T3200 and Home Network woes

[news]

[wireless]

I have a very basic knowledge of networking, but by no means an expert. Located in NW Calgary.

I have the Internet 75 plan, which is the highest available in my area until they can get fibre installed (it's been 3 years since they surveyed and marked my yard, still no ground broken).

I have the Actiontec T3200 Wireless Modem and, honestly, it seems incredibly inadequate.

I do have a lot of IoT devices in my home: bulbs, switches, homes security system, Alex echo dots, TVs, on top of regular Internet devices (laptops, smart phones). I have most of the IoT devices segmented onto a secondary 2.4Ghz SSID, and then the devices requiring more horsepower on the 5Ghz.

I feel like I've configured the modem to best configuration possible within my scope of knowledge, and it had been okay up until 6 months ago.

Now, the modem will drop connectivity every couple of hours, causing all of our IoT devices to become unresponsive.

I don't ever get anywhere close to 75mbps down (which is still sad in this day and age), usually peaking around 4.8mbps if nobody else is doing anything in the house.

The modem is on the main floor of the house where most of the devices are located, it is in an office, but it's not obstructed by any cabinets or sitting in a corner under a desk, with a large glass door and large glass window on the interior of the home.

It's become increasingly worse and incredibly frustrating as I have to pull the power on the modem about three times a day, just to get some semblance of stable connectivity.

I had contacted Telus support last year, and the person on the phone said that the T3200 (first released in 2017!) was the best they had and that's even with the introduction of WiFi 6! That really blows my mind, how is it possible that in 6 years, Telus has not found something better?

Other than continuing to wait for fibre arriving (god only knows when that'll happen at this point), or switching providers, do I have any other options here? Could the modem be defective, or is it just my inadequate DSL connection?

Thanks

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