Fluctuating speeds

[#1]

I regularly suffer from fluctuating internet speeds. Yesterday evening it became so slow, it was unusable. A speed test reported a download speed of 0.18 Mbps and 0.0 Mbps upload. I rebooted the router and was unable to sign in to the WiFi network until I rebooted my phone. Surely this can't be normal behaviour? It's becoming increasingly frustrating.

[#2]

So are you complaining about slow wireless speed? If so start by separating the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands. See https://community.plus.net/t5/My-Router/2-4ghz-and-or-5ghz-best-practice/td-p/1351950. Then try each channel in turn.

If that makes no difference then try selecting a different wireless channel by going back into the advanced wireless settings and manually selecting a different channel.

[#3]

Hi @Gazflo 

Sorry to hear you are having WiFi issues. 

Is the issue solely occurring on wireless connections or wired also? 

@Baldrick1 has given a good starting point to make he most out of your WiFi. 

WiFi is merely an optional alternate gateway to access the internet - a wired Ethernet connection is always the primary connection method, and is the only one which can be guaranteed on both speed and stability. 

Unfortunately due to the way WiFi works there are a lot of environmental factors which can affect the wireless signal.

Have you tried changing the wireless channels? If not, then please follow the steps here . 

There are a large number of potential reasons for slow speeds and sometimes these are difficult to track down.

If your wired devices do not suffer from these issues, then it's likely the problem lies between your router and your devices which we don't have visibility of. Could you please conduct a wired speed test and let us know how that goes?

If you find that you are also having issues on a wired connection, can you run through our troubleshooting guides here

If that doesn't help, the next thing would be to rule your internal wiring out by plugging the connection into your test socket (which is under the faceplate of your master socket) and seeing if this improves your connection. This rules out your internal wiring, face plates and extension sockets as being the cause of these issues.

How to locate the test socket and set your connection into it can be found here

If the problem still persists please can you raise a fault here and drop us a message on this thread we can check the connection from this side and see what's going on. 

Thanks,

MoR

[#4]

Thanks for the suggestions. We don't have any wired devices, they're all tablets, phones and Chromebooks.

I'll make some changes to the Wi-Fi and run some more tests. As the issues occur randomly, I guess it might take some time to identify a solution.

[#5]

I've separated the 2.5GHz and 5GHz bands, changed the channels, disabled my printer's direct WiFi and added a WiFi extender. Hopefully these changes will improve the signal stability - I'll continue to monitor. Thanks for your help so far.

[#6]

Looking at your screenshots I would manualy move the 2.4 GHz channel from 8 to 6

[#7]

Thanks for getting back to us @Gazflo.

Please let us know what results your changes yeild and if we can be of further assistance.

[#8]

@Baldrick1 Thanks for the suggestion - that would make sense. However, I've just wandered around the house, and in some locations I pick up another signal on channel 6, so I think it's probably best to stay on 8? Thanks again.

[#9]

Hi @Gazflo, channels 1, 6 & 11 are the best to use as there is no overlap between these channels. If you have neighbours that are using channel 6, may be worth you giving channel 1 or 11 a try.

[#10]

See second screenshot here.https://community.plus.net/t5/Fibre-Broadband/Fluctuating-speeds/m-p/1581299#M84247

[#11]

Ah sorry, I missed the screenshots! My bad, thanks for pointing that out @Baldrick1.