Wide World of Women

Recently I moved to an apartment (2nd floor) and my cable/internet are included as part of my rent cost to the landlord who lives below. While at my old place I had Verizon internet/modem and my internet speed was about 3.5 mbps, and I never had any issues watching YouTube on my Vizio smart TV.
Now that I moved, I ditched my desktop computer/Verizon and use my landlord's Xfinity Wi-Fi internet speed of about 30 mbps on my laptop, yet I cannot watch YouTube on my TV now! It freezes continuously, even when showing strong strength signal bars. Very frustrating considering I'm now getting ten times the internet speed I used to get at my old place! Any idea why this is happening or the changes I should make in my network settings on my Vizio TV???? Thanks!!

Am I correct that you had Verizon FIOS before and then got Xfinity due to moving?

Does this happen at certain times of the day or night? My experience with Comcrap (Xfinity) is that they tend to overstuff their headends with too many people on one of them and it causes major freezes like you are talking about. It's more evident at night than daytime, when more people are using the Internet for data down/uploads than during the day. Also, don't forget that just because Comcrap tells you your d/l speed is 30mbps... doesn't mean you are actually GETTING 30mbps. That is their peak maximum, and most of the time you get nowhere near that.

You should, if you haven't already, go to http://www.speedtest.net and check both your speed and latency numbers. Also do a manual ping to yahoo.com and see what that shows, if it's the only place you have a problem. Wi-Fi is also susceptible to electronics near your router, like anything that runs at 2.4GHz, like the Wi-Fi does. It can cause all kinds of problems.

Good luck!

Thanks, xx. I did not have FIOS at my old house. Just regular Verizon high-speed which got me like 3.5 mbps at the most. I was told because of my exact location (of my old place) that that is all the speed I could get, yet I had neighbors that were 50 feet away from me who had the same provider and deal as me and got 6 mbps! Crazy. lol
Anyways, the YouTube freeze happens throughout the day and night on my Vizio smart TV. I do know that internet speeds vary according to many circumstances like time of the day, traffic, weather, placement of the modem ect. I can definitely say though that now that I've moved to the apartment and use my landlord's Wi-Fi, I am getting way, way, waaaaaaay faster internet on my laptop. So why is the YouTube app on my smart TV not working like it did in my old house when I got a way slower internet speed!?!

Were both your laptop and TV access to YT running about the same speed at your old place, but now the laptop speed has increased, but not the TV's speed? Was the old place running on coax only?

The landlord may have wiring that does not include coax, which is traditionally slower and more finicky regarding distances and cable lengths, and which would explain the old place's lack of speed vs. neighbors, etc. How is your smart TV hooked up to receive the Internet? Did you get the Roku unit you were asking about before and use that?

If so, I can tell you that my Roku box / TV combo will freeze occasionally at different times of day or night depending on what the Internet via WiFi is doing in terms of traffic - and it only affects the Roku - not the laptop. Also, it seems to affect only certain channels like YT, or some of the streaming local news channels, who might not be using a fast connection to send stuff out. That is an important factor as well.

However, if your TV has an Ethernet port on it, and you can hook up to the WiFi router via an Ethernet port, you are much better off getting a CAT-5 Ethernet cable and hooking it up between the two. It should eliminate most if not all of the freezes, etc. you're now experiencing. Sometimes W-Fi packets get "lost" in the ozone and it then has to retransmit them, which is what causes the "freezing" while it's taking time for the replacement packets to get to your TV.

Unfortunately, that's only available on Roku 3/4 units, and mine is a 2, with a TV that has no Ethernet port. So I've actually gotten used to it (!) but it can be annoying. If you did go with a Roku 3, you should be able to do this, assuming your WiFi box can take that cable input.

Sorry this was a bit long, but I hope it will help you with this issue. Good luck!