Question

Seven or 8 years ago I bought a Ring Doorbell/Camera and installed it at my second home in Western Washington. I’m not there much and it was convenient to keep an eye on the property, and see if I got any deliveries I needed to go over there (about 20 minutes away) to pick up. It worked great, until last November, when the battery, which progressively held less and less of a charge, finally died. No problem! I bought a new one (with a discount, thank you Ring) but no matter what I did, I could not get it to reconnect to my phone company’s DSL Wi-Fi router. Figuring the replacement might have been defective, Ring sent me another replacement. But that one wouldn’t connect either. Ring ultimately said my Upload and Download speeds on the phone company’s “high speed DSL” line were WAY to slow to support their products. So I complained to the telco. My phone company charged me $250 for a new router. I hooked it up and the new Ring doorbell worked fine at last. So I also bought an indoor cam. I also hooked it up. Both worked fine only for about two weeks, when they both again dropped off line. I fought with them, tried everything the Ring tech support people suggested, and after three or four days of support calls, got them both working again. For about two hours, just long enough to check them when I got home. Now the indoor cam will reconnect briefly with the new router, but disconnect within an hour or two. Sometimes it reconnects when it detects motion, but I can never access it on live view. Sometimes I have to push the button on top to get it to reconnect. But it drops off line again before I get very far away. The doorbell has steadfastly refused to reconnect to anything at all. First it won’t join the local ring network, and then, when it occasionally does, it refuses to join or even recognize my home Wi-Fi network. I don’t understand why it’s so much more difficult than the indoor cam. In desperation, I set up an unused Apple IPhone as a Wi-Fi hotspot, running on AT&T’s LTE network. The doorbell connected with that, and worked quickly, and perfectly for about 36 hours, then disconnected from that too. And now it refuses to reconnect with anything. It doesn’t recognize the hotspot, even though my other cell phone does, and it won’t connect with my home Wi-Fi network either. I’m getting really fed up! I’ve probably spent a total of 48-60 aggregate hours on the phone with Ring Support. They’ve been patient, and kind, but I still don’t have a damned doorbell working! And my indoor cam is useless at best. There is NO other internet service available in my neighborhood except for satellite, and I just can’t see spending $140 a month for a dish TV which nobody is there to watch, just so I can see the occasional deer cross my yard, or get a very occasional delivery via a video doorbell. But for years it worked very well before. Anybody have any suggestions?  

Answer 1

Yep, go with Nest cams or Reolink.  

Comments

DSL speeds won't do much good fro Nest or any other high def streaming camera. We played around with both Ring and Nest stuff at a friends house who lives on a mountain and has cellular and satellite internet. Even though the download speeds of these devices ranged up to 10megs, uploads were closer to 1. The same goes for DSL. Unless you can get cable, optical or cellular LTE or faster speeds, you may need to go to a video system that stays local on your network.  

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@fuge7323 We went with Reolink NVR.  

Answer 2

When the DSL device was replaced, did that also replace the WiFi in the house? If yes, how far away from the doorbell is the WiFi device?  

Comments

@parasitology18 You need to do a little more research sir.  

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@hyphen20386 most have a setting that allows you to change it from Auto to a certain channel. It might not have it but it’s worth a try to look for, especially since you don’t go there every day. Just trying to offer a few things to try when you do make the trip.  

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@parasitology18 and @daryldaryle - I’ll run over there tomorrow and take a look. It’s getting late tonight, so thank you both for your input! I’ll try to reconnect with you later.  

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@hyphen20386 you should log into your router. What’s the brand of your router? All the settings mentioned above are easily accessible. Very easy

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@frug405 Router is a Centurylink combination DSL-modem/Wi-Fi-router. DSL modems that work on their phone lines are only available through them, apparently. I tried to get something that would work from Best Buy, and they just laughed at me and said I had to call the phone company.  

Answer 3

If your Ring Doorbell was truly that old the resolution was at most 720P or probably less than that and I bet your DSL upload was somthing like 784Kbps Kilobits not Megabits. You were probably just barely having enough speed but the replacement Ring 1 is now 1080P as is the Indoor Cameras. Anyone in your neighborhood have faster internet and you can see their house by climbing a tree? Those point to Point Antenas are not that expensive and can reach miles away.  

Comments

@hyphen20386 I don’t know the details of your network but when running a hot spot the data is typically limited or when you reach a certain number they throttle your data.  

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@daryldaryle That’s possible, but should a doorbell suck up that much data if motion is hardly ever detected?  

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Sorry but I have no clue how much data is being used the problem is maintaining a connection. I would stick to only one camera for now.  

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@daryldaryle your doorbell is not constantly uploading video to the ring servers. It only uploads when motion stops or when viewing live.  

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@parasitology18 Nope again it starts uploading as soon as it detects motion I think you may be confusing the 3 second buffer like in the Ring Pro it is constantly being overwritten always recording but when motion is detected it starts with the buffer so you do not miss people walking up to the camera then uploads to the cloud from there on. Please do more research you have some wrong concepts stuck in your head.  

Answer 4

Move your Indoor Camera at least 5 feet away from your router better yet just unplug it until you Doorbell is stable. By the way what is the DSL upload and download speed that you are supposed to be getting? Also do you have Smart connect on the modem and it is showing only one SSID or was there a separate SSID for the 2. 4 and another for the 5Ghz. About how man devices are connected on your network and don’t forget to count your phone and tablet. You want to turn off Smart Connect if it was on. Western Washing. is it on a wooded lot where you can barely see your neighbors or on a lot where the houses are 8-15 feet away. How many square feet is the house? Hope to hear from you later today. I used to live In Bellevue Washington.  

Comments

@daryldaryle Ha ha ha! Centurylink “guarantees” my “High Speed” DSL line will give me a 1. 5 download and a . 75 upload. That’s apparently the whole problem in a nutshell. But it’s worse. I only get their “guaranteed” speeds intermittently. Most of the time they’re much worse, and even non-existent. I’ve had speed tests come back as bad as . 80 and . 08. The Centurylink internet connect seems to shift between various providers, mostly across the sound, in Seattle. What I don’t understand is why I can no longer even connect via an unrelated and dedicated cell-Phone Wi-Fi hot spot with a good LTE signal from the tower.  

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@daryldaryle I’m on a 2. 5 acre wooded lot, as are all my neighbors. The only devices connected to my Wi-Fi are my regular burglar alarm and the indoor cam. No phones or other devices. I get better internet service on both smartphones from AT&T’s LTE connection. I don’t believe there are any settings on the C-Link modem/router. You plug it into a power outlet and plug in the phone line connector. There may be an on/off power button on the back, but I don’t remember. I don’t recall any other settings or switches. You can also hardwire in up to 3 devices like a computer, printer, etc, but I have none of those in the house at this time. Right now it’s running, at the most, two Wi-Fi connections, one of which, intermittently, is the indoor cam. I gave up on the doorbell on the modem, and have had it connected only intermittently through the cell-phone hot spot, the last time, over a month ago. Now it won’t connect to anything at all.  

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Ummmmm yeah really think the DSL has no potential whatsoever. As for the LTE I have nothing nothing to add to it. Good luck!  

Answer 5

Have you done a speed test? My in laws also have telco dsl thru century link ( rural North Florida) and we have had a heck of a time with it. The speeds vary greatly throughout the day, we had lots of issues with devices dropping connections initially and overall poor results. Finally got a tech to replace the brand new router and the system has been mostly trouble free for the last five years or so. You can google speed test or get an app from the App Store. I’d also suggest a WiFi analyzer as well, it will show you all the WiFi signals (yours and the neighbors) as well as which channels are crowded.  

Comments

@pyralid don’t know what his platform of choice is yet, WiFi Analyzer is good if you are a Android owner. Was a long time CenturyLink DSL user until 2 months ago switched to Cox. Tried for 9 months to find the problem including 3 new modem/routers technician coming out three times. Finally gave up but bill is now twice the cost

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@daryldaryle like the OP, their only other choice was satellite. Thankful it’s been fairly stable since the initial issues. I’ve a buddy who also had issues with them in a different rural area, he finally got it sorted as well. Tech that fixed it told him that not all of the techs have the extensive training in internet issues, as such they don’t know the tricks to fix uncommon issues.  

Answer 6

Best Buy sells routers and modems for 1/3 the price of what internet companies charge. If you’re renting a device from an internet company, do yourself a favor and turn it back in to them. Go to Best Buy and get your own router. After 5-6 months, it pays for itself. And the routers are a lot better than the ones the internet company gives you.  

Comments

@bidet I have century link Dsl service and it is horrible. It is tge only game in town out in the country where I live. I only get 1. 5 meg and a phone but I have to pay 80. 00 for that. The rural electric where I live has ran fiber optics we are waiting for the install to the house now. For the same price as century link I will be getting 1 gig internet.  

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@pyralid Henry This is the exact problem I have. Supposedly 1. 5 meg down and . 75 up, plus a phone for $80 a month, (plus with taxes, fees, nonsense, etc. it runs about $125. And I make NO phone calls! ) But I only get those speeds on a good day with a tail wind! Now they say it’ll be around 2031 before they get fiber optics into our neighborhood.  

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@bidet Best Buy does not offer DSL modems. They will sell a Wi-Fi router, but it still has to be attached to Centurylink’s DSL modem which is the connection to their hard-wired phone line. And C-link’s modem already offers built-in Wi-Fi, so why spend more money? Their modem speeds are dismal at best. Adding a second router won’t speed up their modem or their phone line.  

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@hyphen20386 I bought my own modem. You just have to call and have it programmed to their network.  

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@bidet I tried, trust me. but Best Buy flat out said the only ones that work on Centurylink are ONLY available from Centurylink. That’s why I spent the extra $250 the first time.  

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@hyphen20386 dang. Sorry to hear that.  

Answer 7

Lee Bagley. I have a Ring Camera and security system on cox. In my other home I only have ring security on a slow DSL line. The cox system is 150 mbyte and I initially had one of the Linksys high end routers. I had a lot of problems with my ring camera. I went into the router settings and there is a setting to prioritize devices. I put tge ring at the highest priority. That helped a little. But it was still slow. Sometimes the app would time out before I got video. I needed a hard wire internet connection for one of my TVs. I found a Linksys 3 unit mesh system on sale for 109. 00 and bought that. It sped my ring system up a lot. My camera comes up now in a few seconds sometimes as short as 2. I have the same mesh system on my DSL line. DSL is different to hook up. I kept the modem/ router from the phone company and just cat 5 cabled one of the mesh routers to that. I do not have a camera on it just a security system. I do notice my ring security system getting disconnected and reconnecting several times a day.  

Answer 8

DSL is not broadband internet. My parents had the same issue. I solved it by getting a DSL modem and connecting it to a mesh network router. While live view is difficult with dsl the doorbell and stickup cameras stay connected now and alert to motion and doorbell rings.  

Answer 9

@dit7811 how is dsl not broadband internet

Answer 10

The local phone company can give 60 mbyte on dsl

Comments

@pyralid Henry Depends on distance Les’s DSL is 1. 5 down and . 75 up, no chance whatsoever in my opinion.  

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@daryldaryle if his is like that. Mine is like that but customers in other areas have faster connections. If his is that slow I imagine it is his only option.  

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@pyralid Henry The guy who installed it years ago flat-out told me, “this is going to work like a tin can on a string. And you’re way out at the end of a very long string which has been stretched VERY tight to get it to work. ” And over the years, apparently my string has also. A: deteriorated, and B: become more of a party line.  

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@hyphen20386 actually my experience with Centurytel has been they installed the equipment then never upgrade. The switch for my system has been steadily degrading. Three times in the last 20 plus years they have had to switch my connection to an unused port because of port failure. The difference in technology between now would dictate newer upgrades. At the fees they charge for minimum connection they could do upgrades on a regular buisness

Answer 11

Hey @hyphen20386 just ran across this, a future product from Netgear might be worth a look when available.  
https://www.netgear.com/Orbi/LBR20.aspx