Broadband drop off

[TheDodo]

My broadband has been acting up since 1pm today. After spending over three hours on chat with a very helpful technical assistant it seemed that things had been solved but hope was short lived. The same is happening now - connection is dropping off again.  I’m really stressed out because I’ve got an important presentation tomorrow morning. Can anyone help? Thank you 

[Debbie-TalkTalk]

Hi TheDodo

I'm sorry to hear this.

The line test is detecting a potential fault towards the property. Is the router currently connected at the test socket?

Thanks

Debbie

[Skynet_TX]

Ok, staff here will be able to help, and depending on what router you have they may be able to confirm if it really is Wi-Fi interference that is causing the issue. If you do have a smartphone that you can install a Wi-Fi analyser App onto (see link in my previous post) then that would also help you to see what other Wi-Fi network signals are being picked up in your home that may be interfering with your own signal.

Also, if you do end up trying to change some settings on your router, there is always the 'reset' switch on the back, holding that in for over 10 seconds will restore the router back to its factory default settings, so if ever anything bad happened when you were trying to change settings you can always reset things using that switch.

[TheDodo]

Thank you again for your help @Skynet_TX  I’m using now an old laptop with an Eathernet cable. I’ve been able to finish the presentation but it’s a temporary solution.  I do hope that TalkTalk will help sort this out. I’m too nervous to try your suggestion re changing channel in case I mess things up.. Thank you again for your help.  

[Skynet_TX]

What model of router do you have ?

The most likely cause for that would be Wi-Fi interference, for example a neighbour having a router that is broadcasting on the same, or similar, channel to yours.

You could try changing the channels that your router broadcasts the Wi-Fi signal on, you can use free smartphone Apps like this to see what channels are being used within range of your smartphone, you can then change your router to use channels that are less congested.

If you have a way of connecting your device to your router via an ethernet cable then that may give you a stable connection for your presentation tomorrow.

I'm not sure what router you have, but be aware that the Sagemcom router has a feature called 'Wi-Fi Optimisation', this means it can change the Wi-Fi channel itself, overriding what you have set it to, it can randomly do this after minutes, hours or days !. So if you do find a channel that works well, but then things go bad again, check to see if the router has changed channel to something different to what you set it to. If you do experience this problem then just post back here to ask the staff to disable the 'Wi-Fi Optimisation' on your router, once that is done it will stay on whatever channel you set it to.

[TheDodo]

Thank you for your comment. My problem is the second - dropping connection between devices and router. Connection comes and goes which means I can’t up/download anything and can’t use zoom / teams on my work computers. I hope that TalkTalk support can help! 

[Skynet_TX]

Hi @TheDodo,

Do you know if the problem is with the router losing its connection to the internet (in which case a light on your router which is normally constantly lit will change colour or flash), or is it that you are losing Wi-Fi connection between your device(s) and your router (in which case the light(s) on the router will just carry on looking normal).

Do you have any ‘wired’ devices, do they also lose connection ?

The TalkTalk staff on this community will be able to help, they will hopefully be able to respond to this post tomorrow.