Issues After Upgrading to Full Fibre 900

[Lizzy-Loo]

For the last year or so, we've been happily buzzing along on the Full Fibre 500, having had the option of FTTP added to our street a short while earlier. The WiFi  coverage with the help of two discs has been excellent throughout the house and in my favourite corner seat on the sofa, I've always been able to achieve 200-250mbps via the WiFi connection on my laptop (which I was very happy with!)
A month ago, I received an offer to upgrade from Full Fibre 500 to Full Fibre 900, including Halo 3+ for an additional £1 per month - which seemed a no-brainer for me. I was already paying for the Hybrid Connect separately, so the upgrade would actually save me money. So I went ahead. And spent the money I was saving by signing up for BT TV as well (!) - the only other change in my current set up.

Since then, I've had nothing but problems.

The WiFi signal, despite no change to the position of the Hub and the discs, has deteriorated considerably. The signal now is poor throughout the house, even when stood directly next to the router. Initially, restarting the Hub via the trouble shooter would improve the signal but only temporarily.
Then the speeds started to drop - possibly (probably) linked to the poor WiFi. From my favourite corner sofa seat, I was now only getting 100mbps max, often less than that. Wired into the router, it maxed out at 175mbps.

I spoke to a member of the BT tech team who couldn't get any readings from my Hub at his end, so sent out an engineer. He could find no issues with the connection and confirmed speeds to the Hub were within the guaranteed limits. He separated out the 2.4 and 5GHz bands to stop interference, said that should sort the issue out, and left.
24hrs later, not only was the poor WiFi signal and slow speeds ongoing but we were now experiencing drop outs also. I contacted the BT tech team again, who advised that it was likely a Hub issue and sent out a replacement Hub, plus an additional disc, with the understanding that this would resolve the WiFi, speed and connectivity issues. They asked me to give it 7 days to settle and report back if things haven't improved.

We're now of day 6 and nothing has improved. In fact the speeds and drop outs have got worse. It's now at the point where upload speeds are frequently outpacing the download speeds and I'm not sure where we go from here.

Has anyone else experienced this or have any ideas on other things I could try / other solutions?
Many thanks.

[spile]

Given you we’re already on FTTP why not go back to your previous hardware that was working as expected?

[Lizzy-Loo]

Thanks for the reply and suggestion.

The hardware that I was originally using (Hub and discs) weren't working as expected though. It was while using the original hardware set up that the issues started occurring and specifically after upgrading to the FF900.

I could swap back to the original Hub and 2 discs instead of 3 but as the WiFi coverage, speeds and drop outs had started when using them, I don't hold out much hope. Anything is worth a try at this point though! I'm currently scraping 20mbps as I type (over WiFi, connected to the Hub).

[rbz5416]

Something obviously not right & I'm a little confused by your statement about splitting the WiFi channels. FTTP is usually supplied with a Smart Hub 2 upon which that is impossible. Whole Home WiFi discs also only work with the SH2. So can you confirm which Hb you had originally & now? Pics here.

The ONT where the fibre enters the property should have four LEDs, all of which should be green bar LOS. The LAN connection may blink as it talks to the Hub but the other to should be solid.

Things to try, one at a time:

• Check that the fibre & ethernet connections are secure.
• Power cycle the ONT for a few minutes.
• Try another ethernet cable between ONT & Hub.
• Factory reset the Hub with a paper clip. If on DV backup contacts first.

If still no joy, post the router stats from the Hub.

[Lizzy-Loo]

Oh! Now that is interesting...

Yes, I can confirm that it is the Smart Hub 2 that we had originally and the same model again that it was replaced by.

Not being an IT whizz, I wasn't aware that the two channels couldn't be separated out on this model Hub. I'd heard of that option before - in the days before FTTP it was something that my IT brained hubby tinkered with regularly on the Netgear router we used (running off the mobile network - that was the only way to get speeds over 3mbps!!).

The engineer assured me that this often solved the issue, as did turning off the 5GHz band completely (something I wasn't keen to do). Not 100% sure what he did then, if this isn't an option on the SH2...

I've just checked the lights on the ONT and they're all as they should be all green except the LOS, which is off/not lit. Connections to the Hub and the ONT are secure - there is just the one connection, running from the WAN port on the Hub to the yellow port (unnamed) on the ONT.

I've just tried power cycling the ONT which has helped somewhat - the download speeds (over WiFi) now match the upload speeds at around 100mbps - using the same laptop, in the same sofa spot as previously mentioned.

Off to rummage for a replacement ethernet cable now, as the new Hub didn't come with any, and I'll report back shortly...

Thanks for all your help!

[stevebrass]

You can switch the 5GHz wifi off on the SH 2. Try that as well.

[rbz5416]

Make sure that any ethernet cables used are at least Cat5e with all 8 pins wired, as this is what is required for Gb speeds. An older Cat5 cable will only support up to 100Mb. Should be labelled on the cable sleeve.

[Lizzy-Loo]

@rbz5416 thanks for that tip.
I've found the yellow ended ethernet cable that came with the original SH2, which is Cat 5E labelled - the same as the red ended cable I removed. Full label reads: VFC CAT.5E UTP PATCH CABLE 26AWGX4P 2102 (if that means anything to you!)
All the pins are present - is there a way to tell if they are all wired?!

Thanks again.

[rbz5416]

You should be able to see the individual wires through the clear plastic of the connector if your eyesight is good enough. I'd have to reach for a magnifying glass or zoom into a pic on the phone! But I'd be reasonably confident that it's fully wired. 

[Lizzy-Loo]

@rbz5416 

Lol, yes, these middle aged eyes of mine aren't that great these days either - I'd already had to use the torch feature on my phone to read the label on the cable 😉

OK, so it is fully wired - having taken photo with flash and zoomed in.

While changing the cable looked to have helped initially, reaching the dizzying heights of 200mbps on the first speed test, it has now settled again to ~100mbps (WiFi to the laptop) on subsequent speed tests.

Onto the next thing to test...