Our local Openreach broadband engineer recently told me that the HH does not cause the slowing unless there is a fault in the HH.

He came to see us as we had a slowing problem, not because of our HH3 but there was a fault in the DSLAM! He also told me that most slowing problems he has seen are either due to line or exchange equipment or else users rebooting the HH when it is not needed (which makes the exchange gear think there is a fault when there isn't really!). When that happens it reduces the profile setting and increases the noise margin target.

It's more than likely that either you have a faulty HH3 or else a line fault. Get it checked by BT is my suggestion.

In reply to a post by MichaelPerry:

My HH3 has 4 Ethernet ports that all support and provide 100 Mbps Ethernet connections, no difference between any of them!
Nothiong wronmg with adding a Gigabit Ethernet switch in the system, providing your HH supports gigabit.

I was clarifying Batboy's comment as you seemed to misunderstand it. Many newer routers comes with 4 GigE ports and therefore don't need a separate switch. A downside of the home hubs is that they have 1 GigE port at most. For people with above 100Mb Internet or that want to move stuff around the internal network they may be better off using something other than an HH due to this limitation.

The HH5 now has 4 x Gb ports but it is the first of them to have more than one. Haven't used it so don't have a clue what it is like. I prefer the EC1 with my Netgear and haven't used the HH4 I was supplied with either because of it only having one Gb port and my network is all Gb.

HH5 caused me problems with streaming due to BT connecting to it every half our or so to see if it needed an update - for some reason that caused everything to disconnect for a few seconds. Otherwise I quite liked it but since swapping back to my Billion 7800 all has been working fine.

Well I managed find to do all the checks and check all the settings, took me longer to get around to it than I though it would.

All the devices have the correct settings. So that can be ruled out I believe.I've manually assigned wifi channels and let the HH do it and there are no benefits it terms of stability either way.

The problem seems to be down to the number od devices using wifi at any one point. Once "critical mass" anything over that causes my sons connection to die. In terms of "critical mass" the number seems to be 4-5. It's not like a switch it seems as if it tries to keep up and then decides sod it, he's furthest away (upstairs) he can [censored] off. If all the devices are in the same room it just refuses to connect the last one. As soon as you switch off any device it kicks in again and tries to reconnect any other device seeking a wifi signal. I suspect it would also depend on a device wanting to access the actual internet rather than just be connected. You can be connected just have zero internet access.

It sounds like a dodgy HH to me but maybe they are just rubbish and always like this, I've only ever had one. All my other wireless routers have worked fine with multiple wired and wireless devices connected and functioning.

I'm tempted to report it but wonder if there's any point. I've dealt with BT Customer Service before and I mostly end up wanting to kill people.

I can't really move the HH from where it is and although I could run a cable at a pinch, I feel disinclined to do so.

As it is my son is about the only computer connected to wifi no, my wife is using a cable, I already was and my mobile phones use it occasionally.

I hate wifi, you know where you are with a [censored] wire.

Thanks for reading and all the suggestions and help.

And thanks for the report back - we're learning all the time!

Not at all. Thank you.