We have a BT home hub and the damn thing is for ever dropping the wifi. At first I thought it was the broadband connection, but I have deduced it’s not that as when I lose the internet I am unable to access the admin page for the hub.

It has dropped out and come back about 8 times today. It’s driving me mad as when it goes all I hear from the wife an daughter is “has the internet gone?”

Just unsure what the best way to sort it out is. Any pointers welcomed.

Thanks

Either BT is trying to update your firmware or your hub’s gone duff, most likely the latter. If you’ve got another non-BT one you could swap it out and see if that makes the issue go away, or call BT and see if they can shed any light on it.

If it were me I’d give it a while in the hope it’d spontaneously fix itself without me having to make any effort, but I’ve a decent mobile data allowance and no wife or daughter at home so that’s easy for me to say.

I’ve a retired Hub4 you can have for postage if you want it.

Tell your wife and daughter that on a glorious day like today they should be out in the sunshine.

Then storm out and go on an 8 hour bike ride.

We have an old hub and BT refuse to give us a new one. I’ll give them another try, but past experience of their tech support has never been great.

Good luck with the worst customer service in Telecoms! Takes ‘Have you turned it off and turned it back on again’ to a whole new level.

Is it a HH5? Good chance it could be interference between the 2.4ghz and 5ghz wifi channels running on the same SSID.

This might be worth a try – basically splitting the SSIDs and directing most of your devices to the 2.4ghz band only.

http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/44798/~/i-have-problems-connecting-5ghz-and-dual-band-devices-wirelessly-to-the-bt-hub

This thread below walks someone through the process.

http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?445143-BT-Broadband-HH5-wireless-keeps-dropping-out-**SOLVED-by-CAG**

PS IANAWE! Just a long-suffering BT customer. I also have a new/boxed HH5 which you could have for postage if all else fails.

Take a look and see if a lot of your neighbours are on the same channel. It might be as simple a fix as setting the channel to one that isn’t so busy. I use inssider to check channels. There used to be a free version but I’m not sure if it is around any more. With more and more wifi around some devices seem to crap out more than others

It might be as simple a fix as setting the channel to one that isn’t so busy.

It’ll be automatically selecting the least busy channel every time it reboots, assuming that bit’s working. I’ve a feeling you can’t select the channel manually on (at least some of) the HHs, they’re quite locked down.

Bummer. I’ve not always found the channel selection on boot useful if they are all already very busy. The nicest of the lower end devices I’ve used was a xylink one that would check every hour. That completely sorted a similar problem for that person

Isn’t that a feature of the older BT Home Hubs?

We have an old hub and BT refuse to give us a new one.

Tell them you’re cancelling your broadband because the hub is useless and ask them for a MAC number. See how quickly they get a replacement in the post. (Same advice to the OP too.)

We have an old hub and BT refuse to give us a new one.

It’s certainly odd, because they sent me three over the space of five days. And three BT Vision boxes too.

As above, if you’re out of contract, just give them their marching orders anyhow. Don’t even need a MAC code in most cases these days.

Don’t even need a MAC code in most cases these days.

How’s that work, then?

God knows, I just read stuff, I don’t understand it.

https://www.uswitch.com/broadband/guides/switch/

Glancing at it again, it looks like a MAC code may be required, but it is no longer the consumer’s responsibility to go and drag it out of their ISP.

Don’t even need a MAC code in most cases these days.

True, but unless you’re totally hacked off with your ISP and will leave regardless it’s worth ringing them up to ask for one. They’ll usually (IME) be straight in with some improved deal. TalkTalk even got me to stay with them once, the deal was so good I couldn’t turn it down. That was before they let someone have my bank details, mind!

Glancing at it again, it looks like a MAC code may be required, but it is no longer the consumer’s responsibility to go and drag it out of their ISP.

So what’s to stop an unscrupulous provider approaching your current provider and going “yeah, they’re moving over to us now, hand it over”? That’s the whole point of the MAC in the first place.

Again, the minutiae of Ofcom regulation changes seem to have passed me by. I just read something last time I was considering trying to get rid of BT (before I found out I couldn’t).

I’d switch off the 5ghz. That fixed all my problems with the SO’s Apple gadgets.

Again, the minutiae of Ofcom regulation changes seem to have passed me by.

Sorry, that wasn’t directed at you specifically, I was thinking out loud / making conversation.

No worries! 🙂 You’re probably right, as there is normally a law of unintended consequences involved in most telecoms regulation.

So what’s to stop an unscrupulous provider approaching your current provider and going “yeah, they’re moving over to us now, hand it over”?

The current provider sends you a letter with words to the effect of “sorry you’re leaving, if this is news to you contact us soonest”.

Please do the needful?

In seriousness, plenty of people would fall for it if they got in a preemptive strike. In a previous life I used to get speculative letters from “the Domain Registrar of America” offering domain renewals at vastly inflated prices; more than once I’ve had to stop accounts departments from just going “oh, that’s our domain” and paying it.

In a semi-related vein, for mobile phones here in Oz your new provider requests your PAC from your existing provider. This was much easier than last time I had to wring one of out Three in the UK. I assume the same works for broadband and MACs.

Just checked we are using a home hub version 3!

So we don’t have the 5GHz option.

Recommendations as to who to switch too as BT suck and we have been with them for years now?

I realise that front line telephone IT support is the most life-sapping job in the world, and BT are most likely often talking with people like my mum who doesn’t know a router from a toaster, but they really have no way of changing gear.

I have a HomeHub5, constantly dropping wifi too. Channels were separate, different SSID, I’d swept the local wifi channels from neighbours and tried choosing unused channels and so on. Broadband totally stable, Ethernet devices stable but wifi kept dropping on both 2.4 and 5ghz, including when one channel was turned off.

I called explaining all of this, and the guy on the other end says he’ll start by checking my line. No need I say. He says there is, and puts me on hold. Comes back online to say he’s checked my line and reset the connection to the exchange and he’s fixed my wifi. I offer that’s an insane suggestion and explain that won’t make any difference, that I think the router is borked, he insists otherwise. It was a strange conversation, I screenshot it for prosperity.

Ten phone calls later, I was sent a new HomeHubThree and then five more calls later a new HHFive. No dropped wifi since.

reset the connection to the exchange and he’s fixed my wifi.

Haha. I share your pain! They are clueless, but I blame BT not the guy they have hired in India.

Just checked we are using a home hub version 3! Recommendations as to who to switch too as BT suck and we have been with them for years now?

I imagine that you’re probably paying over the odds too. You would have thought that you’re exactly the kind of customer that BT should be wanting to retain.

There are plenty of broadband comparison sites out there. These days I would prioritise customer service over pure price. Plusnet (which, weirdly, is actually owned by BT) always had decent support when I was with them.