BT Wifi/ FON enabled - Now wireless disconnecting

Hello,
Got BT Infinity 2 installed at the start of last month. Speed was excellent as was the wireless. In the days running up to Christmas the Wireless started dropping out at least once an hour and sometimes really frustratingly connect/ disconnect/ connect in an endless loop for 2-3 minutes.

I plugged in my old router and re-configured it as an Wireless Access point only. Then disabled Wireless on my HH3. Tested things and the Wireless was rock solid every every device/laptop I tried. I've continued using this setup for the last week without issue.

I did all the checks. Turned off all possible sources of electrical interference, scanned with InSSIDer for the best wireless channel and manually set it on the BT HH3. Still the problem remained.
But I had noticed my HH3 was now broadcasting for BT Wifi/ FON and it wasn't doing that in the days after installation.

So my question is? Does BT Wifi/ FON make anyone else's Wireless unreliable?

(I'm still waiting to get my login details sorted so I can opt-out of BT Wifi/ FON to test further.)

Any other explanation?

Thanks!

Are you in a large city or something?

If so it could be that literally loads of devices are connecting. Most iPhones, iPads and even laptops have bt wifi saved so they auto connect to it.

This is fine in standard residential properties as not many people connect. In a property outside a busy place though it can cause problems.

I live literally on the edge of town. Across the road is the green belt. Start of the local suburbs behind.

I have BT Openzone on my router and absolutely no problems. I set-up my neighbours HH with BT Fon and that is also stable.

I did come across a comment somewhere about HH3 and the passcode used - if it contains certain characters (cannot remember which) it occasionally threw its tooys out ... changing to an alpha-numeric seemed to solve it. Much more that that I cannot remember.

In reply to a post by Firejack:

Does BT Wifi/ FON make anyone else's Wireless unreliable?

The HH3 could be wandering channels - when you can turn off the BT WiFi feature and that should fix it.

Or just replace the HH3 with a separate cable style router that does PPPoE, which is what I've done

yeah these two extra services the bt hub 3 pushes out i found gave my wireless signal rubbish connection. i got my own adsl router and the problem went away i asked bt to turn off the btfon and bt wireless but they cant there end. its part of the bt contract you opt into to get free wireless access when you are away from home etc from other bt users broadcasting the btfon and bt wireless.fon http://goo.gl/EmV46 is a spanish company bt has partnership in. they supply wireless network over europe. any how you have to opt out of btfon to stop the broadcast from your bt hh3. the bt hh2 you could turn the broadcast off in the hub settings. when you use your own hub or router the btfon/wireless does not broadcast.

Edited by deleted (Mon 21-Jan-13 18:34:25)

In reply to a post by Firejack:

So my question is? Does BT Wifi/ FON make anyone else's Wireless unreliable?

Yes but only if I let the HH choose it's wireless channel.

If I manually set it to a channel other than channel 1 (which the automatic setting likes to use) then it is fine.

So my question is? Does BT Wifi/ FON make anyone else's Wireless unreliable?

I often find windows PCs jumping to the FON SSID and the user getting a login page becuase at some point they've connected to it and selected it to be automatic, but not noticed the signal itself having issues.

I'm still trying to opt out. Some mix up in BTs system is still stopping me opt-ing out.

I'm beginning to think one of my neighbours must have a mobile thats automatically connecting to the BT Wifi/FON signal.

I was browsing this afternoon at 130Mbps completely stable. Its now jumping between 39-78Mbps and keeps dropping out.

Dam annoying as I have no control over it.

just get yourself a new modem/router you can pick up decent ones for £30-40

In reply to a post by Firejack:

I was browsing this afternoon at 130Mbps completely stable. Its now jumping between 39-78Mbps and keeps dropping out.

infinity 2 is max 80Mb/s
though you could always look at the router (hh3) log and see if/when things connect.

You're talking about the indicated speed of the wireless link on your computer. In many areas, the 2.4GHz band used for the majority of Wi-Fi is heavily used, with multiple wireless networks and other users of this band all interfering with each other. I think having FON enabled is a red herring - it's simply the heavy use of 2.4GHz in the evening.

The best answer, if possible, is to use wired connections where possible and put what Wi-Fi you can on the 5GHz band - though many devices do not support it and the lower range of the higher frequency can be an issue. Usually, 5GHz is supported by dual band devices, which offer both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands.


I don't believe the BT Home Hubs are dual band, so you will need to install a dual band capable access point, also ensure that any computers and other devices are 5GHz capable. We have dual band wireless here and I can't see any other 5GHz networks. My Dell Latitude has a dual band wireless card, as do our more expensive tablets and mobile phones. The cheaper tablet, a couple of older mobile phones and an old Windows XP netbook are 2.4GHz only.


Investigate different wireless channels to see if you can optimise the performance - though be aware overlap means there's really only three non-overlapping channels on 2.4GHz - 1, 6 and 11. 1, 5, 9 and 13 have minimal overlap, but the number of devices on 6 makes a four channel 2.4GHz strategy unworkable in many locations.

If all your devices support it, channel 13 can be a good choice.

I second the 5GHz recommendation - note that 5GHz doesn't travel through thick walls, but works in open spaces and goes through windows.

I would also grab inSSIDer (on Windows, and Android) and install on a laptop and find out what is going on:
http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/

For Mac I wouldn't use inSSIDer as its got issues, but use WiFi Explorer from the Mac App Store - its a few pence cheaper (yes, inSSIDer is paid on Mac):
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/wifi-explorer/id4948...

Sadly no WiFi scanning tools for iPhone/iPad yet.

There are free ones for the Mac as well. I've never tried them, but see for example http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/awesome-free-wifi-scann...

In reply to a post by StephenTodd:

There are free ones for the Mac as well. I've never tried them, but see for example http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/awesome-free-wifi-scann...

I tried that one and it worked well on Snow Leopard, but on Lion and now Mountain Lion it struggled. It might have been updated - but the £1.99 on the App Store for the other one is worth it as the graphical display really nice.

It's easy to disable FON through the HH3 interface. In no way is it contractually compulsory as an earlier poster has indicated. One of my neighbours actually came round to ask if I minded him using my FON! A propos of nothing, does anyone know why I'm broadcasting BTWifi and BT Wifi with FON as two separate networks?

In reply to a post by GeoffB:

It's easy to disable FON through the HH3 interface.

Yep I noticed

In no way is it contractually compulsory as an earlier poster has indicated. One of my neighbours actually came round to ask if I minded him using my FON! A propos of nothing, does anyone know why I'm broadcasting BTWifi and BT Wifi with FON as two separate networks?

FON being separate to BTWifi(formerly openzone) I believe but giving similar access.