This topic

Recent issues with connectivity Fibre to premises

Burmey — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 14:33:14 GMT

We've had fibre to the premises for about 10 months and 9 of those without issue. Our neighbour had theirs installed about a months ago.

Unfortunately, in the past couple of weeks, we've had various random issues with our broadband. We thought initially it was wifi or one of the discs playing up, but now I'm in to do diagnostics rather than just the kids trying to work from home, I think it's more than that.

It's odd because some devices were keeping connection and some weren't. I tried disconnecting various discs and restarting, but nothing helped. Then finally, even my ethernet connected Mac stopped working. So I tried restarting from the hub menu on the Mac but it wouldn't work. So button off and on again at the Hub.

Any ideas what I can tweak before I call out a technician? It's an intermittent issue (last time it did this was exactly a week ago .

Thanks all.

Re: Recent issues with connectivity Fibre to premises

imjolly — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 14:41:03 GMT

are the lights on the ONT (fibre modem) changing colour when this happens? is hub light changing colour?

Re: Recent issues with connectivity Fibre to premises

Burmey — Mon, 10 Feb 2025 16:24:31 GMT

Hi there. Thanks for responding. No, the lights don't change colour when this problem arises and our devices still think we're connected on full wifi signal. It's very weird

Re: Recent issues with connectivity Fibre to premises

Ali_A — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 08:15:46 GMT

Hi @Burmey

Next time your broadband cuts out you can text HELP to 61998.
• We’ll run tests on your connection to find out what’s going on.
• If you need an engineer, we’ll text you in 15 minutes to book a slot.
• If you don’t need an engineer, our brilliant team will call you within 30 minutes to help solve your issue.
See Contact us about Broadband page

Ali

Re: Recent issues with connectivity Fibre to premises

Burmey — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 10:30:23 GMT

thank you - anything I can do in the meantime? It only seems to do it when it's most inconvenient and the people working from home are affected.

How do I text you ?

Re: Recent issues with connectivity Fibre to premises

Ali_A — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 11:27:05 GMT

@Burmey

Do you notice if the issue occurs during poor or windy weather conditions?

It's difficult to make suggestions until it can be determined what could be causing the issue. You've already carried out the usual router restart.

There are usually 3 main parts to connection between your devices and the internet:
1 - Device to router (WIFI or LAN)
2- Router to ONT box on wall
3- ONT box to the network

If an internet connection drops, this doesn't necessarily affect the WIFI connections between devices and router, which is why they remained connected even though no actual throughput.

That said, as your ONT box and router box were not flashing any lights while you lost internet connection, it could be router related.

Have you tried a full factory reset of the router?

Ali

Re: Recent issues with connectivity Fibre to premises

Burmey — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 11:46:43 GMT

I’m now texting on 4G as it’s gone down again. Even the ethernet connections have gone down. I have texted Help to the number you specified and I await your further suggestions. It will be a last resort to do a full factory reset because I’ll have to do a lot of tweaking with settings and reconnecting many many appliances which I really don’t fancy doing right now because that will take me all afternoon. If there’s something wrong with the connection then hopefully that can be detected remotely. If it’s the hub itself, then obviously I understand that at some point I’ll have to do a full factory reset. But this really isn’t funny now as my daughter is trying to work and can’t. we can’t use the EE hub thing that you give for these kind of situations because we can’t get any signal in the house.

edit - I’ve just had a text back from the bot and it says that they will call me at my convenience if I send the message guide to them ;does this mean it can’t find an issue with the line?) I’ll do that this afternoon when I’m back again. In the meantime I’ll restart the hub which usually fixes this.
Blue lights still on the hub. No wind, slightly musty out but it wasn’t yesterday when it happened. Not raining. Fftp.

Re: Recent issues with connectivity Fibre to premises

Burmey — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 11:49:28 GMT

oh and surely a factory reset on the router just delays the inevitable replacing of the router because I’ve never known with any piece of equipment a reset to actually work permanently. Am I right or wrong in this instance?

Re: Recent issues with connectivity Fibre to premises

licquorice — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 11:53:14 GMT

You could be wrong in this instance. The hub is renowned for running out of internal connections that requires a factory reset to periodically clear out, especially if your devices have MAC randomisation.

Make sure to back up your contacts if on Digital Voice as the contacts are held on the hub and obviously cleared out with a factory reset.

Re: Recent issues with connectivity Fibre to premises

Burmey — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 16:02:39 GMT

Hi All - so I had a call with an engineer (?) who thought my issues were because I have too many things connecting through one ethernet cable (I have to have a reverse ethernet system going on because the full fibre couldn't be installed where my original broadband was and where most of my connectivity for my house is based - totally impossible). He couldn't answer why it's only just started to happen after nearly a year of fault free connectivity so he said he'd send an engineer out.

Couple of things for me to try in advance of the appointment - utilising the other ethernet socket available to me to reduce the load somewhat. So can anyone recommend a decent cat 5e cable I could use and a good quality 4 or 8 port gigabit switch (either with or without POE). Am I right in thinking that if I have a POE switch, something like the Hive hub won't need plugging in , powering up just from the ethernet cable - or is my understanding flawed?

I will also try a factory reset when I have time and no-one is working from home. @licquorice

Re: Recent issues with connectivity Fibre to premises

licquorice — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 16:11:25 GMT

Where to start!

What do you mean by 'reverse ethernet system going on'

How can you connect too many things through one cable, one cable =one device? No idea what is meant by that and sounds a load of tosh.

Any TP Link switch will be fine

The device needs to be POE capable if expecting to power it via POE, not all devices are.

Re: Recent issues with connectivity Fibre to premises

Burmey — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 17:48:58 GMT

Thank you @licquorice

To explain the set up - fibre comes in , connects to a new fibre hub but is next to an ethernet socket in the wall. This ethernet socket goes back to the place in the new build where all the ethernet cables for my house originate (we have two in every room, name of which aren't used), plugged into a big TP link switch. To enable these ethernet cat 6 all over my house to work, we've had to plug one end of the ethernet cable into the hub and the other into the wall and that plug then powers the ethernets all over the house. Don't even go there as to why our idiot builder /developer thought it was a good idea to put ALL the cables into a cupboard in the centre of the house and brought the original broadband (this was only 2022) into the house, this way , almost rendering any future FFTP impossible, This is the only work around we've figured out (with the help of the original open reach engineers who installed the full fibre last year). We've also got 4 discs as our house is very wide.

It's all worked fine up until the past couple of weeks.

Thanks for the info re POE - wasn't aware that not everything had POE capability. Very helpful.

Re: Recent issues with connectivity Fibre to premises

licquorice — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 18:05:55 GMT

Ok. It won't make any difference running everything from one LAN port or splitting it between 2 or more ports, it's all the same LAN.

A factory reset of the hub is definitely worth a try.

Re: Recent issues with connectivity Fibre to premises

Burmey — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 18:12:27 GMT

Thanks. Are all routers like this in terms of vulnerability and if this reset works, will it be likely I'l need to do this annually?

Re: Recent issues with connectivity Fibre to premises

licquorice — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 18:20:11 GMT

No, it seems to be a vulnerability of the BT hub. It's not really possible to predict how often a reset might be needed. Turning off MAC randomisation on your devices might help

Re: Recent issues with connectivity Fibre to premises

WSH — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 20:24:13 GMT

“…utilising the other ethernet socket available to me to reduce the load somewhat.”

I hope you're not intending to run two cables to the same node. I take it you know what a “switching loop” is? If not, I suggest you look it up first.

Re: Recent issues with connectivity Fibre to premises

Burmey — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 23:21:49 GMT

I have to say I have a clue what you just said there. What’s a node ? And no I have no idea what a switching loop is. I’m not trying to do anything with any of the cables other than use available sockets . I’m really not sure what you mean by. Sorry

Re: Recent issues with connectivity Fibre to premises

Burmey — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 23:23:29 GMT

Thanks @licquorice not sure how to turn mac randomisation off (only have a vague idea what it is) but I’ll do some research. Thanks

What alternative hubs/routers and mesh systems work well with bt fibre?

Re: Recent issues with connectivity Fibre to premises

Burmey — Tue, 11 Feb 2025 23:26:07 GMT

Thanks @licquorice not sure how to turn mac randomisation off (only have a vague idea what it is) but I’ll do some research. Thanks

What alternative hubs or routers and mesh systems work well with bt fibre?

Re: Recent issues with connectivity Fibre to premises

WSH — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 08:18:14 GMT

It's not clear exactly what you are trying to do but if you connect two cables from the same point to the same switch it won’t double the capacity. What it will do is create a switching loop. The data just loops back and forth between the switches and the network grinds to a halt.

It can be done, (using Link Aggregation/LAG and LACP), but it needs sophisticated kit. I don’t keep my finger on the pulse like I used to before I retired but I’d be surprised if domestic grade kit can do LAG even today.

More likely “Spanning Tree Protocol” or STP/RSTP will shut down one of the links and you will gain nothing from the second connection. Worse case, the switches can’t do Spanning Tree and the network crashes.