The Curious Case of BT Infinity Wi-Fi

Hello and thanks for reading.

It seems I have a very strange problem and I'm flummoxed.

My son cannot connect to our HH from his room upstairs. I can (via phone) and my wife can with her laptop and phone but my son cannot. Meanwhile, downstairs my computer is working just fine with a cable connection my wife's works fine but my son cannot connect. Because I was unable to resolve the wi-fi issues my son was having, he started to use the BT Hotspot system and everything seemed hunky-dory.

I just decided to opt out of our inclusion in the Hotspot scheme just to see what would happen. Immediately he lost his connection and played merry hell as usual. To increase the mystery further we have just experienced an outage that lasted maybe an hour during which I was unable to connect, obviously and nor was my wife. My son was having no problems at all.

If you have any idea what is going on I would be most grateful to hear.

Our doors and neighbours would also be grateful as I don't think they can take much more slamming....kids, I love 'em.

When you opted-out, that turned off the BT "Hotspot system" on your Homehub.

Thanks.

I realise that. But why is that the only way for it to work for him? If the HH can bump the signal to where he is why does he fail to get a connection when he tries to use our Infinity?

I wouldn't be entirely surprised if it was his computer...but that's a whole other set of problems.

Homehubs are funny things. You should try turning off Smart Setup and also try splitting the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands with a separate SSID for each - if you have a dual-band Homehub, 4 or 5.

It's a HH V3 but I will look into that. You mean smart wireless am I correct?

Yes, that's what I meant.

HH3, now they really are strange.

Has he got the correct WEP/WPA/WPA2 setting on his computer? I expect the HH3 is WPA2.

Thanks. Strange indeed!

It is WPA/WPA2. I would hope he has the correct setting, I'll check.

In reply to a post by Opabinia:

To increase the mystery further we have just experienced an outage that lasted maybe an hour

I initially read that as "outrage" Puts a different perspective on the matter!!

It seems very unlikely that any equipment considered "cool" by your son wouldn't support WPA2 (which would outlaw one line of thinking), but I wonder what is the signal strength of your wireless channel in his room. Is there any interference between the wireless channel you use and those from next door(s), maybe?

I can quite see that the non-availability of an adequate wireless service would cause any self-respecting son to leave home!

Edited by John_Gray (Sat 07-Jun-14 20:38:12)