Huawei compatable router/modem

[#1]

@CHN 

So the theory is that of the thousands of Huawei cabs/Plusnet hub ones (never mind all the BT hubs that use this chipset) out there the solar winds picked on you and no-one else?

Pardon my scepticism. I suspect that something started working and the Openreach guys clutched at any excuse that any person unskilled in this field might accept and hightailed it out as soon as possible.

[#2]

Yeah I know! That's why I didn't put the full story originally 😂

Actually I think it was more desperation which led them to calling the REIN engineer; he relayed the article, they all were highly sceptical but it was time for them to go home so I think they thought they'd just try anything to keep me quiet. Each engineer has turned up blind, as in they don't know what the previous ones have done. I've taken to printing everything out so that I can show each engineer what the problem is, but they don't really want to read 24 pages....

Regardless of what the fault is, it's working at the moment. I've ordered the TP router and will try that tomorrow and see what it does. Got to be worth a try. I've attached the visual of the drop outs - if anyone thinks they know what the problem is, I'm all ears!

[#3]

It's interesting to note that the drop outs come and go during the hours of darkness. Do the cables run overhead by any street lights? One with a faulty start circuit could possibly be the culprit.

[#4]

There are street lights near, but the drop outs do occur sometimes during the day (that particular scan didn't show it, but there were usually a couple of drop outs per day), and over the Christmas period there were drop outs every single day at 9.20am. Which is what led the engineers to think of a REIN issue at first, but no one could find anything. The REIN engineer did come out during the evening but he couldn't detect any interference outside, and he'd already checked inside.

No one has mentioned street lights before - and my neighbours don't have the same problem. I'm starting to think the issue won't actually be found! But I will let you know if the new router solves it, fingers crossed.

[#5]

Solar winds at exactly 9:20 every morning?

I can well believe that it's REIN but the source must be closer to home (by about 92 million miles one might conject).

Do you remember the story of the old telly in a Welsh village blanking out everyones broadband?

It might be worth taking the modem out again and see if the problem is still there, you only need to unplug the WAN cable from the hub and move the DSL cable from the modem to the hub.

[#6]

Well I can't get the TPLink router to connect to the internet. Had to reset it several times for the DSL light to stay on solid, and then it just would not connect to the internet. So I've given up and asked the OpenReach engineer if I can buy the router he loaned to me. Oh for reliable broadband!

Thank you everyone that has offered me advice - particularly @Baldrick1 and @bill888 - I really appreciate the time you've taken to help me.

[#7]

Thought I'd finish this thread with what I hope is the final update!

I finally managed to get the TPlink router (thanks @bill888 ) working. After much swearing and rebooting the laptop and router several times (I could get a secure connection but no internet, and I just could not get the IP address to load), I tried a different browser and it blooming worked! It didn't like Firefox (and yes, I checked pop-ups weren't disabled) but it worked with Edge. No idea why. The connection remained stable overnight as far as I can see, so I'll monitor it for a few more days, but this might have solved the problem and the engineer can have his personal router back.

If I had the energy I'd still like to know why the issues usually occurred at set times during the day, why the two PlusNet routers didn't test as faulty with the first engineer visits, why there were mixed reports of copper faults, then REIN issues, then unknown etc. But for the grand price of £32.99 I appear (fingers crossed) to have a stable broadband so I can work from home.

Thank you all for your time, for your incredulous response to solar winds (!) and for helping a newbie, I've appreciated it