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New Plusnet customer experiencing a poor WIFI service

familyplumbs
Newbie
Posts: 2
Registered: ‎19-08-2019

New Plusnet customer experiencing a poor WIFI service

Hi

New to plusnet and this forum but am posting in frustration in the hope of getting some resolution

 

I moved to Plusnet a couple of months ago and noticed an immediate drop of wifi coverage and speed despite there being no changes to hardware or wiring within the house between suppliers except for a new plusnet router. 

 

Plusnet did pick this lack of speed up themselves and sent an engineer who found an external fault and also had us moved to a different port.  He said it would take a few weeks to stabilise but signal should be better after that.  Well it's worse now not better!  The speed coming into the house to a wired computer at the master socket is fast around 38mb but to wifi devices can be as little as 8mb and I have places in the house where I get no coverage at all where previously I did.  I have powerline extenders around the house and used these with the previous provider too.  The signal seems to repeatedly drop out at times as I have to re-login on netflix, etc. and my wifi printer will not stay linked to the router even though they are right near each other!

I am not overly technical so any replies or instructions of what I can try to improve this service please keep them in layman's terms! 

Thank you.

3 REPLIES 3
Gel
Aspiring Champion
Posts: 2,332
Thanks: 299
Fixes: 29
Registered: ‎02-08-2007

Re: New Plusnet customer experiencing a poor WIFI service

If you're using PN's HubOne router, it has poor wifi performance.
Can you not use your previous one instead, or buy an Openreach one off
E bay; it can be configured to PN's settings.
familyplumbs
Newbie
Posts: 2
Registered: ‎19-08-2019

Re: New Plusnet customer experiencing a poor WIFI service

Hi Gel

 

Thanks for replying to my issue. It is a HubOne router that I have but I shouldn't have to go buy a new router (I don't have access to the previous router unfortunately to do what you suggest) when the one Plusnet provide should be up to the job of supporting the speeds they advertise.  I have always been happy with the performance of other supplier's routers not sure why Plusnet's would be any different.

 

One thing I wondered is if changing the router channels would make any difference to wireless performance?

BD
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Plusnet Alumni (retired)
Posts: 1,359
Fixes: 86
Registered: ‎24-04-2017

Re: New Plusnet customer experiencing a poor WIFI service

Hi @familyplumbs, sorry to hear you're having wireless issues. I've ran tests over your connection to make sure and everything is looking spot on to the router so it certainly just look to be wireless interference related. Just to correctly set your expectations, due to the mass amount of things both out of our and your control that can effect this connection type I'm afraid we amongst the vast majority of other service providers can't guanretee a set wireless performance. Having said that, for any of our customers experiencing wireless issues we'll certainly advise what steps can be taken to help and as you haven't already adjusted the routers channel to best suite the the property and surrounding area the I'd recommend running through the full optimisation steps below which should help you get the best performance out of the router.

As you've mentioned you use powerline adaptors I'd jsut like to point out that some 3rd party equipment such as wiifi boosters usually copy the channel settings of your router before relaying the signal so if your power line adapters have a built in wifi booster then I'd recommend optimising the router settings before setting up the adaptors.

The guide below will show you how to log into the router and change the wireless channel as it's usually another router in the area on the same or similar channel that will be causing issues for both wireless frequencies. Before picking a channel I'd suggest downloading a free app called wifi analyzer which will scan your area for all the routers and show what channels they are on between 1-13. Although the above app isn't essential it helps you pick where your router would be best in terms of channels and saves a lot of time doing it via trial and error.

1) To connect to your Hub One, you will need to open a browser and go to 192.168.1.254 If you have any issues doing this via Wireless, we recommend trying to do it via Ethernet cable instead.

2) You should come to a page with information about your connection, click 'Advanced Settings' at the top and it will ask you to sign in with a Password. This is located on the back of your router under 'Admin Password'

3) Select the option for 'Wireless' followed by '5 GHz Wireless'. What we want to do to begin with is turn 'Sync with 2.4 GHz Wireless' to 'Off' and update the SSID to be different. The easiest way would be to add '-5G' to the end so it is identified as its own connection. Once this is changed, we will need to keep an eye on it for a day or 2 to see if the issue continues. If it does, the next step would be to change the wireless channel. Keeping in mind the original 2.4Ghz unchanged name network connection would be the best to connect your devices to for a stronger signal.

(Please keep in mind that the 5GHz frequency is designed for close range stationary devices and the 2.4Ghz being the one which does most of the heavy lifting getting the signal around the property.)

4) Following the above guide to get to your 'Advanced Settings' page, you will need to change the settings within the 2.4 GHz Wireless tab and the 5 GHz Wireless tab.

5) Under the correct heading, you will need to find 'Channel Selection' on the list and change this from 'Automatic' to any one of the other channels, This can also need doing under '5 GHz Wireless' to cover both signals. Give it 3-4 hours of testing to see if the issue still persists and try to change the channel again if you see little or no improvement.
Let us know how it goes.