harms]

As you said, you can always return it if it doesn't work. I have a somewhat similar setup and it seems to work okay. My modem and router are in the basement so the wifi signal is somewhat limited in certain parts of the house. I have a cable running from the primary router to a second router which is configured as an access point, not a router. The primary router has 5 ports on the back, 4 of one color(LAN) and one of another color(WAN). The cable runs from the primary router's LAN port (1 of 4) to the WAN port on the secondary router. I think I could have done LAN to LAN I believe as well but I think LAN -> WAN might have some wifi security benefit. In your case it might work better LAN->LAN. I know we have some networking guys here, maybe they will check in.

[Bill Howatt]

Not a Viasat user. I don't doubt the router works with their system but does it solve the Apple problem? My guess is the latency (delay in responding to requests for action or data) is between the Viasat modem and the internet since I assume it has to go through the satellite which takes time. Changing or adding the router will not really change this.
What I don't understand as being part of the Viasat problem is the Bluetooth. I would think that is strictly a connection from you iPhone's Bluetooth and your hearing aid's Bluetooth connection. Shouldn't this just be between these 2 device, that is, no Viasat, no modem, no router? Of course, it the Viasat problem is screwing up the phones connections on a broad scale then it could be related.

[Jim Becker]

If you have a combo sat modem/router, then that's going to need to stay in place if you add the TP Link product you link to. You can add any mesh system you want "behind" the existing router by plugging the main node into one of the Ethernet ports on that modem/router and set them up, preferably in "bridge mode".

If your sat modem is a separate device from the Viasat provided gateway router, the TP Link product you link to (or any other mesh system) can replace the existing router.

That all said, latency (delay) on sat service is an unfortunate reality because the speed of light isn't getting any faster and the distance to the satellite is enough to create a delay. Further, if that latency isn't consistent...which is called jitter...it can be even more challenging in some situations and with some devices. And yea, you might notice that with searching and search results.

Now regarding your iPhone losing connectivity with a Bluetooth device, I'll suspect the app or the device before I'd ever suspect the Internet connection. BT is a short distance radio that pairs the phone with a device so they can communicate directly. Internet connectivity is not needed for that...it works with WiFi and Cellular turned off if setup to be available.

[Dave Fritz]

Thank you all for your replies. They were very helpful in helping me begin to understand the issue. I'm afraid we live in a crack on the map, at the end of the county etc. Cables and lines don't get here until there's no where else to go. We used to have Hughes.net, they were terrible. Viasat was our next choice which is no better than Hughes.net. Starlink has a waiting list in our area and I'm hearing as they add more people speeds and response time goes down. Maybe that's just an issue here in our community. Plus it's pricy to get into and I'm not sure we'll be here too much longer.

[Dave Fritz]

One last question. We also have line of site internet options. Sadly I live in a valley and was told, if I cut down a tree or two I'd have a line of site from the top of our TV antenna to a transmitter that is mounted on a farmers silo. Since this is line of site, could it also have latency issues or because the distance is much less, the chance of latency issues lessoned? Thanks again for your responses.

[Bill Howatt]

Networking is one thing that really sticks to the old adage, "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link". Anything in the chain from your computer to the router to the modem to the internet to the server to the site on the server can affect your latency and connection speed.
If your farmer is on a different, non-satellite, service then I'd say definitely assuming the service is reasonably fast; it certainly takes the delay from distance to the satellite out of the picture.
Are you and the farmer friends? You could, to get a indication of latency by running a speed test program like free Speedtest from Ookla and see what his Ping time is and also his download speed (this speed is affected by what level of service he purchased from the internet provider). You also run Speedtest on your existing setup. A comparison of the Ping times will be an indicator of the latency. Lower is better. For general internet browsing etc. under 100 milliseconds is OK, if you are a gamer then you'd want under 40ms.

[Jim Becker]

You will likely have a lot less noticeable latency with a line-of-sight connection like you describe, but the actual performance will depend upon the type of radio connection between your place and the tower relative to available bandwidth as well as what's on the backend from the tower to the Internet. Done correctly, it should perform better than the sat setup. You need to find out more about what the setup is for the line-of-sight opportunity.

[Steve Demuth]

Thank you all for your replies. They were very helpful in helping me begin to understand the issue. I'm afraid we live in a crack on the map, at the end of the county etc. Cables and lines don't get here until there's no where else to go. We used to have Hughes.net, they were terrible. Viasat was our next choice which is no better than Hughes.net. Starlink has a waiting list in our area and I'm hearing as they add more people speeds and response time goes down. Maybe that's just an issue here in our community. Plus it's pricy to get into and I'm not sure we'll be here too much longer.

If you can't get Starlink, then of course it's not an option. But if you can, I'd highly recommend it. Even degraded Starlink will be faster than line-of-site ethernet or LTE in all likelihood. However, if trees are a problem for the line of site option, they may also be for Starlink. Starlink needs a clear view of the entire sky hemisphere to be happy, and if you have trees close to you house, a roof mount may not be sufficient to get the dish high enough to achieve that.