Recent issues with connectivity Fibre to premises

[Burmey]

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.

[imjolly]

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

[Burmey]

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

[Ali_A]

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 

[Burmey]

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 ?

[Ali_A]

@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 

[Burmey]

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. 

[Burmey]

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?

[licquorice]

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.

[Burmey]

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