So here’s the setup. I’ve built myself a “smart” home. Light switches, door locks, fans, TVs, stereo, heated floors, kitchen appliances, Roomba, automated lawn mower, sprinklers, holiday lights, security system, thermostats, etc., are all hooked up and run through our internet. This is on top of the standard computers, phones, and game systems. Overall, approximately 70-80 items are on the same network.

I am utilizing a 1 gig fiber optic service through AT&T with their equipment (all in one modem/router) BGW210. Most of the automated systems are on the 2.4GHz network while the more important stuff is on the 5GHz network. At times, everything works great and I can get 250-300Mbs on wireless devices. But more often than not, it seems as though the myriad of devices are causing the network to bog down and when I want to stream something, it can’t do so properly due to lack of speed. On regular occasion our computer will even bog down and read at 1-5 Mbs for 5-10 mins before going back to normal. (wired connection to the work computer and game systems are fine).

So this leads to my questions-

1. Is the network divided up equally among each device? If so, is there something I can do with my current set up that will limit speeds to everything except items of my choosing (computers and streaming devices)?

2. Would buying a router and setting it up as an access point solely for all of the automated devices allow me to accomplish what I’m trying to do (ie- can I throttle just the secondary router)?

3. Other ideas?

4. What is causing the sudden drops in my internet speed? Is that simply due to the large amount of devices on my network or is it an issue with my service? I understand slow speeds when multiple devices are actively using bandwidth, but when nothing is being actively used other than a single device, why would I get a drop to 1Mb?