Issues with buffering/lag

[#1]

5 GHz bands - see A quick guide to 5GHz in the UK - Part 2

[#2]

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@jab1 wrote:

Neither  do I - but let’s solve the obvious connection problem first.

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What am I missing? How do you know that there’s an obvious connection issue?

[#3]

OK, @Baldrick1 . Reading back maybe the is Wi-Fi related, I suppose it depends on when all these other connections were made, and it is shame the OP doesn't have a laptop/desktop to run cabled tests, although my local environment has a similar number of visible connections, I had no issues when on FTTC. Difficult to compare now as I am FTTP.

[#4]

Thank you, that link is super helpful!

So any unoccupied 5ghz channel is okay to use. Hopefully nobody else will pop up on 44. I’ll monitor 1, 6 and 11 on 2.4ghz and see which consistently has the least devices on it. If I get the chance I’ll ask my neighbours to shift their stuff off 2 and 9.

[#5]

Has your speed improved?

[#6]

Being able to identify the source of the anti social use of 2 and 9 and fixing it would be beneficial to everyone involved.

[#7]

It has improved. I am on 5ghz now. I tried running speed tests one after the other on both bands, and the 2.4ghz one is returning 32mb downstream vs 37mb for the 5ghz. I have been able to watch an hour of streaming video without buffering for the first time in a week. 

It seems coincidental at the moment!

I’m going to have to talk to the neighbours though — someone’s on channel 8 as well.

[#8]

Use channel 1 so 8 & 9’s use is of no consequence to you..

[#9]

@GlitterChick Now you've sorted your channels out, ignore my 'call PN' suggestion.

@Townman Thanks.

[#10]

Someone has something on channel 2, so it does need to be sorted. The “antisocial” stuff is all intermittent, so I think it’s things like laptops (as one has Asus in its name), maybe mobile phone hotspots too. I’ve done a scan just now and everything is on 1, 6 and 11, but I am sure the other things will pop up later, either when the neighbour’s kids come home from school or people come home from work. 

[#11]

I’m holding off on calling them for now, pending how the 5ghz band behaves. If I can keep a decent speed on that consistently then the problems I’ve had on the 2.4ghz are obviously all just congestion and neighbours who need to learn a little more about WiFi channels. I will move as much as I can here to the 5ghz band and/or wired connections. 

[#12]

Sounds like a plan, @GlitterChick .

[#13]

I forgot to say, thank you so much everyone for your help!

I have learned quite a bit about WiFi channels and do now know how to fix congestion issues properly.

[#14]

@GlitterChick  I know this thread is all about your wi-fi problems but looking at the details from the BT Broadband checker and the Hub Helpdesk page it would appear that your broadband connection speeds are very poor and should be considerably better.

Do you know what Plusnet product you are on, you still have a phone line so it will be either Unlimited Fibre  (up to 40 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up) or the higher speed Fibre Extra (80 Mbps down, 20Mbps up)

The checker data in msg#26 show an observed speed of 55.33 Mbps back in July which implies you are Fibre Extra and according to the estimates you should be getting speeds higher than this, possibly up to 70Mbps down and 16 Mbps up.

Your upload speed is particularly poor and appears to be capped at 6 Mbps, that does look like a possible line fault. The download also looks stuck at ~40Mbps. This can be caused by the Openreach line monitoring system (DLM) and is known as banding. 

It would certainly be worth contacting Plusnet and stating that your speeds are much lower than they should be, see what their response is, then ask them to try a DLM reset which will remove the banded speeds. It's worth asking.

[#15]

We are on “unlimited fibre” with a guaranteed minimum speed of ~29MB.

We used to get about 45MB down, but I think we might have downgraded the product at some point when the speeds dropped to 40MB slowly over time. (This could have been over 5 years ago. We have been with PN for a long time!)

The catch at the moment is that my parents want to retain their copper-based landline for as long as possible (I’ve given up arguing on this), so whatever we do needs to retain that.