FIOS Router Question

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
One dollar a month wasted away in 18 million different places still adds up. Maybe if we didn't buy a new Mercedes worth of taxes every year it would be different. But I want my house to be paid off and to buy a second house at the shore, so minimizing waste is important. I know I'm not Jewish, so my cheapness must be from my Scottish genes.


For something like FiOS, the interface is not yet such a commodity that the open source community would not screw up. I'd stick to the manufacturers firmware for that and update to the latest version on a regular basis, they do discover bugs and fix them for the first year or two of a new product release, after that they only fix major problems like compatibility with new equipments.

Routers typically use 1A 12V power supply, that's 12W, 288Whr / day, 8.64KWhr / month under maximum load. The typical load is likely 1/10 of that during idle, and therefore 0.864 KWhr per month, at 12c/KWhr it is only 10c/mo.

The headache to troubleshoot any compatibility issue on the FiOS side of the line would clearly be worth more than 10c/mo. If you want to save money drop the FiOS and go to DSL or dial up.

 

[JHZR2]

I really couldnt care less about the electrical cost in reality, someone else brough it up and I commented.

I want to drop the power from the wifi because I want to minimize radiating sources in my home, and the excess power isnt needed.

That's all I want to do. I couldnt care less about troubleshooting, etc. I dont want to flash the firmware or take it to DD-WRT or Tomato or whatever. I just want to configure to take my output power as low as possible.

 

[Vikas]

My suggestion? Aluminum foil!

Unfortunately, both TX and RX would be affected :-(

 

[PandaBear]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
I really couldnt care less about the electrical cost in reality, someone else brough it up and I commented.

I want to drop the power from the wifi because I want to minimize radiating sources in my home, and the excess power isnt needed.

That's all I want to do. I couldnt care less about troubleshooting, etc. I dont want to flash the firmware or take it to DD-WRT or Tomato or whatever. I just want to configure to take my output power as low as possible.


Usually, routers let you turn off their wireless feature completely. Maybe you can just turn off the wireless part of your FiOS router and install your own open source router and adjust your own power?

In reality, unless your house is very small or you have a dedicated router in each room, turning your router output lower may increase error count or reduce output speed enough that your transmission time is longer, neutralizing the benefit of turning it lower.

2 routers running at lower power is probably "healthier" than 1 router running full power, both from the tower and from the phones they carry (which output stronger signals when it sees weak tower signals). That's what a lot of idiots don't know when they are fighting tooth and nail against raising another cell tower near them. Raising another tower actually helps them by partition a powerful cell into 2 weaker cell.