Do you switch your broadband router off when out for the day ?

Peter999_2

onomatopoeia99 said:

TOP_CAT said:

Does it really matter if you switch your router off then when back home switch it back on along with everything else  .

Plusnet advise leaving the broadband router on  .

I cant see the point if your out for 8 -16 hours a day I tend to switch most things off except the fridge .

If I turned my router off I'd lose my email, so I don't turn it off, ever, even when I go on holiday.  It only comes down for upgrades that require a reboot, and I have a UPS that ensures that a mains blip won't bring it down either.

What if your email server goes down while you are on holiday?  won't you lose your email then?

mr_stripey

I switch mine off (via a timer plug) at night, although this is more to prevent teenagers accessing wifi after bedtime rather than to save money.

Haven't noticed any negative effects. The Sky engineer who attended recently didn't see any problems with it either

GenieBoy

No my router stays on 24/7 as it is used 24/7 for things like my CCTV cameras, smart plugs/lights etc as well as NAS and VPN access.

If I go away on holiday then I doubly make sure it's up and running smoothly as it is centre to my home monitoring while away.

GenieBoy

mr_stripey said:

I switch mine off (via a timer plug) at night, although this is more to prevent teenagers accessing wifi after bedtime rather than to save money.

Haven't noticed any negative effects. The Sky engineer who attended recently didn't see any problems with it either

Most routers have parental controls to control when internet access is available to certain parties, etc.

JSmithy45AD

TOP_CAT said:

I suspect its the providers that dont want you switching the router off and on as its best for them but of course you can do whatever .
After the heatwave last summer with way over 40 degrees inside I still switch the broadband and TV off at the wall .
Doing so didnt seem to matter much then or now ...... with the exception of ranting mse posters of course .

And there we have the reason for the thread.

Isn't trolling against the forum rules?

prowla

I have some Wi-Fi connected smart home kit (lights, smoke alarms, security cameras) which can send info to my phone, plus some things like my Sky box may do downloads during the day.

So mine stays on.

wongataa

Qyburn said:

wongataa said:

Qyburn said:

Switching off won't slow the connection. The threshold for DLM is 10 or so retrains per day,  and they don't count unless the drop and retrain fall in the same 15 minute interval. Hence the advice to leave it off or disconnected for at least 15 minutes if you dont want risk upsetting the service.

I have seen it happen with ADSL.  It won't always happen but it can.

What sort of effect did you see, change in Noise Margin, Interleaving, or was it a banding?  None of these should remotely be applied as a result of one disconnection/reconnection.

The router was turned off during the day every day.  Then I had it left on all the time and the connection speed increased.

glennevis

victor2 said:

Ozzig said:

It's up to you if you want to switch it off.

As per previous comments, updates are usually deployed overnight, you may miss an update altogether or have it apply and restart the router whilst you're on your mid-morning work call.

When the routers restart they negotiate signals and stuff, so you may receive a different quality of service than the day before.

If devices are constantly going on / off line their upstream device may flag it as a potential issue with the port it connects to, which in turn may begin to alter parameters to "fix" the problem resulting in degraded service as it starts to dial things down to try and improve the connectivity.

The components of the router and PSU will constantly be heating and cooling when they are designed to run constantly at a relatively consistent temperature.

Chances are they will just replace it if fails due to this because it's more expensive to establish the cause of the fault, it will cost you nothing beyond a day or so without broadband. 

In the 70s before we went off to Brid, my dad always unplugged every electrical device and also the telly aerial - we never had one lightning strike to the house because of this.

I've never had a house struck by lightning, and I don't know anyone who has. Don't know anyone who unplugs every electrical device at night either. 
Where's Brid?

My mum's and the neighbour's semi detached bungalows were struck by lightning via the overhead phone wires. The router was toast, as was the laptop which she habitually left attached to the router via ethernet cable.

It caused a small fire which started under the neighbour's floorboards. Sorted out by the fire brigade and fortunately no one was hurt.

onomatopoeia99

Peter999_2 said:

onomatopoeia99 said:

TOP_CAT said:

Does it really matter if you switch your router off then when back home switch it back on along with everything else  .

Plusnet advise leaving the broadband router on  .

I cant see the point if your out for 8 -16 hours a day I tend to switch most things off except the fridge .

If I turned my router off I'd lose my email, so I don't turn it off, ever, even when I go on holiday.  It only comes down for upgrades that require a reboot, and I have a UPS that ensures that a mains blip won't bring it down either.

What if your email server goes down while you are on holiday?  won't you lose your email then?

In the same way that if the gmail.com server went down people that use gmail would lose their email, I would, though I have three servers so if one becomes unresponsive there are two more waiting to seamlessly take over.

Peter999_2

onomatopoeia99 said:

Peter999_2 said:

onomatopoeia99 said:

TOP_CAT said:

Does it really matter if you switch your router off then when back home switch it back on along with everything else  .

Plusnet advise leaving the broadband router on  .

I cant see the point if your out for 8 -16 hours a day I tend to switch most things off except the fridge .

If I turned my router off I'd lose my email, so I don't turn it off, ever, even when I go on holiday.  It only comes down for upgrades that require a reboot, and I have a UPS that ensures that a mains blip won't bring it down either.

What if your email server goes down while you are on holiday?  won't you lose your email then?

In the same way that if the gmail.com server went down people that use gmail would lose their email, I would, though I have three servers so if one becomes unresponsive there are two more waiting to seamlessly take over.

Are the other two servers in a different location?   If they are in the same location and your internet connection goes down you'd lose your email.

However, you would be able to just point your MX somewhere else temporarily I guess.   An email is attempted several times over a few days so if you fixed it by then you'd be ok.

I just don't really see the point of having an home email server - especially when people like Zoho mail give free hosted email services.

Gmail is a little bit different, haha, they'll have clusters of servers etc. and will be very resilient.   They have about 10 mx addresses the last time I looked.