New Fibre problems

[#1]

Hello all . Just upgraded from a standard broadband to a new 36mb fibre to cabinet then ,standard phone line to my house this time yesterday. It connected spot on ,but I'm having issues. I know your supposed to wait 14 days to allow your line to settle but it keeps dropping signal and seems to hang and is very slow loading applications, If that makes any sense? The new Fibre router is a constant blue and isn't reporting errors . But one minute on my phone ,tablet or TV it's showing signal connection as strong then drops to poor or fair or no connection at all. If I open an app or even a page on let's say Google sometimes (mostly) it simply hangs there then after 10secs or so loads. Or if I try my firestick sometimes an app or program loads quite quickly then it hangs and a loading circle appears . I've rebooted everything including the router but it doesn't sort it. The new router is located in exactly the same location as the old ADSL router and mostly the signal is strong in all rooms. Also I have checked the line speed via 2 or 3 different sites and they all report speeds anywhere from 6 to 8.4 mb once 9mb,all at various times. in fact I have just done one whilst on here at 1146 am 7.2mb download 1.2 upload and ping 45 Whatever that is ? Any advice much appreciated as it's coming up to Christmas ,grandchildren and family coming and I was hoping to put films and games on TV to keep them entertained. Thanks in advance any advice will be very much appreciated.

[#2]

As a follow up just took face plate of the only phone box in the house and plugged in the filter into socket behind ,no difference, then did a quite line check . All ok no noise at all . The line from cabinet to the house was only fitted last year. And until yesterday the old ADSL router worked absolutely fine connection same location to same Tel box. no change to anything apart from changing filter back to original to check it working correctly

[#3]

@alcorn63 

The first thing to try is separating the 2.4 and 5GHz bands, see https://community.plus.net/t5/My-Router/2-4ghz-and-or-5ghz-best-practice/m-p/1351966#M840 Having done this and tried both bands by going into your devices after trying the default 2.4GHz band, which will use the original SSID and selecting the new 5GHz band. Use the best.

The other thing to check is that you have a decent broadband connection by using a wired Ethernet connection between your router and a computer to do your speed test. This will prove that it is a wireless problem.

[#4]

Hi what if anything do you change name SSID to ? And then how do you know what band to choose to ,and how do you select ? Also I live in a rural village , honestly don't think I'll have trouble picking up anybody's WiFi signal. If you do a network search no others come up at all

[#5]

Hi thanks ignore my last did as you suggested, and just added -5GHZ to the SSID and changed Sync to no and saved. Only then realised what these changes did when I noted I now have 2 network choices to choose from the router . Please excuse my ignorance . Anyway noted it was the 5 GHz Channel that was fluctuating so chose the other 2.4ghz which is good and looks more stable. And already it looks like the hanging has stopped. I'll give it a few days before marking as fixed. Your help very much appreciated. Alan

[#6]

@alcorn63 

As per the instructions just add -5 to the 5GHz band. The purpose of separating the bands is to stop devices from having problems choosing between the two bands, it's not related to neighbours transmissions. 

If there's no other networks available then there's no point in manually selecting a channel, just leave it on auto. If ypu do want to change it then go to the same linked page and look at post 4. You simply switch off auto and the options will appear. This applies to both bands.

[#7]

Thank you fully understand what these changes do now ,your advice appreciated. Anyway noted the 5ghz channel is the one that seems to be fluctuating badly so chose the other and things have already improved . If you have a moment could you try and explain why the 5ghz is an issue and strength fluctuations as so bad ?

[#8 · Accepted solution]

Hi @alcorn63 I'm sorry to see you're experiencing speed and connection problems. I've added a reply onto your support ticket but to kind of duplicate my reply here for visibility in case anyone else has any suggestions to help...

I've tested your line to see if we can detect any issues with the broadband signal going into your router, but the tests are showing your router is getting a speed of 11mbps with no problems showing.

Do you also have any laptops or computers you'd be able to plug into your router to see if you experience the same issues?

I'd also recommend checking the light on the front of the router when/if you next notice disconnections, if the light changes colour frequently we'd likely need to arrange an engineer to investigate further. If the light stays blue, this should indicate the broadband signal going into your router is OK and it'd likely point to a wireless issue.

This is just to narrow things down definitively. Let me know how it goes.

[edit]

With regards to the 5GHz frequency this is generally shorter in range than the usual 2.4GHz band, so if you're further away from the router, the signal strength may be worse. We've also got an acknowledged issue affecting some customers when using the 5GHz frequency which we're investigating internally, this doesn't affect everyone though and may not affect you.

[#9]

Hi the light is a constant blue. And things seem to be settling down, now Ive split the frequencies. The 5gb is definitely the problem ,as it hangs and drops constantly on most ,however strangely it works perfectly on my fire stick ,. So connected my wife's I phone and firestick on 5gb and everything else on the 2.4 GB and all now good . Also speed has improved and is now hovering above 9gb when speed checking via Andriod .But as you suggested checking via windows 10 on my wife's laptop it shows just over 10.5 On the 2.4gb Channel. Your advice and help has been much appreciated and has resolved most of the issues, thanks 👍. I hope you all have a great Christmas and New year

[#10]

Thanks for the post back @alcorn63 

No problem and I'm happy to see things have improved.

I hope you have a good Christmas and New Year too (Only less than 1 working day until Christmas for me :D)

[#11]

It looks like there's real problems with the 5gb channel reading all the issues on this forum . Why doesn't Plusnet just bite the bullet and replace the router with a new one. It'll make you lives a lot easy and be less costly in the end for them . It'll come back to bite them in the backside in the end