Virgin Media WiFi

[neager543]

Hello,

On Wednesday we had a new Virgin Media WIFI router installed. Our contract offers a minimum speed of 100mbps and a maximum of 200mbps.

The WiFi Networks are split into 2.4HZ and 5HZ. I have ran speed tests on both networks from the same device.

The 2.4HZ network is getting speeds of between 0.28mbps and 27mbps where as the 5HZ network is getting between 150mbps and 207mpbs.

We have contacted Virgin who are sending a “WIFI Pod” out today but I wonder if anyone had any solutions to the speed discrepancy between the two networks?

Thanks

[jbrennand]

The 2.4 band is always slower (Physics) and subject to fluctuations.

For example, my Macbook Air and iPhone7 both get 220mbps on my Vivid200 wifi connection (and 220 on ethernet of course). However, on wifi, they only get that when I put them onto the 5GHz network. Sat in the same spot if I then flick them over to the 2.4GHz network, they max out at 50-60mbps (others on here get even lower [<50] on their set ups) - it's just the limitations of the technology!

That said your speed fluctuations on 2.4 may be due to other issues such as interference. As well as separating the bands did you disable/turn off smart wifi to disable "channel optimisation" - if not try that first as channel hopping can "confuse" some devices

Also, use a wifi analyser App (or Airport Utility on iOS) to check which 2.4 channels are being heavily used around you and move yours to one of numbers 1,6,11 that is least so, but it wont help if there is other interference from external sources (radio, microwaves, TV's etc)

[g0akc]

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@neager543 wrote:

Hello,

On Wednesday we had a new Virgin Media WIFI router installed. Our contract offers a minimum speed of 100mbps and a maximum of 200mbps.

The WiFi Networks are split into 2.4HZ and 5HZ. I have ran speed tests on both networks from the same device.

The 2.4HZ network is getting speeds of between 0.28mbps and 27mbps where as the 5HZ network is getting between 150mbps and 207mpbs.

We have contacted Virgin who are sending a “WIFI Pod” out today but I wonder if anyone had any solutions to the speed discrepancy between the two networks?

Thanks

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That will be 2.4 GHz and 5GHz - you won't get far with 2.4Hz and 5Hz !

The speed is only guaranteed to your hub (so the line into your house) not the wired or wireless within the house.

It's already been covered well in the earlier reply.  The chances are there's some local interference, including your neighbours WiFi, particularly on 2.4GHz which is a crowded band.

You can try using an analyser as suggested, and try changing channels, keeping to 1,6 or 11 on 2.4GHz to avoid overlapping.

Getting your own better wireless router or mesh system and using the hub in modem mode may also help.  Moving to WiFi 6 is also likely to provide improvements - depending on the capabilities of your devices.

[Tudor]

The 2.4GHz WiFi band is extremely congested. At home is can see over 100 SSIDs transmitting on this band. Where possible always use an Ethernet cable or the 5GHz band.