2.4GHz WiFi terribly slow and sometimes not working

[Kiu]

I am using 300M plan. I have split my Wifi network to 2.4GHz and 5Ghz, with different SSID

2.4GHz WiFi can have download speed of average 3Mbps, which is terribly slow. Sometimes even can’t detect the Wifi signal

5GHz WiFi is working fine, which can have download speed >300Mbps

[Adri_G]

Hello Kiu, thanks for posting on our help forum and welcome to our community.
We're sorry to hear about the slow speeds issue, we'd love to best assist you.

Firstly, to accurately measure the speeds to your hub this would require a speed test ran on a hard-wired connection (ethernet) directly to the router and all other devices disconnected.
Could you please advise if any performance or speed related issues come up when doing this?

Also, since you have split your 2G and 5G bands using the 2G to connect your device please be aware that the main features of this frequency are that it offers slow speed but reliable signal strength while the 5G can go over 100MB speeds (and up to 1Gig) but won't have a strong signal far from the hub.

We don't recommend in general to split your hub bands as our hubs use a smart Wi Fi feature allowing your devices to switch automatically to the best frequency available depending on the device location and signal levels.
Can you please advise what type of hub you're using (hub 3, 4 or 5) so we can confirm what the suggested settings are to get the most of your Wi Fi and speeds?
Let us know more and we're happy to help.

[Kiu]

I am using hub3.

I have couple of smart devices (e.g. door bell, web cam, smart bulbs etc), which only support 2.4GHz . Which is a common question here I found from other users. Other than splitting the WiFi signal into 2.4 and 5, could you advise any other way to connect those smart devices?

My 2.4GHz WiFi signal is not only slow, but also with very small coverage area which doesn’t make sense. 2.4GHz should be reaching a longer distance than 5GHz

My hub3 is placed inside living room, my porch is just next to living room and around 4m from the hub. In my porch I can only receive 5GHz but not 2.4GHz WiFi

And both the 2 WiFi signal are not stable, sometimes the signal disappears even I am staying in the same place.

[Adri_G]

Hey Kiu, thanks for this reply and for explaining more on this.

Please, allow us to explain if your channel optimisation is on your Wi Fi will broadcast both 2G and 5G at the best channels possible so you get the most of your wireless network.
When the hub is set to this value, your devices will pick up the signal and connect (if a device is only 2G capable then it will be able to go on that frequency automatically).

Can you please confirm if you've tried this and if it made any difference to your connections?
Also, we can run a few more checks to see if you have a weak/blind spot in the porch or other rooms of your property as these usually require a signal booster to resolve 
(what we call Wi Fi Intelligent Pods in our case, please have a read here for more on how this works).

Drop outs and intermittencies are usually an effect of long-term coverage issues as if your Wi Fi signal quality is low this may have an impact to the overall performance in the long run.
Let us know if the above helps with your issue and give us a shout if you wish us to give you a hand with the Wi Fi pods.
Always glad to assist! 🙂

[Client62]

I have a Hub3 also and the 2.4Ghz coverage can be affected by the Hub selecting to operate on
Channel 1 which is the the most congested channel in this area due to it been full of VM Hubs.

To address this I have Disabled Channel Optimisation and Manually
set the Channel to 6 a generally free channel.

About once a week I check that the Hub 3 is still on Channel 6 and if it has
wandered off back to Channel 1 I reset it to Channel 6.

Why does the Hub 3 wander 2.4 Ghz channels ? VM are totally silent on this issue.

[Kiu]

At the very beginning I have tried using the default setting, combining the 2.4GHz and 5GHz and selected optimization. All my 2.4G equipments were not able to do the pairing. That’s why I read this forum and saw many users advice of splitting the 2 bandwidths to make it work.

Combining the 2 bandwidth can provide a better alternative when either bandwidth is not strong enough. But it won’t tell which one is weak/ strong. The most scientific way to identify the root cause is splitting the 2 bandwidths and test it individually. After my tests I found the root cause is 2.4GHz cannot reach 4m distance to my porch, which is not reasonable and not acceptable.

Could you explain from technical perspective, how far can a 2.4GHz wifi reaching under the hardware and service provided by your company?

Also by splitting the bandwidths I noticed that both 2.4GHz and 5Ghz wifi are not stable. We are using laptop and mobile phones in the same living room as the hub3.  Even we don’t move the wifi signal will disappear few times a day. And sometimes wifi is connected but it is showing no access to internet.

Could you please arrange engineer to verify on-site and possibly prepare another hub to swap in case there is hardware issue confirmed from my hub3?

[Client62]

The Hub's WiFi signal may well be lot stronger than the signal from the Ring door bell, so the Ring door bell
may be able to receive the Hub signal. But can the Ring door bell out on the porch transmit back to the Hub.

Install a WiFi analyser app on your mobile phone, this will allow you to see the signal coverage from your Hub for 2.4Ghz & 5Ghz signals.

We do not have spit SSIDs for 2.4GHz and 5Ghz, I understand some people do, but from a technical perspective
I have not seen any explanations as to why a 2.4Ghz only device can be affected by a 5Ghz signal that it does not receive.

I could accept there might be a WiFi defect where a Hub fails to connect the 2.4Ghz channels when the SSID
is shared with 5GHz.  But this does not apply to our Hub 3, it accepts 2.4Ghz connections.

[Kiu]

Thanks for your sharing. I have tried your solution, setting 2.4GHz wifi to “manual” channel and selecting “channel 4”. Then the WiFi can really reach 4m distance to my porch for door bell and web cam, also providing more stable connection and faster speed (around 18Mbps). Applying the same setting to my 5GHz WiFi also result in more stable connection.

Unfortunately this setting only kept for 2days. When I noticed my door bell and web cam are disconnected again, I checked the hub3 wifi setting is reset to default as “auto” channel for both 2.4GHz and 5GHz. Possibly that means the hub3 is not operating properly and may need a replacement unit from Virgin

Finally did you manage to have Virgin engineer to fix it or to change a new hub for you?

[Zoie_P]

Hi Kui, 

Thank you for your post and I am sorry about your connection issues, I have taken a look at our systems and can see your WiFi devices are at capacity, could you do a reboot to see if this helps?

Also, do you have any wired devices?

Zoie

[Kiu]

Hi Zoie,

I have rebooted both my equipments and the hub3 few times at the very beginning of the issue, rebooting doesn’t help with the connection issue.

Regarding your concern of capacity, at the beginning I only connected 2 devices door bell and web cam to 2.4GHz, but the issue still persist.

And I also took advice from other users to set 2.4GHz WiFi channel as “manual” and “channel 4”. It does help to provide stronger and more stable signal. But then another issue happened, hub3 automatically reset this setting back to “auto” channel every 2 days, which restores the very weak wifi signal and make my wireless devices disconnected again.