Poor consistency of wifi and no help

[Lizzy330]

Messaging here as I feel like Im going round the houses

We have a hub 5, great signal downstairs near the router but we live in a townhouse with an office on the top floor.

The speeds downstairs are 600-800mbps but upstairs struggle to get much more than 35-40. Whats more, the signal becomes intermittent and can drop out for 30 seconds or so before reconnecting, which makes video calls very difficult.

the my connect app says everything is great (last office scan was 32 so it wont do anything) but the intermittant black spots are causing a lot of stress as I work from home

i had an engineer out today to look at moving the router to the office so i could connect the computer via ethernet as the priority tool in the house. The engineer said this was a bad idea as the signal would then be bad downstairs and recommended me to order 3 mesh pods from virgin and told me the best places to put them so i could ethernet into the mesh pod.

However because my wifi signal is supposedly "great" according to the app, Im not being offered that option, im so frustrated, can anyone help me?

thank you

[jbrennand]

A simple solution to the computer issue is to get a pair of powerline adapters and connect one to the Hub and one to the PC on 2 short Cat6a ethernet cables.  See these as an example.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-TL-PA717-KIT-Powerline-Configuration/dp/B07G37DJ8R/

Then for general info - see this..

Do you know if its a wifi only issue (are ethernet connected devices ok?), if it is - then On a Hub3/4/5, you could first try separating the SSID's of the 2.4 and 5 GHz wifi bands by renaming them in the settings At the same time switch off "channel optimisation/Smart wifi” and “ apply and save the settings. All wifi devices will now need reconnecting to the best SSID at each location. Also use a wifi scanning App to find the best wifi channels to use (just select and use channels 1,6,11 on 2.4GHz) - this often helps Hub users get better wifi performance - so its worth trying - but its still no substitute for getting better kit 🙂

To address the wifi issues, VM now supply “wifi Pods” (no longer doing cheap and cheerless and poor value “boosters”). However, their Pods are only free to customers on the 1GB, Volt (or old Ultimate Oomph) packages - is that you? If so they are worth trying - they should work for you. VM Wifi is now “guaranteed” to 30 Mbps/room it’s now called… Wifi Max
See if anything in here helps….

https://www.virginmedia.com/wifi-max

You call 0800 064 3850 to order the first one after scanning for blackspots using the connect App.- or just wait here for a VM person to respond in a day or two and they will sort the first one for you. If you do call dont get fobbed off by the offshore CS agents' saying you aren’t eligible - you are - it is clearly stated on the webpage.

If not free to you… you will be charged £8/month for up to 3 pods (note - BT charge £10/mo for their whole home wifi solution). It’s a simple solution and should work for you. However, you would soon pay off that cost by buying your own wireless solution that will be yours to own and use forever, although the VM Pods should be a simpler option.

If you do want to invest in better equipment, you would need to get either a… (1) Mesh System, (2) Wireless router, (3) Wireless access point, (4) a pair of good quality Wifi Powerline Adaptors, or a combination of (2&3).

£40-100 (that’s ~4->12 months of Max Pod rental) should sort it for most customers with an average property and usage. Spend more for additional advanced“features” - if required.

[Lizzy330]

Hello, thank you for replying.

To answer your questions, it is a wifi only problem, between the router and the office is two floors and a concrete enforced spiral staircase, the engineer said that he was surprised any wifi signal made it to the office. However despite several tests on the app, the lowest its ever said it was is 32 which is above virgins threshold to offer the wifi pods (which is what the engineer said I need) - we are a volt 1GB customer so they would be free for us, but the app wont let me order them, when the signal is disconnecting and i try to run the scan then it just says error so I cant prove it

The engineer said i need 3 wifi pods and told me where to put them, I just cant seem to order them

we have tried powerline in the past but they didnt seem to work for us, im not sure if its because the room where the router is and the room where the office is are on different electrical circuits? We have also tried the channel change and this crashed the internet entirely on channels 6 and 11 so we have stayed on channel 1

I know the wifi pods are our best solution, but virgin make it so hard to order them

[Vinegar]

Lizzy, your very best option is to get an electrician (or at least someone knowledgeable with networking) to run a cat 6 Ethernet cable between the hub and the top floor! Sometimes this is not as bad as it seems and often a fairly inconspicuous route can be found.

Reinforced concrete staircase, and probably floors too, not surprised a WiFi signal won’t carry that far!

Personally, I’m not convinced that Pods will do it, but, hypothetically, if you were to run a test close to the hub and it says all is OK, then move further away, and repeat, until you get a connection in less than 30 Mb/s. At that point you use this to order the pods.

Remember  that the pods are ‘repeaters’ think of it like a bucket chain. You need to position one about half way between the hub and the room in question.

[Lizzy330]

Thanks for replying vinegar

i ran a test next to the hub and got 1148, then moved further away, it doesnt drop too much on the first floor (around 800) but on the office floor its around 30 - 60, the lowest i could get it to was 32, but the issue isnt really the speed its the stability of the wifi at this point, it drops out for 10-15 seconds before reconnecting, which is enough to freeze teams calls etc

Im concerned the pods wont do it which is why i dont want to spend loads buying any kit myself. Husband doesnt want a long ethernet trailing up the bedroom wall (the room on the middle floor) so i want to try the pods first, to see if the signal can be made more stable with them, if that makes sense. the engineer said i needed 3 and told me where to put them, i just need virgin to send them to me - 32 from 1148 should be a good enough reason in my opinion!

[jbrennand]

Re the PA's .. yes they have to be on the same electrical circuit - if they go through the same fuse box/consumer unit they almost certainly will be - even if the up an down stairs circuits have separate circuit breakers/fuses.  Ours do and they work just fine.  If the location of the office is in an attic conversion or similar then the electrician may have added the circuit on a separate CU - easy to see and work out if it has.

Also, they should be plugged directly into the primary wall sockets and NOT into an extension lead or adapter.

Good luck with the pods - a VM person will reply here soon.

Personally I would be running some ethernet cabling from the Hub location to the office - not as difficult as it sounds.

[davethefish]

Im in the same boat in reverse,
my router is upstairs and connect the app says that my kitchen is at 18mbps,
but just tells you to order a wifi pod from your "my virgin media" account online, and "my virgin media" account tells you to order via the app or call them up but the phone line just rings out for hours... sounds like a con to me....😡

[Lizzy330]

It’s getting worse today - the signal downstairs seems fine but upstairs it’s “blipping” either a good signal or nothing at all, not something I can show on the vm connect app but my phone is now switching between wifi and mobile data quite often in the office and the pc keeps disconnecting, requiring a full router reboot to reconnect again 

[Mike2479]

I’m no expert but I had a similar problem and I eventually opted for an access point in a room above the garage where my son sleeps. Wifi was terrible so I paid for someone to install a very lengthy Ethernet cable into a TP link router in his bedroom and the signal is just as good as it is in the living room. Worth every penny tbh. 

[Lizzy330]

Hello mike,

this might be an option, how much did this cost you roughly?