Is it possible ...

Carl81 · 14 Dec 2019 at 13:56

Ive got unlimited data with vodafone on my iphone x.

I am able to do the whole personal hotspot thingy but all the devices like my fire stick are on 2.4ghz when connected and im wondering if i can change it to 5ghz?

thanks

Meddling-Monk · 14 Dec 2019 at 17:59

I was under the impression the Fire Stick was dual band capable, so it shouldn't matter on that device.

The rest will depend if they are 5ghz, dual band, or 2,4ghz only. With the 2.4ghz only devices being the ones that you can't really do much on (short of certain circumstances where it might be possible to upgrade the wireless device inside them to a different one, but that's few and far between really).

Carl81 · 14 Dec 2019 at 18:45

Meddling-Monk said:
I was under the impression the Fire Stick was dual band capable, so it shouldn't matter on that device.

The rest will depend if they are 5ghz, dual band, or 2,4ghz only. With the 2.4ghz only devices being the ones that you can't really do much on (short of certain circumstances where it might be possible to upgrade the wireless device inside them to a different one, but that's few and far between really).

Thanks for the reply.

when I connect the fire stick to my home broadband (16.7 meg down - 5 meg up) it connects randomly to 2.4ghz and 5 ghz but often buffers when im watching netflix or bbc i player.

when i connect My tv or fire stick to my hotspot using my 4g /iphone x. I get 70-110 meg down and 15-25 meg up but at 2.4ghz and there doesnt seem to be a setting to change it to 5ghz

Avalon · 14 Dec 2019 at 20:43

Given you mention iPlayer and Netflix on a fire stick and the maximum they will use is circa 25mbit with Netflix 4K, have you considered that for those specific usage scenario’s it won’t make any discernible difference if you have the 70-110Mbit you have now, or 10Gbit? You could make the argument for the 2.4Ghz frequencies potentially being crowded, but in the real world it’s less of an issue for most domestic users unless they’re packed in like sardines.

Meddling-Monk · 14 Dec 2019 at 23:45

Agree with Avalon on the info there.

Are you making sure you have a clean connection between your Fire Stick and the WiFi connection to make sure that isn't part of whats causing the buffering? The net connection not being congested at home from many devices using it? And of course the channel isn't overly crowded?

If all of that is yes, you've checked, then I would then ask if you have Dev Unlocked your Fire Stick and installed any... er... "Modifications" to it? As reduced storage space as well as unfriendly background applications, can cause the Fire Stick to slow down something like Iplayer or Netflix.

If all of that is no as well, then I would suggest going into the settings and disabling the suggestions and auto-retrieval stuff that it pulls from the rainforest that is default set to "On", as that can chew up process' too on the Fire Stick.

Hopefully something in this list would help you find out where a possible issue is so you don't need to do something drastic and unnecessary to get things working smoothly.

(Quick Reference: I have a HH4 (Dual Band Capable), that was previously on 2.4ghz only, but I've disabled the 2.4ghz and left 5ghz on only recently after updating stuff. It only services the Fire Stick and an Ipad within a 2m radius, and the Fire Stick within 30cm. All with clear line of sight, and other than when it loses the connection to the net via the main router in the house, it has never had any buffering issues before on any of the devices even on . Main net at 72 down/20 up. So again, I would take a gander to see if there's something that you can fix there without needing to do anything funky or unnecessarily expensive to solve the problem.)

Carl81 · 15 Dec 2019 at 10:32

Avalon said:
Given you mention iPlayer and Netflix on a fire stick and the maximum they will use is circa 25mbit with Netflix 4K, have you considered that for those specific usage scenario’s it won’t make any discernible difference if you have the 70-110Mbit you have now, or 10Gbit? You could make the argument for the 2.4Ghz frequencies potentially being crowded, but in the real world it’s less of an issue for most domestic users unless they’re packed in like sardines.

Meddling-Monk said:
Agree with Avalon on the info there.

Are you making sure you have a clean connection between your Fire Stick and the WiFi connection to make sure that isn't part of whats causing the buffering? The net connection not being congested at home from many devices using it? And of course the channel isn't overly crowded?

If all of that is yes, you've checked, then I would then ask if you have Dev Unlocked your Fire Stick and installed any... er... "Modifications" to it? As reduced storage space as well as unfriendly background applications, can cause the Fire Stick to slow down something like Iplayer or Netflix.

If all of that is no as well, then I would suggest going into the settings and disabling the suggestions and auto-retrieval stuff that it pulls from the rainforest that is default set to "On", as that can chew up process' too on the Fire Stick.

Hopefully something in this list would help you find out where a possible issue is so you don't need to do something drastic and unnecessary to get things working smoothly.

(Quick Reference: I have a HH4 (Dual Band Capable), that was previously on 2.4ghz only, but I've disabled the 2.4ghz and left 5ghz on only recently after updating stuff. It only services the Fire Stick and an Ipad within a 2m radius, and the Fire Stick within 30cm. All with clear line of sight, and other than when it loses the connection to the net via the main router in the house, it has never had any buffering issues before on any of the devices even on . Main net at 72 down/20 up. So again, I would take a gander to see if there's something that you can fix there without needing to do anything funky or unnecessarily expensive to solve the problem.)

Thank you both for replying. Good advice