How To Fix The 6320 WLAN Connection Problems

Okay, this short article kind of falls out of the ordinary topics, but I simply think it’s important. In this article you will find out how to solve the WLAN connection problems of the Fritzbox 6320 Cable provided by Unitymedia. Please skip to the last paragraph to see all the necessary steps in a list.

How all of this started

Last week I received all the equipment for my new internet connection, by the German provider “Unitymedia”. I followed all the instructions from the manuals, and everything was fine – except the wireless signal was terrible. No, it even was completely useless. While doing some downloads for testing purposes, sometimes my Chrome browser told me it would take 15 minutes, sometimes it was supposed to be 15 hours – how come?

I quickly found out there was an issue with the wireless connection since everything worked perfectly fine with a cable (but the router only has one single LAN port, so that’s not a solution). The distance between my computer and the router is about 5 meters (with one wall in between), so that shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Browsing through some blogs and forums, I realized that many people had (and still have) this problem with the Fritzbox 6320 Cable, but Unitymedia is not going to fix it, or maybe it is AVM‘s fault (Fritzbox manufacturer) – however, there seems to be no progress on this side.

Now I could take the easy (but expensive) way out, buy a better Unitymedia package and get the Fritzbox 6360 which seems to work fine – but 5€ every month only because of a technical error which was not my fault? No way! So I decided to browse around the internet. I stumbled across lots and lots of pages about tweaking some settings – none of them worked for me (and I figured for many others either). Some people recommended to use DLAN or an additional access point. But the true solution is to use a second router. There are pretty cheap routers on the market that will do their job (all they need to do is support wireless LAN). So I bought a Belkin Surf N300 router (for around 20€ on Amazon) and connected it to my Fritzbox using an ethernet cable. I turned off the Fritzbox WLAN, so now all I have is the Belkin WLAN using the connection established inside the Fritzbox 6320. Everything was way better at that point. My connection was not perfect (around 30 Mbit/s instead of 50 Mbit/s), but it seemed to work fine. Only when I played online, the connection seemed really bad again although it still showed 30 Mbit/s in all the speed tests. I later found out this could be solved by turning of the Belkin N300’s firewall – why that? It’s because there would be two firewalls (the Fritzbox 6320 already has an active firewall itself), and they obviously didn’t get along well when both were enabled. Now, really all the problems are solved: With my computer 5 meters away, my connection is never lower than 40 Mbit/s (most of the times it is about 49 Mbit/s) and all the data-excessive online services and games are working fine. That was my story, I hope it helps. And here are all the necessary steps concluded!

A Step by Step Guide

To solve all the WLAN connection problems of the Fritzbox 6320 Cable, do the following (it’s really easy!):

1. Buy the Belkin Surf N300 router for around 20 €.
2. Connect the new Belkin router using its WAN port with the Fritzbox 6320’s single LAN port.
3. Turn off the Fritzbox WLAN function by simply pushing the button on the router.
4. On your computer, connect with the Belkin router using the SSID and password delivered with it.
5. Open your browser and type in 192.168.2.1 to access the router functions and settings.
6. Log in (I recommend you to set a password here!) and go to the “Firewall” menu.
7. Deactivate it, even if it warns you. You still have the other firewall inside the Fritzbox 6320.

Good, you’re done, and I hope it’s working for you aswell. You can now connect other wireless devices with your new wireless network, or you could even plug in some devices using the four LAN ports of the Belkin Surf N300. If you have questions or something still doesn’t work, please comment, maybe I can help you find a solution.