Devices keep dropping off our network

[eelie1944]

We have been experiencing intermittent loss of internet and our wifi router was replaced yesterday. Since then devices, particularly our smart phones, have been dropping off our home network. The router's light remains constant white and the devices readily reconnect to the network but will still drop out without warning. Any suggestions about what is wrong and how to put it right?

[KeithFrench]

The choice is yours, let me know if you want my help.

[eelie1944]

KeithFrench, I had some further thoughts about Wi-Fi Optimisation. This router is only two days old and, presumably, the optimisation feature has to go through a learning process to do its job. There seem to have been fewer dropouts in the last few hours and I wonder whether it would be better to hold off disabling Wi-Fi Optimisation, if it's not too late, to see whether the router sorts itself out.

[eelie1944]

Thank you KeithFrench. I would like to take up your suggestion of disabling Wi-Fi Optimisation and receive your guide for obtaining diagnostic results.

[KeithFrench]

No, not necessarily, changing channels blindly is counter productive. My work finds what is wrong with your network, which may or may not result in a channel change.

Have you had TalkTalk’s Wi-Fi optimisation disabled on your Sagemcom FAST5364/5464 router? When this is enabled, as it is by default, it has the power to override any Wi-Fi configuration changes that I might suggest that you need to make. This will not help rectify this type of problem if Wi-Fi Optimisation is allowed to change my suggested settings. Only TalkTalk can do this for you, you cannot do it yourself. If not, just request they disable this for you in your reply.

The next stage involves sending out a guide to you to help you get me some important diagnostic results so that I can analyse them for you and recommend changes to your router configuration to solve them.

I only send this out to people who request it.

[eelie1944]

Thank you for your reply. The TalkTalk Wi-Fi Hub is made by Sagemcom and the device version is shown as FAST 5464-2.T4. I assume you will be suggesting a change of channel?

[KeithFrench]

This could be down to a sudden increase in WiFi interference (it can differ by the minute).

Slow speed, intermittent dropouts, breaks in the signal, no signal on some or all devices or no internet access might be caused by Wi-Fi interference from other local networks, which can also lead to a permanent reduction in speed. No ISP can be responsible for your local environment, this is mainly a byproduct of the popularity of Wi-Fi.

Generally speaking, the 2.4GHz band suffers much more from interference than the 5GHz band, but the 2.4GHz one can sometimes have a better range, but this all depends on your local area.

If you would like me to help you, please can you specify the make/model of TalkTalk router that you are using?