5 GHz connection dropping out

[#1]

Right, just a quick update from me on the 'plan' I agreed with @bobpullen  to get some diagnostics for this. Bob told me he was on leave Wednesday & Thursday so if we hadn't got anything by then it would be on hold. That was last week so we both knew the limited timescales.

My Hub One was back in place on Sunday evening.

PM'd Bob at 9am Monday to get the .263 firmware back on it rather than his test firmware from May which didn't resolve the issue.

No response until after 4pm when this downgrade was finally done.

I 'broke' the router at 3.20 pm on Tuesday and informed Bob via PM.

Absolutely no response.

My router is still in the 'broken' state. I have PM'd Bob and asked him to pick this up when he is back tomorrow.

I have no reason to believe this will actually happen but I am willing to wait and see.

I have been badly let down by the whole of Plusnet and one individual yet again.

It seems that Bob spending a couple of hours (at best) on this every week is Plusnet 'trying to sort the problem'.

On his linkedin profile Bob describes himself as a 'born problem solver'. That is clearly as untrue as Plusnet doing us proud!

Having one part timer from the product team as a contact for this is a complete joke.

Perhaps  @Gandalf or someone else from Plusnet staff can give the products team a kick.

Whilst waiting for a response tomorrow I will be phoning Ofcom to chase this up.

[#2]

Strangely, it won't let me put @Gandalf as a link in this any more. He was the person who offered to take ownership of the problem!

It did that time!

@ Gandalf, please help!

[#3]

Hi @NigeBoy, thanks for your post.

It's probably worth pointing out that Bob is in the Products team and not the Social Media Team (who operate the forum as staff) and so generally checks the forums in his own free time, when he isn't doing his other products related work. It's very possible that he hasn't seen your message as yet.

Either way, I'll give the team a nudge to see if we can progress this issue further for you.

[#4]

@OskarPapa 

Thanks for the response.

I know Bob is in the products team.

As I stated, myself & Bob arranged to recreate the problem by communicating via PM.

I kept to my part of the deal, Bob let me down, twice in 2 days.

They same happened after I took a test firmware from him in May.

When it failed he didn't contact me for 10 weeks.

This, we are told is the best man in Plusnet doing his best to fix the issue.

You won't be able to progress the issue, collectively Plusnet have done nothing in almost 7 months because your products team simply cannot be bothered to fix a problem they caused.

Sadly, the fact that the social media team still try to cover for this incompetence does not make you look good either.

If you had read my post properly you would have realised that, rather than just ticking a box for yet another worthless reply. 

Please do give the products team a nudge, I fear that they may not just be sleeping but that something far worse has happened to them. They are certainly missing in action.

I noticed scaffolding going up outside Plusnet today. Even that won't support these lame excuses. Perhaps they are going to dismantle the building around you. I doubt anyone inside would be bothered enough to question it.

[#5]

@NigeBoy, your help is appreciated, although I'd be lying if I said I wasn't surprised by the tone of your posts 🤔

I 'broke' the router at 3.20 pm on Tuesday and informed Bob via PM. Absolutely no response.

The router vendor/firmware engineers have been approached for assistance and I've already opened up the necessary channel so they can access your router remotely. These things can be tricky to co-ordinate, so I appreciate your patience. Please note, that I'm not expecting anything to be fixed as the result of this exercise. At the moment, we are trying to proof a theory based on findings from Wi-Fi air-captures we have gathered from another customers' premises.

I have been badly let down by the whole of Plusnet and one individual yet again.

I'm sorry (and a little disheartened) you feel that way. I perhaps should do better at setting expecations. The fact that you do not hear from me, does not mean that things aren't progressing in the background.

Having one part timer from the product team as a contact for this is a complete joke.

I'm not a part timer, but I am entitled to leave! 😉

There are others working on this problem too, but I get your point that I'm the only direct contact you have.

Whilst waiting for a response tomorrow I will be phoning Ofcom to chase this up.

Completely your decision of course, but it's unlikely to accelerate our efforts to fix the issue. I'll be the first to admit that this problem has been around far longer than we'd have liked. Largely attributed to our complete failure to replicate the behaviour in the lab. In an ideal world, we'd have collectively identified a particular device/config that can be used to reproduce the error (all ears if anyone has any suspicions). I'm confident things would progress in leaps and bounds if we could get to this stage.

You won't be able to progress the issue, collectively Plusnet have done nothing in almost 7 months because your products team simply cannot be bothered to fix a problem they caused.

This is simply not true.

@Sengoku wrote:

Hi everyone.  Just to give a little update, it has been over a week with no problems on either 2.4GHz or 5GHz band.  The only thing I'd changed (apart from the usual things like WiFi passwords and SSID names) is increasing the DHCP lease from 1 day to the maximum of 21 days.

Not sure if this will help anyone else but thought it would be worth a try.  So to summarise, set the DHCP leases to expire after 21 days and then restart the router.  

Thanks. An interesting observation and one I'll make sure is fed back to the team.

[#6]

Thanks @bobpullen 

Just to clarify my update that you've quoted.  I had set the DHCP lease to 21 days and also set manual channels for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz.  All devices seemed to be connecting on both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands.  Please note, this is on the new router replacement that Plusnet sent out to me.

In the end I did have to restart the router (after a week of not touching it at all) as when I did a speed test (on WiFi and wired), it had dropped to 30Mb.  After restarting the router it went back to my usual speed of 78Mb.

@NigeBoy & @bobpullen - hope you guys manage to work this out as you seem like our best chance of getting this fixed!  

[#7]

The reason I'm in this thread is the 5G doesn't work, and no, I won't disable it. It should work. The new firmware is obviously terrible and needs fixing.

[#8]

Another quick update from me.

Firstly I would just like to say that no teddies were harmed in the grumpy, teddy throwing incident yesterday! Myself and Bob are back on the same page & hopefully working together to resolve this.

Sagemcom accessed my failed router remotely this morning and have captured some diagnostics and looked at what is going on.

I also spent about 30 minutes on the phone to them explaining what I saw at my end and how I could recreate the issue.

Sadly it seemed that they weren't initially fully aware of how the issue showed itself or how it could be recreated by me. They seemed to not be aware that the test software I had previously been using hadn't fixed the issue. Whether they weren't told or hadn't listened is not for me to decide. They know now.

By accessing my router they were able to make it allow 5 Ghz sign-ons again, which is part of the problem, but we found that these still had no internet access or any access at all other than to the router. They explained that the issue is in much deeper layers than they anticipated and have taken it away to investigate.

They have now pretty much ruled out an issue with WiFi drivers which is what it sounded like they had been focusing on.

All in all it felt like a worthwhile use of my time. I am hoping some progress will come from it.

This is purely my view of my conversation this morning. It is not verified or endorsed by Plusnet!

I will keep you posted if I hear anything from Plusnet or Sagemcom.

[#9]

Thanks @NigeBoy 🙂

---

@NigeBoy wrote:

I also spent about 30 minutes on the phone to them explaining what I saw at my end and how I could recreate the issue.

Sadly it seemed that they weren't initially fully aware of how the issue showed itself or how it could be recreated by me. They seemed to not be aware that the test software I had previously been using hadn't fixed the issue. Whether they weren't told or hadn't listened is not for me to decide. They know now.

Definitely some confusion there! We're using a shared platform for chronicling this problem and the information is clearly documented. I've also personally had telephone conversations with people about it. Oh well, all's well that ends well I guess.

[#10]

Well I've switched to a BT Hub 6 and, although there is no 5GHz problem using it,  my wifi download speed is a bit lower than I was getting on the Hub One.   I wasn't expecting that!

[#11]

Thats.... odd....

Do you mean the Download Speed from a Speedtest type of website eg.

http://speedtest.ic.net.uk/

https://speedof.me/

over the WiFi connection?

If that is the case then try the following;

1. Different time of day and/or
2. Different speed test website

I usually try a few one after the other and see how much discrepancy there is...........

It's also worth mentioning that internal traffic on your LAN can/does affect your results - eg people streaming, browsing etc - basically anything that can use up some of the available bandwidth.

OR

Do you mean the actual read/write speed over Wifi - typically the number you see when copying a file from one location to another location (for example from a NAS to a Hard Drive on you PC).

This one shouldn't  decrease if you are comparing apples to apples (ie. the ONLY thing that has changed being the router in the middle).

It is possible that moving the 5ghz channel could make a difference and personally I would always seperate my WiFi into 2.4 and 5ghz. That way I can ensure that the relevant hardware connects ONLY to the 5ghz where required to maintain maximum bandwidth and then everything else can connect to 2.4 or 5ghz as required.

Heres the link to the, poor, BT Hub Manuals (you want the Smart Hub & Ultrafast Smarthub doesnt matter whether type A or B for instructions) and a slightly older, albeit more informative youtube video.

Hope that helps.

[#12]

Thanks for the reply tony.

Testing wifi at different times using speedof me, speedsmart, thinkbroadband and speedtest.net.

2.4 and 5GHz are separated with different ssids.

It's only a matter of about 3 Mbps but I was expecting the Smart Hub to perform better. 

My speeds are still better than a lot of people's:  on Hub One I was getting speeds of 70/71 Mbps but it's more like 67/68 Mbps on the Smart Hub.

i was also hoping the smart hub might resolve a problem with what seems to be a stuck profile that PN hasn't been able to resolve.   I live very close to the cabinet and exchange,  my line stats are always 80/20 but my profile is set at 73.7.  

PN probably would have continued to try and resolve the problem but after Gandalf tried a cease and reprovide, with no change, I thought I would let it go as really my throughput is really pretty good in the scheme of things - but it's just a bid odd and annoying.

[#13]

I've now gone back to the Hub One.  The strength and range of the BT Hub is defiantly greater on 5 GHz but, for me, the throughput is better on the Hub One.

I don't have problems with obstructions in my house but I can imagine people living in bigger houses or with thick walls to contend with may get a better signal from the BT Hub.

at least I didn't spend much.

[#14]

I'm just checking in for the first time for a month or so.  I bought a Deco wireless system for my house to escape the plus.net router issues.

Are plus.net still not admitting there is a fault with their router?

[#15]

Borrowed a HH6 but had a problem setting the BB user name and password, gave up with Plusnet ever fixing the WiFi issue so bought a wireless access point. Now working on both frequencies took 15 minutes to set up and means I can now unsubscribe this thread.