Slowing WiFi on HUB2, requiring frequent resets

[rgbargey]

I was upgraded to Full Fibre 65 last month and received a Hub2 to use with my landline. It's a Sagemcom FAST 5464-2T4 running SG4K100174 firmware. Ethernet outputs deliver a rock steady 75mb/s down and 19mb/s up, but WiFi speeds on all my devices are much slower, typically 20-30mb/s down on both wireless n 5GHz and wireless ac connections. Resetting the router raises my wireless speeds back to 70+ mb/s for a day or two, but then wireless speeds drop down again and the router needs to be reset again to restore performance. On Ookla speed tests the wireless speed starts initially at 70+, but very rapidly drops off as if a buffer is filling up in the router or the router can't maintain the throughput. This didn't happen with my previous Sagemcom Hub which gave a very steady 65mb/s on ethernet and WiFi with all my devices & hub in exactly the same locations. I am thinking the router is faulty or there is a bug in the firmware. Any thoughts?

[Debbie-TalkTalk]

Hi rgbargey

If you do experience any further issues then please let us know.

Thanks

Debbie

[rgbargey]

Hi Keith, yes that may indeed be true of some of the slow Ookla readings (which initially start at 75 & then dive down to sub 20), but doesn't explain the "can't connect to the internet" messages from my laptop & Alexa, and the fact that I never had these problems with my HUB1 in the exact same position. Anyway I'm happy now that all is working well with separated SSIDs. Thanks for your helpful inputs. 

[KeithFrench]

Obviously, then some of the devices that you expected to be connected to the 5GHz band, were connected to the 2.4GHz. On some devices, you may be able to set a "prefer 5GHz", but it does not mean that they will never connect to the 2.4GHz. 

[Debbie-TalkTalk]

Hi rgbargey

Thanks for your reply.

I'm glad to hear that splitting the SSID's has helped.

If you do experience any further issues following this then please let us know.

Debbie

[rgbargey]

Hi everyone. Here's an update on my slow WiFi on HUB2 with Full Fibre 65. A few hours after switching off WiFi Optimisation, my WiFi speeds again dropped to around 20Mbs with intermittent inability to connect on my WiFi devices (Samsung Galaxy A51, 5 Amazon Echo devices and a Netgear dual band WiFi adapter, so fairly mainstream devices). I obtained and experimented with a third HUB2 (also running SG4K100174 firmware) and got exactly the same behaviour.  So then I set different SSIDs for 2.4GHz and 5GHz. Result! The problem disappeared and I have been getting full 75Mbs WiFi speed with no disconnections on all my devices for the last 24 hours. Interestingly, my neigbour is also with TT on Full Fibre 65 & HUB2 and has not split his SSIDs yet gets full 75Mbs speed from his router. The only difference in our setups are that I use all 4 ethernet outputs (Hive, Desktop, TV and DVR) and have more WiFi devices, whereas he has only 1 wired connection and 3 WiFi devices. Not sure if the overall number of connections is relevant or not, but with my 2 previous HUB1s I didn't split the SSIDs and used all 4 wired connections with the same number of WiFi devices and had no WiFi issues at all from SG4K100136 firmware onwards. So the cause remains a bit of a mystery to me, but if others report the same problem, splitting the SSIDs might be a satisfactory work-around for them too.

[Debbie-TalkTalk]

Hi rgbargey

That's great, I'm glad to hear that the wireless speed has improved.

Debbie 🙂

[rgbargey]

Hi Debbie & Keith, 

I'll report again in 2 days, but since WiFi Optimisation was switched off on my Hub2, I'm getting a consistent 75Mbps on WiFi. So hopefully that was the root cause of my problem. For Keith, I should have made it clearer that in my GF's flat I put her Virgin Hub 3 into modem mode and used it with my old TT router. The FAST 5364  with SG4K 100136 firmware is actually a very decent piece of kit (& vastly superior to the Virgin Hub 3). Again, thanks for the team effort to help me.

[Debbie-TalkTalk]

Hi rgbargey

Thank you 🙂

Debbie

[rgbargey]

Keith, in response to your earlier questions, the signal strength on my SSID (SkyNet) is typically 25-40 dB above other SSIDs,  which makes me discount interference as a possible cause of what I'm experiencing.

[rgbargey]

Thanks Debbie. I'll monitor for a couple of days & report whether it makes a difference or not. And thanks Keith for your advice.

[Debbie-TalkTalk]

Hi rgbargey

Thank you. WIFI optimisation has now been switched off.

Debbie 🙂

[rgbargey]

Debbie, I was logged in to my router, changing the Channel to 6 & 20MHz. Sorry I locked you out, but I'm logged out now. Thanks

[KeithFrench]

That's strange, it does not support modem mode.

Without seeing screenshots from your WiFi analyser, it is diagnostics by guesswork. If you want further help, please PM all available screenshots (AP View, channel graphs & signal strength graphs (over a 5 min period) to me. I don't know which analyser you have, so cannot be more specific, I will also need to identify your SSIDs out of the other graph lines, plus I need to know the name of your SSID.

[rgbargey]

Hi Keith,

My router is not near walls or mirrors. Its on a table in the lounge. I didn't have any problems with my HUB 1  in this position. It was the router out of the box that was using 40MZ bandwidth & chosing Channel 8. The TT router in the flat above my gilfriend's house also does this interchannel double bandwidth stuff automatically as the occupants haven't changed its default settings.  I think its best to stay on 1, 6 or 11 to avoid inter-channel interference on 2.4GHz. A few minutes ago I manually set my router to Channel 6 & 20MHz so will see if that helps. But my phone & laptops are connecting on 5GHz & still have this weird 20Mbps or 75Mbps speed  randomly, but 20MHz more often than 75Mbps. My previous TT router (FAST 5364) was great and always connected at full speed. I took it to my girlfiends house & connected to her Virgin Hub 3 in Modem Mode we get a super steady 280Mbs from it!

[KeithFrench]

Make sure that the 2.4GHz band is set to use 20Mz channel bandwidth only. Allowing it to use 40MHz as it would seem that you are, will use up 9 out of the 11 channels & give you a worse performance. It is not a router design issue as you suggest, but may well be a signal strength issue. What electrical equipment, mirrors, and brick walls are near the router as all of these can affect WiFi signals detrimentally?

[Debbie-TalkTalk]

Hi rgbargey

Is the router all switched on at the moment? I can't connect to it.

[rgbargey]

PS If you can disable WiFi Optimisation remotely, please do this. It sounds worth trying.

[Debbie-TalkTalk]

Hi rgbargey

Thanks for your reply.

If you do need any further help with this on the Community then please let us know.

Debbie

[rgbargey]

Hi Karl and Keith,

Hi Karl/Keith/Michelle,

I've received the replacement HUB2 router and observed its behaviour over 3 days. It is behaving like the the original HUB2, i.e. ethernet outputs are always at the expected speed for Full Fibre 65 (75Mbs down, 19MBs up), but WiFi download speeds seem to be very capricious on both wireless n and ac, being either 75 OR more often 17-20 on ALL my WiFi devices. Upload speeds are consistent at 19Mbs. I have set my 5GHz band to Channel 44 as some of my devices don't recognise Channel 155. My 2.4 GHZ wireless channel is jumping between 6 (on normal bandwidth) and 8 (on double bandwidth). I live in a detached house with very low to zero levels of interference from neighbouring properties visible on my WiFi Analyzer App, so am discounting that as a contributing factor.  I am thinking that maybe it is a design issue with that particular model of HUB2 (FAST5464-2.T4/AV6/C3) or an as yet unrecognised firmware issue. The WiFi is still usable for my level of use, so I don't require any further help. If it worsens I'll use my original TT Sagemcom router or anothe router as a subnet for stable WiFi. and the HUB2 for digital voice and wired connections. Many thanks for your help.

[Michelle-TalkTalk]

Hello,

Great, thank you 🙂

Michelle