Fluctuating Wi-Fi speeds

[bridgie91]

I upgraded from Ultrafast 1  to Full Fibre 300 a few months ago, and ever since then I've been having issues with massively fluctuating speeds in some rooms of the house. The room with the biggest issues is my office, where speeds fluctuate between 100+ Mbps and 1 Mbps.

When I had Ultrafast 1, everything was fine speed-wise once Sky sent me a booster (it had been patchy before that). No major fluctuations, usually 100+ Mbps in my office. Ever since the upgrade, it's been massively up and down (and sometimes dropping out entirely).

Sky sent me a new hub, but I had the same issue, so I went back to the old one to avoid having to connect everything back up with the new password. So nothing has changed with my home set-up apart from the upgrade to Full Fibre 300. I tried splitting the 2.4 and 5 Ghz channels to see if that would help - it's better, but definitely not fixed.

Sky support has been pretty useless and suggested I upgrade to Wi-Fi Max, but I don't think I need this, considering I've previously had very stable Wi-Fi speeds without it.

A couple more things to mention - the speeds in my office seem to be more stable (but not perfect) on my phone compared to my laptop. Also, when I look at the devices connected to my hub/booster on the Service Checker, it still thinks I have a TP-Link RE705X extender connected, despite me having got rid of that when Sky sent me the booster. Not sure if that's relevant, but thought I might as well mention it!

[bridgie91]

Just bumping this for visibility

[JimM1]

@bridgie91 Service checker should show you both the Sky hub and the sky booster connections, the serial numbers off both devices and what is connected to where. If you are NOT seeing that all correctly then you have something all mixed up! When you went FF from your G.Fast connection did your old SR203 hub move by much or not at all. The SE210 booster 3 Green lights on it and were do you have that sitting!

[bridgie91]

Thanks for the reply, Jim!

Service Checker shows both my hub and booster, both with the correct serial numbers. I've just had a look, and it now says the TP-Link extender is connected to the booster but not the hub (as I said, I got rid of the TP-Link over a year ago so I'm not sure how that's possible!).

My hub hasn't moved at all since the upgrade and is the same one as before. The booster has three green lights and is in the room directly above the hub, about halfway between the hub and my office. As I said, all was working fine with this exact setup previously, and the slow speeds are only intermittent.

[bridgie91]

My theory is that it's an intermittent problem with the booster, i.e. sometimes the booster cuts out and then my laptop connects directly to the hub to keep the connection. Might that be a possibility?

[JimM1]

@bridgie91 Since you split the bands on the hub, did you ever reset the booster and pair it back on the sky Hub!

[bridgie91]

I think I've reset it since then, but I'll do it again now just to make sure. Thanks!

[JimM1]

@bridgie91 Just take the booster and sit it next to the sky hub, WPS on the hub first orange light will flash on the hub button, wps on the booster next, will take a good up to five minutes for the two devices to get together, all 3 green lights will appear on the booster, JUST leave it another 5 minutes to all settle and stay connected. Move it back to the position you had it in, power it on and watch it as it reboots, Power up, wire;ess wifi goes up, and finally middle connection up and all three green lights again!

The sky hub and the booster remembers every connection that has ever been made on the hub, that maybe why you are still seeing the old Tp-Link reference as a connected device from once upon a time it was doing what your SE210 is now! If not then what else do you have as a possible transmitting wireless wi-fi device if anything!

[bridgie91]

Still getting the fluctuating speeds, unfortunately. I think the problem is more complicated than simply resetting the devices, as I've tried all the usual troubleshooting steps.

The Wi-Fi Service Checker usually only shows the devices that are currently connected to the hub/booster, so it's very odd that the TP-Link is still showing as connected when it hasn't been for over a year!

[JimM1]

@bridgie91 See if this explanation helps, the sky hub gets 300Mb/s when you are on the hub direct and if your device can do it, you throw the SE210 in the mix, and when connected to that 150Mb/s, now you go 20foot through say a brick wall or two, still connected to the SE210 booster and the speed drops down to 50Mb/s. 

The SE210 is NOT a mesh system it's a stop/start wireless connection you send it recieves, it then sends down to the hub it recieves so back and forth it all goes!

Faster you go as you jumped up the FF to the 300Mb/s then the more you will see the failings off the old booster operation. IT IS NOT a mesh system!

[bridgie91]

It would make sense if the speed in my office was constantly poor, but it's sometimes 100+Mbps and will then just plummet for a while. So I know that my current setup is capable of delivering the speeds I need everywhere in the house, but something is making them drop every now and then.

As I said before as well, everything was working absolutely fine until a few months ago.

[JimM1]

@bridgie91 Going to be a process of elimination then for you, if everything that is connectiong to the booster is droping then go new SE210 as you hub swapout did nothing, but it takes only one rouge wireless device to cause an issue grabbing the connection, by chance do you happen to have sky Q and sky mini also!

[bridgie91]

Thanks, will try to get a new booster from Sky. Yes, I have Sky Q with a mini box. Actually, now that you mention it, I was sent a new Sky Q box back in July, which I think roughly aligns with when I started experiencing problems. Do you think it's possible that the Sky Q box could be affecting things? I'll try unplugging the Sky Q box to see if that helps.

[JimM1]

@bridgie91 And the answer to that is YES! so switch it off to start with and see if the network holds true and steady. You may have the hotspot feature turned on and now the wireless wi-fi signal is a complete mess!

[bridgie91]

It definitely is the Sky Q box that's causing the issues, so thanks very much for helping me figure that out! However, I've just had a new box delivered, and it's the same problem again. Any ideas how to solve this? The hotspot feature isn't enabled on the box.