2.4GHz WiFi grinds to a halt / unusable

[philnumbers]

Hello

I have an issue where my 2.4GHz WiFi connections grind to a halt and become unusable.

Ethernet and 5GHz are fine, speedy in fact and have no issues.

As far as I can tell the issue arises when our phones (iPhone 13 and 13 Pro) switch over to a 2.4 connection. Doesn't seem to happen to my Mac Book but maybe that is better at keeping the 5GHz connection?

I have a Hub 3 and have 2.4 & 5 both switched on with everything set to Auto / Enable Channel Optimization - I believe it has to be set like this for my plug in Virgin issued WiFi booster to work properly.

The greyed out channel on 2.4 shows Channel 6, I assume this is the channel it's using even though I can't manually change it. I have a Sonos system with various speakers, that is set to Channel 1.

Is poor 2.4 speed a known issue with Hub 3 and anything I can do to help fix it? I'm trying to get VM on the case but need to try again tomorrow on their chat so thought I'd ask here in the meantime. And I'm talking very slow, like a single simple page will take minutes to load, videos in YT / FB etc won't load.

Cheers

[philnumbers]

Overall it's mostly fine but still had a couple of instances of it slowing down so having to switch off WiFi on the phone and use 4G. Reconnecting to WiFi a while later and it works again.

[David_Bn]

Thanks for the update @philnumbers.

Can you please confirm if you've since been able to set up a broadband quality monitor to keep tabs on the status of the connection?

Thanks

David_Bn

[philnumbers]

No, I haven't set up a monitor yet because tbh I don't feel like I should have to. I'm paying for a service which doesn't appear to be working properly, it would be nice if Virgin looked into fixing it for me / replacing equipment if it isn't working properly rather than me having to contact them via a forum, I couldn't get through by phone or online / WhatsApp chat.

I'll reluctantly try and set one up now.

[Carley_S]

This would be very useful for us to investigate this further as we cannot see any issues at our side that might be causing your concern. 

Once you've set this up, please post the live link and we can check this in real time to see if there is any further we can support with. 

[philnumbers]

I've given up and bought a TP-Link Deco Mesh system, Hub 3 is now in Modem mode.
Only been running for 24hrs but initial impressions seems to be that all my wireless issues have gone away.

Here you go though, I've just set this up to monitor what I think it the right address 

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/6e5c90cc937133e989ffe1fdc8ef394f5a8ce4f2

[philnumbers]

Not sure if the first one worked...

Monitor 

[Sephiroth]

Modem mode won’t let you down (the Hub 3 might!).  A decent mesh system, with the right topology is always the best solution versus the stupid tied Pods that VM peddle and which totally destroy your ability to configure the separate wireless bands.  

The BQM displayed OK; however the underlying latency (the green bit) is rather high.  It might be explained by the Hub 3 and its crappy CPU (your network logs may show panic/Atom messages).  The Forum Team did ask for the BQM so I heartily recommend that you ask them about the latency.

Of course, they’ll tell you to put the Hub into router mode so that the BQM talks to the Hub not the TP-Link router.  You could pre-empt this by running the system for a day in router mode with the TP-Link router attached and set to Bridge Mode (or equivalent).  Then the Hub is doing all the work and the BQM (different IP address) would tell us if the high latency is down to your TP-Link router (as in if latency is lower, the router settings need examining).

Keep us posted.

[Ashleigh_C]

Hi there @philnumbers 

Thank you for updating for us, I have checked and can see the BQM looks to be healthy, how have things been with your connection since this post? 

As Sephiroth has mentioned we do advise switching to router mode so we can run full checks on the Hub on our side?

[philnumbers]

Hi Ashleigh_C

Thanks for the reply, the connection has been great since I have stopped relying on the Hub wifi & using the mesh system.

I'm not sure how switching back to router mode would help tbh, as far as I understand it the BQM only tests as far as my router and doesn't monitor the connection between my router and any devices connected to it - please correct me if I'm wrong though? As noted my ping delay might be a bit on the high side.

It's disappointing that your Hub 3 (or at least my Hub 3!) isn't up to the task of the promised "WiFi Guarantee with WiFi Max" even with your plug in extenders. Can I request that you credit the £100 to my next bill please, as detailed here https://www.virginmedia.com/virgin-tv-edit/tips-and-tricks/boost-your-wifi-with-virgin-media-intelli...

Here's a typical speed test that I've been experiencing recently, before switching to modem mode and installing the mesh system. Many times though the speed has been down into single figures and sometimes losing internet connection entirely despite still being connected to the WiFi with a strong signal.

[philnumbers]

And for completeness here is another speed test from the same phone, later in the day using the Tp-Link mesh.

This is NOT using the Hub WiFi.