5 GHz connection dropping out

[#1]

I have to say I totally agree with fairb's response to MasterOfReality's post.  The best that can be said it that it reflects Plusnet's apparent lack of remorse and their dismissive attitude to us customers - I note I'm not the only one with a long history with Plusnet (outdated habit of brand loyalty - hah! Remember that?!) which seems likely to soon end if they cannot get their act together - even though with my BT Business Smart Hub the problem for me is resolved.

It is incomprehensible that new complainants with this fault are still being fobbed off with offers of replacement hubs when we know it won't fix anything, and phone support affects to know nothing of the problem, when we have been jumping up and down here for well over six months to no avail. It's the firmware. It's faulty. Own it!  And educate your phone support agents. 

[#2]

So... if plusnet don't support wifi why provide a wifi router? Guess it'll be back to BT at least they're supporting wifi. Mind you don't BT own plusnet? Yes they do so why the second class service on plusnet?

[#3]

@MasterOfReality [Removed], can you point me to the document/terms whereby Plusnet state they effectively offer no support for WiFi - although it is advertised as being part of the package.

I've spoken to different people today, and nobody would expect an ISP to provide a modem/router with wifi, and the wifi not to work.  Think of it as a judge, being completely impartial.  Would a reasonable man in the street expect wifi to work as part of the package?  [Removed],

Whilst I am old-fashioned and typing on a PC that is wired to the router, we have so many things with no NIC.  5x phones.  Sky Box.  3 laptops.  Apple Mac..  Cameras.  Microsoft Surface.  Sort of blooming everything as a reasonable person might expect.

Where is this written down?

An analogy.  (I test and commission railways.)
Fictional Example: A new set of points/junction to be commissioned tonight on hte GWR mainline near Heathrow.  All tests carried out and the junction works perfectly, but all the signals leading out of London Paddington are confusingly stuck at red.

What would you do with the mind the size of the Universe?
Yes, sign the job in and say the new junction is great.  Then send a questionnaire out around Christmas asking, when did you travel to London, what train, were you in a window seat, did the toilet smell. Just a load of pointless questions after 6 months.  Oh, you could catch a Bakerloo train to Waterloo, get a stopping train to Reading and get back on the GWR mainline there.  Like that is a fix.

[Removed],  you would then tell the commuter/day tripper that, 'we got you into London safely, but our terms say we don't have to get you out of London with every signal stuck at red.  This is a railway,  so get over it - looser.  But have you seen the new junction and, it frigging great.

[Removed], It's broke.  Fix it.

So please supply the URL and clause whereby you do not have to support Wifi, and we have to suck it up.

I'm lucky!  You downgraded me. Although I dread the point in time where somebody like you decides to upgrade me to knowingly broken software.  

A judge at a county court would read this and on balance?  Plusnet are in the wrong I think.

I no longer have this ongoing problem. If downgraded and it works, isn't a big enough clue for your narrow mind?  If not, we are doomed.  

As for you, you are lucky you still get paid.  I would have given you a P45 for your post.

Conclusion.  A link to the terms & conditions whereby Plusnet do not have to supply a working wifi connection - please.  Also all the links whereby Plusnet use wifi as a selling point.  And on balance?

Steve

Moderator's note by Mike (Mav): Insulting comments aimed at a member of staff removed as per Forum rules.

[#4]

For the Plusnet Team

Let's look at this another way.
Plusnet net have provided a service, broadband and phone line. If these fail we can go to Ofcom.
Plusnet have also provide hardware, a router.
Amazingly both are covered by Consumer Rights Act 2015.
It would be a reasonable expectation that the router would work, as describe, for the duration of the contract as the router was provided to enable the service Plusnet provide.
If the said router had been purchased, or given free of charge, it would be our legal right to expect a refund (if purchased), an exchange or repair.
Please arrange a suitable solution for all of your customers who have this issue. It would seem the obvious answer would be to rollback to a stable firmware version. Then fully test the next version to avoid these issues.
Of course what do I know I'm only a consumer and, currently, your customer.

[#5]

@Mrg1981 "Strangely mine didn't start playing up unit months after the latest update."

You almost certainly didn't notice it.

Even I cannot remember how mine worked before March for two years, and I do note stuff.

But you were very unlikely to have noticed the problem (hence it does not exist according to Plusnet), and now you have noticed, it has existed from when you first spotted it.  Try to prove otherwise.  Don't bother, you spotted it and now it really is real.  There is no way this problem is selective for one user.

In my case, it's just a belief.  No proof before March 2019.  Some ideas and thoughts, but no hard evidence.  It worked and I never checked.
Some thoughts are 2.4GHz seemed to be selected by the phone on return to home, but no evidence.  Now though with downgraded software, phone always reconnects to 5GHz with no user interaction.  I can swap to 2.4GHz, but it simply works for free, like it ought to.  My partner also seemed to think that was the case this morning, and she is also an engineer.  We were not looking for this, just let's say the phone worked on wifi of whatever flavour.  It just worked, so no need to analyse.

Downgrading is real.  It's not like a religion.  It works.

I've not had a problem since I was selected to downgrade.  Plusnet are hiding what part of the upgrade I am missing and have never said why they chose to upgrade me in March 2019 after two years, skipping quite of lot of upgrades.  Just one after 2 years that broke 5GHz wifi.  But no idea what they fixed, still no idea.  I'd like to use four letter words, so use your imagination.

I would love to know how/why you spotted this problem And how it did not affect you for months.  And you've not even mentioned the software version.  I'll suggest it did affect you, like the rest of us, but you were reasonably unaware.  It happened to all of us.

Regards

Steve

[#6]

Firstly I'm sorry for the frustration and inconvenience caused by this problem.

We absolutely do appreciate that a large number of people use and rely on wireless devices myself included. We've acknowledged there's an issue affecting the latest firmware for a small number of people, which we're investigating. As far as I'm aware we aren't downgrading firmware upon request anymore, unless it's to help us get to the bottom of this.

If anyone hasn't filled out the questionnaire that's roaming around, I'd recommend spending just a few moments of your time to complete it. I understand it's a hassle and shouldn't be necessary, but it's designed to assist us with the investigation. 

For now a temporary solution is to disable the 5GHz frequency as the 2.4GHz should remain unaffected by this issue, although it'd still be subject to the usual types of interference and I'd agree that this shouldn't be a permanent solution.

To be honest, I'm not normally one to quote terms and conditions, but as it's been brought up:

4. Quality of service

4.1. We aim to provide a continuous, high-quality service, but we can't be responsible for:

4.1.3. ensuring equipment we provide allows you to get a wireless signal everywhere within your home or delivers the speeds possible over a wired connection wirelessly.

This doesn't mean that we're dismissing the problem though, because again we are investigating. For further information and help, it may be worth referring you to this fairly recent post made by our products team if you've not seen it already.

[#7]

Not everywhere implies you can get wireless somewhere and not getting the same speed implies you get some throughput. This is not true of 5GHz wifi for a plusnet router which gives none when it fails as it does often. The plusnet router is specified to support 5GHz wifi but it doesn’t. It’s like saying you should be happy your car has gears 1-3 but not 4-6. In my opinion, if someone sells me something and it doesn’t comply with its published specification then that’s wrong. The reason I switched was to get a 5GHz service.

[#8]

@stevewx I can assure you the problem was not present for months. In fact it only started about a month ago when I got home and said "hey google, I'm home" and she quickly exclaimed "I can't connect to the internet right now". Telling me I didn't notice it, behave. I also have a phone that I only added to the 5GHz network that would sit in an authentication loop, something I've seen before when a device is trying to use the same IP address as already taken.

And @Gandalf  could post a link to where this questionnaire is then we can all fill it in and you might get a better picture of the situation. I know how frustrating it is to get to the bottom of software glitches that only seem to hit certain customers. But I find if you ask enough you can distill the truth out of it.

As I said above, I've seen similar issues when the DHCP starts dishing new addresses out only to give the same address as the device is already allocated so it just sit going "hang on you're already here, lets try again, who are you?".  I have managed to purchase a BT hub6 for the giddy price of 99p (including all leads and a microfilter!!) from my local cash generator so will give it a go at some point. But I notice this has an "authoritative" mode on the DHCP and I wonder if this will give me the same issue. But then again why would that then allow devices to connect to WiFi but not the internet.

So @stevewx as you can tell my issue has changed after trying some fixes.

1st I had issues with win10 jumping from band to band and it [-Censored-]ing up the connection so split the bands to different networks.

2nd was when google told me she was lonely and the phone just kept going round in a loop . At which point I contacted plusnet and tried selecting channels manually. Which worked for an hour or so.

3rd now the devices will connect but have no internet access. So support urged me to sync the bands again, which I did and had loads more issues with devices connecting but not having internet. So split them again and now we are back to issue 2.

@fairb they are still offering WiFi, just on the 2.4GHz band. If both bands went down then they would be in breach I think. And to be fair, the speed of the 2.4 is still normally higher than the incoming broadband connection, and unless you have a several devices trying to stream data at once then you shouldn't notice it. If you are chucking lots of data around why would you rely on a provider supplied hub?

[#9]

Thanks for getting back to us @fairb 

Our equipment does provide a wireless signal through the 2.4GHz frequency albeit it may not be everywhere in your home, and it does support the 5GHz band, however unfortunately there’s an acknowledged issue with that affecting a small number of people and I’m sorry that you seem to be one of those affected.

We are investigating and want to fix this, but not being able to replicate the problem in a lab environment isn’t helping things however I believe we’re doing some real life hands on testing.

Have you tried all the steps in my previous post including the post I’ve linked to?

[#10]

I have offered help in supplying real world logs to no avail.

Nice little get out of jail clause you have there. It’s this simple, I am paying you for a service. You have limited my service by doing untested firmware upgrades.

Therefore if this is not resolved within 21 days, I’ll happily buy myself out of the remainder of my term and leave you to it.

I’ll also be sure to tell the multiple people I have recommended to do the same.

Maybe an email to your CEO is on the cards

[#11]

---

@Gandalf wrote:

... As far as I'm aware we aren't downgrading firmware upon request anymore, unless it's to help us get to the bottom of this.

if downgrading firmware has been solving the problem for some people it would seem to be a sensible short term solution and the request not an unreasonable one.   Surely better to do it than have disgruntled customers.

Moderator's note by Dick (Strat): Quote fixed.

[#12]

@gibbs2011 Not sure it’s fair to say the firmware was untested, because the issues some people are experiencing we’ve been unable to replicate so testing likely wouldn’t have picked this up.

If you’ve tried the below (Quoting from the linked thread above) let me know and I’ll be happy to see if there’s anything I can do to chase things up.

If this issue is making you consider leaving for another ISP, then drop me a message in private to discuss. You may be able to help us get to the bottom of things!

I’d also be happy to see if we’d be able to review the decision on downgrading firmware for those affected and request it, however I personally can’t guarantee we’ll be in a position to.

[#13]

Am sorry to tell you but whatever testing your team is doing is clearly not adequate.

And anyway, I don’t see how you can’t replicate it as I can easily every single time as can everyone else.

You have pushed a firmware update that has failed, in any IT business, that I happen to work in one as a QA Manager, the standard policy is if a new build fails you rollback right away for starters. You don’t even debate the issue. You roll back.

You hardware is built by various vendors but you supply the software so it’s your responsibility.

I know of at least 4 PlusNet customers who I recommended are asking me why there WiFi has stopped working all of a sudden. One of them got the run around the support line.
I don’t need to PM you to be given the same round around as usual. This years contact arrangement with you was already a hassle after 9 years and 4 hubs since they came out.

The only reply your customers need is a ETA for a firmware rollback or a fixed upgrade build.

It’s either that or start processing refunds and contract terminations.

Moderator's note by Dick (Strat): Insult(s) removed as per Forum rules.

[#14]

@gibbs2011 this acknowledged issue isn’t affecting everyone and as such that makes things a little more difficult to diagnose however I agree with you that it’s our responsibility, so we’re investigating to get to the bottom of the problem.

It’s also worth noting that for some people they might not be affected by the acknowledged issue and it may simply be wireless interference, which standard troubleshooting can help resolve.

We’ve provided a workaround for now, and we’ve also asked you if you’d be willing to help us by filling out the above questionnaire, and if you’re looking to go to another ISP because of this issue then we’ve reached out offering you to PM the right people to discuss further. 

Rolling back the firmware isn’t a solution to the problem, because the previous versions are not without their own issues so you’d likely be trading one problem for another. 

[#15]

Just to put some perspective on this, I have three Hub One’s of varying age on firmware .263. They all exhibit the 5g bug. You may call this an issue only affecting a small number of customers. I’d call that 100% knackered!