[Help] BT Fibre - rubbish router

[jcdenton08]

Some advice please! I appreciate this post is a bit long but I want to give as much info as possible to avoid obvious answers.

We moved from copper Broadband to BT Fibre 500 unlimited a few weeks ago and are having issues. The connection right next to the router is superb and clocking 450mbs download and 60mbs upload in the same (small) room as the router.

One room over in the second bedroom (one brick supporting wall) approx 7-10ft from the router this drops to approx 300mbs/30-40mbs.

However, the living room (approx 10-15ft, one brick and one dividing wall away) it drops down to 10-12mbs/2-3mbs. It does this across all devices, phones, tablets, laptop etc.

On our old copper connection, the router was approximately 2ft from its current location and ran a steady 120-150mb everywhere in the flat, without drops.

Initially speaking to BT technical support, they made me perform a reset and saw no obvious faults, but agreed that the router’s output was below what was expected. They compensated me £20 and posted another router out and told me to send the old one back.

They told me if the new router performed the same, my only option was to pay an extra £15 a month for “EE Complete Wi-Fi” and transfer across to EE, as BT are migrating all their services across to them. This would be a rise of £15 per month from £34.99 I agreed for 18 months only three weeks ago.

The replacement router has been exactly the same.

Basically, they said the “Complete Wi-Fi” package comes with discs to improve signal (never, ever needed these before in our one-level small flat) and a better router.

I asked why can’t I have the “better router” and they said it’s not for BT customers. I pointed out the service as sold isn’t working.

Where do I stand on this and what would you suggest going forward?

Many thanks!!!

 

[Mustafa II]

You can fight with customer services and demand to get their "complete wi-fi" for free for the reasons you mentioned, or buy your own router, or even better install a mesh system.

 

[jcdenton08]

You can fight with customer services and demand to get their "complete wi-fi" for free for the reasons you mentioned, or buy your own router, or even better install a mesh system.

Thanks for your reply. I’ve got to be honest I’m not hugely technical and thought having fibre installed would be the same thing, just faster, but it’s turned into a bit of a nuisance as I’m having to do work on my laptop on my bed. I’m going to get back onto BT this afternoon and kick off a little about the complete Wi-Fi.

Any more input from my learned friends is welcome…

 

[Mustafa II]

Thanks for your reply. I’ve got to be honest I’m not hugely technical and thought having fibre installed would be the same thing, just faster, but it’s turned into a bit of a nuisance as I’m having to do work on my laptop on my bed. I’m going to get back onto BT this afternoon and kick off a little about the complete Wi-Fi.

Any more input from my learned friends is welcome…

It sounds as if one of two things have happened:

1) The new routers wi-fi performance is shitter than the old one.
2) The new router is set to a channel that you're sharing with the neighbours (I would have thought customer services would have advised how to change this).

Knowing these greedy companies, I would wager it is number 1) and your old router was better.

If it is number 2), most of the time routers change channels when they restart (but not always). You can try changing it manually to confirm.

I think your next step should be downloading a wi-fi strength app on your phone to get an idea of what's going on in your flat.

I went through a similar thing in my flat. I ended up investing in a mesh system which basically guarantees flawless wi-fi wherever you need it.

 

[jcdenton08]

It sounds as if one of two things have happened:

1) The new routers wi-fi performance is shitter than the old one.
2) The new router is set to a channel that you're sharing with the neighbours (I would have thought customer services would have advised how to change this).

Knowing these greedy companies, I would wager it is number 1) and your old router was better.

If it is number 2), most of the time routers change channels when they restart (but not always). You can try changing it manually to confirm.

I think your next step should be downloading a wi-fi strength app on your phone to get an idea of what's going on in your flat.

I went through a similar thing in my flat. I ended up investing in a mesh system which basically guarantees flawless wi-fi wherever you need it.

Awesome advice. Thanks a lot mate. I’ll get onto this.

 

[Papak]

I have 6 x Deco P9s (bought as 2 sets of 3) which cover my whole (quite large) property and also the detached garage:

https://cpc.farnell.com/deco-from-tp-link

They use a combination of WiFi and your home's power cables to distribute the service. You can also plug an ethernet cable into them (2 ports per P9).

 

[AmexRuislip]

Some advice please! I appreciate this post is a bit long but I want to give as much info as possible to avoid obvious answers.

We moved from copper Broadband to BT Fibre 500 unlimited a few weeks ago and are having issues. The connection right next to the router is superb and clocking 450mbs download and 60mbs upload in the same (small) room as the router.

One room over in the second bedroom (one brick supporting wall) approx 7-10ft from the router this drops to approx 300mbs/30-40mbs.

However, the living room (approx 10-15ft, one brick and one dividing wall away) it drops down to 10-12mbs/2-3mbs. It does this across all devices, phones, tablets, laptop etc.

On our old copper connection, the router was approximately 2ft from its current location and ran a steady 120-150mb everywhere in the flat, without drops.

Initially speaking to BT technical support, they made me perform a reset and saw no obvious faults, but agreed that the router’s output was below what was expected. They compensated me £20 and posted another router out and told me to send the old one back.

They told me if the new router performed the same, my only option was to pay an extra £15 a month for “EE Complete Wi-Fi” and transfer across to EE, as BT are migrating all their services across to them. This would be a rise of £15 per month from £34.99 I agreed for 18 months only three weeks ago.

The replacement router has been exactly the same.

Basically, they said the “Complete Wi-Fi” package comes with discs to improve signal (never, ever needed these before in our one-level small flat) and a better router.

I asked why can’t I have the “better router” and they said it’s not for BT customers. I pointed out the service as sold isn’t working.

Where do I stand on this and what would you suggest going forward?

Many thanks!!!

We live in a 1 bedroom house, with cardboard walls (plasterboard). Have the complete WiFi package with discs, which we don't need to use.
Family in Hastings live in a 4 bedroom house with real walls, same package.
They use the discs to great effect.

So what I'm saying is give discs a try and if it doesn't work, at least you've tried that option and then you can go back to BT and moan.

 

[Coldeanseagull]

After leaving virginmedia(spit), I went full fibre with Toob. No issues what so ever, except a drop out of wifi signal three rooms over. Installed a mesh system and now have 99.99% coverage throughout the house and garden but excluding the greenhouse.
I might add another module to the mesh to cover the .001% and greenhouse

 

[HeaviestTed]

Another recco for the deco, excellent system.

Another general recommendation- change your WiFi ssid to something you like and the password to something you can remember (if you live 10 miles from the nearest road or property set the password to 12345 if you live with a million other people use something like “crystal Palace are shit, all lower case”

Then when you replace the router you can reuse the ssid and password and don’t need to reconfigure all your devices.

 

[PascalGroß Tips]

How do these mesh systems work? Are the simply plugged into to a socket and then pass the wifi signal on?

 

[jcdenton08]

We live in a 1 bedroom house, with cardboard walls (plasterboard). Have the complete WiFi package with discs, which we don't need to use.
Family in Hastings live in a 4 bedroom house with real walls, same package.
They use the discs to great effect.

So what I'm saying is give discs a try and if it doesn't work, at least you've tried that option and then you can go back to BT and moan.

Cheers mate, think this is a last resort though because it’s £15 per month more for something which might not work, and frankly I think should work in the first place without additional cost. Thanks though.

 

[Mustafa II]

How do these mesh systems work? Are the simply plugged into to a socket and then pass the wifi signal on?

The primary mesh unit is connected by wire to your main router. This then broadcasts its own wi-fi network.

You then strategically place other mesh units around your home which pick up and share the broadcast.

The idea is that your devices connect to the closest mesh unit, so you will always have flawless signal.

 

[Coldeanseagull]

How do these mesh systems work? Are the simply plugged into to a socket and then pass the wifi signal on?

My Atria AX3000 system has one module connected to the router via cat 6E cable, other modules connect to that one wirelessly. Works well for me, even though it's the cheaper end for mesh systems

 

[ConfusedGloryHunter]

We had shit wifi coverage from our router (due to very think walls in an old flat) so I bought this mesh system: Amazon link

Piece of piss to set up and I have very fast downloads speeds across the flat.

Mesh is like having those old wifi boosters but it appears as just one wifi connection on your devices so you don't have to keep switching. You can even stream videos in the bathroom with the door locked if that is what you wanted to do for some reason.

 

[Mr deez]

I also have a deco, and yeah they are decent. But in my experience the BT router isn't that bad, though I did manage to wangle a free complete WiFi disc from them at one point but I think I got lucky.

Whatever you do don't pay £15 pm extra. By the sounds of it you'd only need one disc and you can pick them up on eBay for about £40 which will obviously work out way cheaper than the monthly fee.

E.g. this would work if you have the black router https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/19647338...fFcX510Tte&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

[ConfusedGloryHunter]

I would add getting an independent mesh system would mean you are free to switch internet providers with very little hassle in a year or two - you don't even need to change IDs and passwords on your devices, you just plug one mesh module thingie into whatever new router thingie they send you.

 

[Doonhamer7]

I put a deco mesh network into my house - we got an extension and signal wasn’t good in the old garden, they work great

 

[jcdenton08]

Thanks for all of your replies, NSC always comes up trumps.

I just wanted to reiterate though, we had zero problems with the old router in a near identical spot so don’t really understand why this is happening at all, and having to resort to aftermarket solutions. (Which I’m very grateful for the suggestions for). This really is a very modest sized flat and the router is almost central in it.

It just doesn’t seem to add up.

 

[ConfusedGloryHunter]

Thanks for all of your replies, NSC always comes up trumps.

I just wanted to reiterate though, we had zero problems with the old router in a near identical spot so don’t really understand why this is happening at all, and having to resort to aftermarket solutions. (Which I’m very grateful for the suggestions for). This really is a very modest sized flat and the router is almost central in it.

It just doesn’t seem to add up.

Almost certainly a channel clash with a neighbour. If you are comfortable tweaking channels then try that instead.

 

[One Teddy Maybank]

Some advice please! I appreciate this post is a bit long but I want to give as much info as possible to avoid obvious answers.

We moved from copper Broadband to BT Fibre 500 unlimited a few weeks ago and are having issues. The connection right next to the router is superb and clocking 450mbs download and 60mbs upload in the same (small) room as the router.

One room over in the second bedroom (one brick supporting wall) approx 7-10ft from the router this drops to approx 300mbs/30-40mbs.

However, the living room (approx 10-15ft, one brick and one dividing wall away) it drops down to 10-12mbs/2-3mbs. It does this across all devices, phones, tablets, laptop etc.

On our old copper connection, the router was approximately 2ft from its current location and ran a steady 120-150mb everywhere in the flat, without drops.

Initially speaking to BT technical support, they made me perform a reset and saw no obvious faults, but agreed that the router’s output was below what was expected. They compensated me £20 and posted another router out and told me to send the old one back.

They told me if the new router performed the same, my only option was to pay an extra £15 a month for “EE Complete Wi-Fi” and transfer across to EE, as BT are migrating all their services across to them. This would be a rise of £15 per month from £34.99 I agreed for 18 months only three weeks ago.

The replacement router has been exactly the same.

Basically, they said the “Complete Wi-Fi” package comes with discs to improve signal (never, ever needed these before in our one-level small flat) and a better router.

I asked why can’t I have the “better router” and they said it’s not for BT customers. I pointed out the service as sold isn’t working.

Where do I stand on this and what would you suggest going forward?

Many thanks!!!

I wrote to their CEO and copied in the executive board, they not only reacted quickly but sent an engineer round (similar issue).