Microsoft Teams calls and wifi dropping frequently

[ee51eue]

For several weeks we have suffered with laptops (connected via wifi) suffering from frequent WiFi drops and frustratingly, being put 'on hold' on various Teams conference calls (video and/or voice) which then auto reconnects some ~30secs later.

Having called sky they have stated we have too many wifi devices connected (28-32) depending on if kids are home or not.

We havent added any devices or using our WiFi differently over the past weeks, so this doesnt seem to stack up.

We have 'the latest' router in our hallway. Sky Q in lounge. Several mini's in kitchen/bedrooms. Plus a booster upstairs. 

We have Sky Broadband Superfast. Whenever I run service checker there have been no issues flagged.

All thoughts/suggestions gratefully recieved.

Router Statistics

System Up Time: 519:43:03

Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collision Pkts Tx b/s Rx b/s Up Time WAN MER 50168179 123376307 0 56484 49353 164:50:15 LAN Up 244291177 162886789 38 647626 227757 519:43:03 WLAN (2.4 GHz) Up 30377716 28583167 0 39716 5872 519:41:03 WLAN (5 GHz) Up 307184677 179714590 0 0 0 519:40:49

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Broadband Link Downstream Upstream Connection Speed 79999 kbps 20000 kbps Line Attenuation D1(11.9 dB) , D2(26.1 dB) , D3(37.6 dB) U0(3.8 dB) , U1(19.3 dB) , U2(28.6 dB) Noise Margin 4.5 dB 11.3 dB

[Chrisee]

@ee51eue therecdoes not appear to be anything wrong with the connection from your hub to the internet.

When you say you have "several minis" exactly how many do you have? Counting the hub, the main Q box, Sky boosters and Q minis where the number of Sky mesh devices gets to around 8 the mesh wifi system starts to struggle. Unplugging some coud improve stability.

Having lots of wifi devices is not a significant issue as it depends on what is active when you are on a Teams call. The weak point is normally upload with video conferencing but you have 20Mb/s available but of course ideally you would use an ethernet link for work purposes.

[Highlinder]

@ee51eue  Going by your stats that you have provided  the last drop was 164 hours ago on the connection.  Is it happening very frequently and is it all devices or just the device that you are on that is dropping out?

[ee51eue]

1x router

1x Sky Q box

1x Booster

4x mini's, with 1 connected via cat 6 ethernet to router as it's in our garden office

The devices we specifically struggle with are our 2x laptops. 

Eg if we were on a Teams call at the same time, without fail 1 or both of us would be placed on hold for at least 30secs whilst Teams tries to auto reconnect us

[TimmyBGood]

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@ee51eue wrote:

1x router

1x Sky Q box

1x Booster

4x mini's

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As @Chrisee indicates, that's not ideal.  Q uses an early mesh implementation (based on proprietary technology going back to 2015), and such a number of nodes isn't great for other device use.

[ee51eue]

Sure. However, this isn't a new setup. We have only recently been having these issues and this number of Sky products has been the case for over 2 years....

What are the alternatives?

As given recent experience, I am paying (a lot) for a service which doesn't work at the key times I need it too.  

[Chrisee]

@ee51eue cheapest solution would assuming your laptops have ethernet ports is to buy a chaep 5 port unmanaged ethernet switch connect that to the Cat 6 and connect the laptops and the mini to the switch.

[jamesn123]

@ee51eue 

Sometimes a simple power cycle can fix the issues. Your router has been up for 500+ hours so might be worth giving the whole network a reboot (This includes switching off all Sky boxes).

[GSherd]

Hi, did you get this resolved? I'm having the very same issues. 3 broadband engineers, 2 open reach and 1 tv engineers and all I'm being told is devise management. Very same story as you! 

[Chrisee]

@GSherd there are limits to the power of Sky hubs but as each case is different can you post your hub's stats and some details of the devices you are using and whstvsymtoms you are getting.