I have been on quite a journey today (Saturday).
This morning, on occasions I had less than 1Mbps download speed on the WiFi connection. Repeatedly, after I managed to improve the speed by changing channels and/or switching WiFi adapter, the speed subsequently dropped again.
With it being so bad, I moved out of the study (upstairs) to the kitchen which is adjacent to the dining room where the modem/router is connected to the master socket, so that I could connect via ethernet.
However, there was an issue to resolve. When I went live on Fibre 65, I connected to the router via ethernet in order to make changes to the router settings, and I noticed the internet connection dropped frequently, whereas just an hour prior to that the same computer was connected to the internet via ethernet using a Huawei HG533 without any issues. At the time, I assumed there was just a temporary blip. Today, I now know that was not the case, because the frequent disconnections still occurred.
I followed Microsoft Support suggestions for fixing ethernet connection problems, running various network commands, and even doing a network reset, unfortunately with no effect. Then I made some changes to the ethernet adapter Advanced properties in Device Manager. Something that I changed resolved the connection issue. I still don't know why any change was necessary, as it was previously working with the Huawei HG533.
That aside, with the connection in sync at 45.8Mbps the download speed was 42Mbps. The next step was to achieve that in the study rather than the kitchen.
At this point I have to say "WELL DONE TALKTALK", because the WiFi booster (mesh extender) ordered on Friday, i.e. just the day before, turned up.
I followed the setup instructions provided in the box with the booster, and quickly realised that the instructions did not match the hardware. The instructions were for the 266 V1 whereas the booster I received is a 266 V2. Then I followed the instructions for the V2 here https://community.talktalk.co.uk/t5/Articles/Setting-up-and-positioning-your-Wi-Fi-Booster/ta-p/2920.... That did not work, but then I realised it may be that it uses the 5GHz band that I had disabled in the router settings.
Re-enabling the 5GHz band was not as straightforward as it ought to be. I went to http://192.168.1.1/2.0/gui/#/wifi/5GHz/priv/basic, changed the button next to 'Enable 5 GHz Wireless' from OFF to ON, and clicked on the Apply button. After that the status of the 5GHz band still showed as DOWN rather than UP. Puzzled, I went back to http://192.168.1.1/2.0/gui/#/simple/wifi where the switch for 5GHz was green, yet the status was shown as Disabled. Clicking on the switch caused it to momentarily change to the off position before it returned to the on position again with no effect on the status, which remained at Disabled. The solution was to go back to http://192.168.1.1/2.0/gui/#/wifi/5GHz/priv/basic, change the button next to 'Enable 5 GHz Wireless' to OFF, then return to http://192.168.1.1/2.0/gui/#/simple/wifi, and switch the 5GHz band on. That appears to be a bug, which should be reported to the firmware development team, if it has not already been reported to them. It is possible that it is the bug that Keith French refers to here: https://community.talktalk.co.uk/t5/Broadband/WiFi-disabled-from-hub-WiFi-hub-disabled-does-not-acti.... However, he does say that the way to resolve the bug he is aware of is to do a reset to factory settings, which I did not find necessary in the cas of the issue I identified.
With that resolved, I reposition the booster a few times, ultimately locating it in the study, resulting in a dramatic increase in the 2.4GHz signal strength at the laptop. I disabled and enabled the laptop WiFi a few times, and on one occasion it connected to the lower signal strength 2.4GHz from the router rather than the much stronger signal from the booster.
Subsequently, I connected the laptop to the booster with the ethernet cable. So, finally after some hours, I have a consistent download speed of 42Mbps on my laptop in the study.
When connected via ethernet directly o the router, I noticed that the TalkTalk Speed Checker simply reported that there were no devices connected via WiFi. It is only recently that I have used this particular speed checker. I am surprised to see that it does not appear to provide a result for devices connected via ethernet.
When connected via ethernet to the booster, I noticed that the router UI dashboard reports (in red font) that no devices are connected, even though the booster (extender) is connected to it, as is shown in the 5GHz band WiFi Mesh overview, where the devices connected to the extender are also shown. At the very least, I expected the extender to be shown as a connected device on the UI dashboard. I noticed an issue with the 5GHz band WiFi Mesh overview, in that it is still showing a device that has long since been disconnected.
These issues aside, I am pleased to finally obtain the expected download speed to my laptop. Long may it continue!
Thank you TalkTalk, in particular thank you to the TalkTalk Community staff for your assistance. Yodel did well too, delivering in less than 24 hours for a 48 hour service.
