Sagecom router keeps resetting wifi channels despite me having set them manually.

[PaulH10]

My Sagecom router keeps resetting wifi channels despite me having set them manually to values that do not get swamped by stronger signals other routers near by.

This happened to me in January 2023 and somebody on the TalkTalk Community was able to swith off automatic optimisation on my router.  Unfortunately, my router has recently died and had to be replaced with a new one and the channels are back to changing on at least a daily basis.

Please can channel optimisation be switched off on my new router.

Many thanks

[KeithFrench]

The same would apply if you had done a factory default of the router's configuration at any time as well, which would reenable the optimisation.

I am not promising miracles and if needs be I can use the information you provide me with as evidence as to where WiFi Optimisation might be going wrong. Then there is a chance, but again no guarantees, that I might be able to get you an exemption.

Do not worry about interpreting the results, I will do that for you. I will send a PM to you that contains a link for a guide of mine on Wi-Fi interference. It is quite long (about 30 pages), but you will probably only need to look at three or four pages in total. Initially look at the section called "Are you suffering from interference – prove it first". This is the first link in the table of contents. This section includes full details of free Wi-Fi analysers that I recommend for Windows, Windows phone, Android and Apple operating systems. However, I have no way of testing the Apple product. Select the analyser of your choice & my guide explains how to use it.

If you are using Wi-Fi Scanner, then please attach the zip file to this thread. As soon as I have downloaded it, I will remove the attachment from your post, to preserve your privacy.

With all other analysers, please follow my instructions below.

Collect the screenshots that I require and include them in your reply.

Please post the screenshots to me in a PM (to protect your privacy), which I have requested in my guide. No photos please as they can be difficult to read, because the text can get out of focus when zoomed in. Please ensure that the analyser window is maximised (if Windows) before taking the screenshots & upload them via the "Insert Photos" button (in a mobile browser it's the picture icon) on the post editor's toolbar with the Size parameter set to Large.

[PaulH10]

Thank you for your kind offer of help.  Happy to give it a go if you can send me your guide.

However, I must say I am very sceptical as I never had any further issues after optimisation was switched off in January 2023 and I choose rarely used channels for both 2.4 and 5g. This has only become an issue again as the router died and had to be replaced.

[PaulH10]

So what can I do, there must be a solution?  It is intolerable to have manually reset wifi channels once or more a day.

I suspect my neighbour might switch their router off at night.  In these quieter times the Talk Talk router resets to the common 1, 6 or 11 and then when Sky routers come on line in the morning my signal get swamped.  They only way to avoid this has been to monitor used WiFi Channels and choose one that is never used.

Please help as this is incredibly frustrating and after many calls to Tech Support in January 2023 you help via the Community was the only thing that kept me with Talk Talk

I am out of contract and this a matter I will go to another provider to cure.

[KeithFrench]

The TalkTalk staff are no longer permitted to disable WiFi Optimisation anymore, which is a business decision. I have investigated a number of cases for TalkTalk where WiFi optimisation has been blamed for poor WiFi performance/coverage & recently I have found the cause to be something else. I must stress here that I am not a fan of WiFi Optimisation myself, but I know a lot of work is being done on the algorithm that it uses & hopefully, it will get much better in the near future.

Slow speed, intermittent dropouts, breaks in the signal or 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.

However, other factors should be investigated first. When this happens, what are the lights showing on the front of the router? Do you have any wired connections & if so, how do they perform?

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

In other words, I try to help you optimise your Wi-Fi connection. 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.

The information below is provided by TalkTalk, for confirmation please contact @Debbie-TalkTalk or@Michelle-TalkTalk.

KeithFrench is one of our valued Community Stars and can help with a range of issues related to wireless and networking. At times he may ask you to send him test results via a Private Message to help analyse/diagnose an issue. Although Keith does not work for TalkTalk, he very kindly shares his time and knowledge to help with others.

If you need further help or, if we need to take any details such as personal information about your account like phone numbers, account numbers etc. one of the TalkTalk team will jump in and help out.

[Chris-TalkTalk]

Hi Paul,

I'm sorry but we no longer switch off wifi optimisation as this can cause other issues. 

Chris