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Odd issue with intelligent WiFi pods

shahidpadhani
Joining in

We have a couple of wifipods at home to get internet throughout the house but are coming across some odd issues with them.

A number of times a week the connection in areas covered by the wifipods starts behaving weirdly. The connection speed (fast.com) drops to 2.5kbps and i cant access most websites. However, google works fine, and i can video call and be on a remote desktop at my work without issue (obviously these need more than a 2.5kbps speed).

If i take my laptop next to the router then it works fine - suggesting the issue is probably related to do with wifipods

Restarting individual wifipods does not seem to fix this problem, but restarting the router does. This can be pretty inconvenient and i was wondering if anyone knows what the problem could be / had a similar problem and knows how to fix it.

Router is a hub4 if that helps

Thanks

Shahid

 

8 REPLIES 8

legacy1
Alessandro Volta
Just another one of VM problems with the hubs and pods best to use the hub in modem mode get your own router with 1Gb ports and send the pods back.

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Andrew-G
Alessandro Volta

The pods use Plume wifi's proprietary technology, with the hub running Plume router emulation.  The system performs automatic optimisation via Plume's servers which has previously been reported by some as briefly disrupting user performance (and probably sends all your browsing data back to Plume to be sold on).   I would hazard a guess* that the performance issue is related to an optimisation routine running repeatedly.  Why that might be the case I don't know, nor what you can do to change it.  One option is to buy your own mesh wifi setup outright (from £100), put the hub in modem mode and return the pods.  But if you get the pods free with your package then that may seem unattractive, and you'll have to see what VM can advise.  With VM's world famous customer service I wouldn't want to make any prediction on the outcome, and anything related to wifi tends to get even poorer than average responses.

* An alternative guess is that the hub itself is struggling to communicate with VM's system, and you're only noticing the problem over wifi.  If you're confident that the problem is specific to the pods then this is less likely.  Take a look at the hub's status data, if there's either post-RS errors on the downstream, or there's multiple T3 counts on the upstream, or the network log has a good spattering of T3 timeouts, Partial Service or Sync errors then that would be a dodgy broadband connection.  

Zach_R
Forum Team
Forum Team

Hi @shahidpadhani,

Thank you for your post and welcome to our community forums. We're here to help.

I am very sorry to hear that you're having some problems with your Wi-Fi Pods lately. Are these ongoing for you today?

If so, can you please confirm if you've followed these troubleshooting tips to see if they help alleviate the problem at all?


Thanks,
 


Zach - Forum Team
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@Zach_R wrote:

Hi @shahidpadhani,

Thank you for your post and welcome to our community forums. We're here to help.

I am very sorry to hear that you're having some problems with your Wi-Fi Pods lately. Are these ongoing for you today?

If so, can you please confirm if you've followed these troubleshooting tips to see if they help alleviate the problem at all?


Thanks,
 


They are not happening right this minute but they are still occuring intermittently. Normally the issue pops up 3-4 times a week. I've gone throught the troubleshooting tips but they haven't changed the behaviour as far as i can tell.


@Andrew-G wrote:

The pods use Plume wifi's proprietary technology, with the hub running Plume router emulation.  The system performs automatic optimisation via Plume's servers which has previously been reported by some as briefly disrupting user performance (and probably sends all your browsing data back to Plume to be sold on).   I would hazard a guess* that the performance issue is related to an optimisation routine running repeatedly.  Why that might be the case I don't know, nor what you can do to change it.  One option is to buy your own mesh wifi setup outright (from £100), put the hub in modem mode and return the pods.  But if you get the pods free with your package then that may seem unattractive, and you'll have to see what VM can advise.  With VM's world famous customer service I wouldn't want to make any prediction on the outcome, and anything related to wifi tends to get even poorer than average responses.

* An alternative guess is that the hub itself is struggling to communicate with VM's system, and you're only noticing the problem over wifi.  If you're confident that the problem is specific to the pods then this is less likely.  Take a look at the hub's status data, if there's either post-RS errors on the downstream, or there's multiple T3 counts on the upstream, or the network log has a good spattering of T3 timeouts, Partial Service or Sync errors then that would be a dodgy broadband connection.  


Yeah theres nothing in the status data along those lines, so i think that only makes me more sure its the pods themselves. 

As you say the option to get our own mesh network is less appealing as we get the wifipods included on our packages - but i guess if it continues to be an issue it might be a good option for us to consider. 

 

Hayley_S
Forum Team (Retired)
Forum Team (Retired)

Hello @shahidpadhani,

 

Thank you for confirming this, can you please set up a BMQ chart? Then monitor the drops in connectivity for the next 24hours?

 

Many thanks,

Hayley
Forum Team



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I set up a BMQ chart (see below) but then the issue didnt happen again until today. Chart is below. The problem was occuring between 10 and 11am, after which i restarted the router to fix the problem (the packet drop at ~11am is because the router was switched off and on again at this time).

At least to me, nothing on the chart suggests its a problem with the fibre connection itself? which once again makes me think it is to do with the wifi-pods themselves.

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/218edc6d1e9113e1fdc562bc0e7a40eb5c8f51fd-04-11-2021

 

Zak_M
Forum Team (Retired)
Forum Team (Retired)

Good morning @shahidpadhani

 

I have managed to locate your account,  I have run some diagnostics & I can see that you are currently suffering with some downstream power level issues.  We are going to need to get an engineer to put this right. 

 

I will pop you over a PM now so that I can confirm your address. 

 

Kind regards,

Zak_M