"Upgrade" to fibre is pointless

[#1]

Please help me with non techie language and jargon, i.e. packet, VPN etc..... I have no clue what these mean.  Upgraded to fibre 10 days ago, connection drops regularly (normal before upgrade, but worse SINCE upgrade).  

Connection is intermittent, can be OK, up to 36 thingies sometimes, at other times drops to 6 thingies.  Wired speed tests show 36, but what help is wired??? Plusnet say no fault on the line.

Netflix/youtube  are impossible to watch. Lucky if they connect at all, and when they do, connection drops within minutes.

What on earth am I paying for? I am livid as I was talked into fibre, with the promise it was fantabulous.  

[#2]

But if wired shows 36 then that's showing that the connection is good ... PN will be able to see if you are having problems with the line.... and that includes line drops

So is it a problem with your Wifi?  I know the Wifi on my laptop often shows speeds of about 1/3 of what my line is connecting at ... using a wired connection shows it running at full speed. 

[#3]

Welcome to the community forums @slg.

Just to clarify, do you only experience problems on a wireless connection? If the problems are specific to wireless, this is likely out of our control and could be caused by environmental factors.

 You can find help with your wifi connection Here and more information on how to change WiFi settings (Such as wireless channels, which could help with slow speeds/intermittent connection of wireless) can be found Here.

I hope this helps.

[#4]

Does sound like a WiFi issue which is going to be down to your router, WiFi devices and your surroundings rather than your fibre connection.

Have you tried changing the channel the router is broadcasting on? A good phone app to check out which frequency where you are is less congested is https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer&hl=en_GB

Also different routers give different WiFi performance. It might be worth checking out reviews to see which one sounds best to you.

On a side note 38M downstream is the top end of what I can achieve on 2.4Ghz WiFi. I have to use 5Ghz to get the full 75M downstream I get from my line on a cabled connection.

[#5]

Can only agree with southerner, to a point 🙂  I used to have a wifi dongle that was plugged in to the PC. Had dropped connections every so often and suspected that this might be not always working correctly. I ended up buying a wifi card. No problems wifi wise since. You really need to check wired direct to the router to eliminate any potential WiFi problems. If it's a laptop, can you try another wifi connection that you know is fast?

However saying that. How old is the router? And I hate to get techie to someone who has asked for non tech advice. Is it an 802.11n or 802.11ac router? (Read the label on it, should enlighten you somewhere on it). Anything else might not cut it. Gets even worse when it comes to the type of encryption used. Read this - the part about speed - believe it or not what the article says is true. Been there, done that, not long after I got my 802.11ac router. Couldn't work out why my speed was slow (stuck at 54M max) and then read a similar article describing much the same. I found my router encryption had somehow got set to TKIP encryption - blame me. Changed it to AES and have never looked back since.

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Reason I say I can only agree with southerner to a point is because my mobile phone uses the 2.4Ghz band at home and that usually connects at speeds above 56M.

[#6]

out of interest this is what I get from a 2.4GHz wireless N router

[#7]

Ah, yes, Wireless N on 2.4Ghz can increase the d/s. Guess it depends what your router's broadcasting & what the receiving device can support.

[#8]

My HTC10 connects at 144Mbps on 2.4GHz and 866Mbps on the 5GHz band. Needless to say that is fast enough to max out my 80/20 broadband.

[#9]

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@Browni wrote:
My HTC10 connects at 144Mbps on 2.4GHz

Just checked my S7. 144Mbps is the 'network speed' it connects at to my TP-Link Archer VR600 on 2.4Ghz but the max d/s throughput according to speedtest.net is only currently ~ 50Mbps from my 80/20 fibre,

Flipping to 5Ghz WiFi AC it connects at a 'network speed' of 866Mbps and I get ~ 75Mbps d/s (my cabled connection speed) throughput