Possible REIN issue, help needed understanding.

Apologies if this is in the wrong forum, I really wasn't sure where to post.

I need help understanding a problem we have.

Broadband will randomly just slow to nothing, no errors, just no internet for everyone. BT sent the latest router (hub 6) and then OpenReach investigated and said a REIN issue.

I turned everything off around the house and internet was back to 100%.

Turned things on slowly and internet died, eventually, after I switched on an iPad. Tested thoroughly and turning it off and on a dozen times exactly matched the internet going from 0% to 100%.

Left iPad off and started turning on other devices. All good until I came to a laptop which again internet dropped to 0% when it connected to the wifi network (not when turned on, when connected). Tested on/off again and yes, it was also causing an issue. Went back to the iPad, turned it on but then toggled the wifi to see and yes, it's the wifi not the device being on that affects the broadband.

Next, tried connecting the laptop to the router by a cable and again, while connected the speed is zero, disconnected it's fine. So turned on right next to the router is fine as long as it's not connected?

We have an AirPort Extreme too so I tried connecting that to the router and wirelessly connecting the the AirPort instead but that too dropped the speed to zero.

So I don't really understand what is going on. If it's REIN then surely what I've described above would not be happening. Like, what part of the laptop is causing a problem if it occurs both wirelessly and wired but not at all when not connected but right next to the router. Also what are the chances of two devices suddenly causing a problem?

Many thanks to anyone who can shed some light on this.

Can you isolate the two WiFi bands - 2.4 and 5Ghz. Then try the same tests with just 2.4GHz working or just 5Ghz working and see if is related to just one.

Hi, thanks for responding.

I did as requested:

For each band the exact same thing happened. When the iPad was connected speed tests show zero up/down (testing from a different device). disconnect the iPad and back to normal. Hub show no issues at all.

Double check that devices do not have their own personal hot spots enabled

Also look at what traffic each device is sending and receiving?

If battery powered devices such as an iPad are breaking the connection the chances of this being a REIN issue is very small.

Thanks for your response:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Double check that devices do not have their own personal hot spots enabled

Just checked everything, no hotspots.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Also look at what traffic each device is sending and receiving?

I reset the data monitoring on the laptop and then connected it. Tried to browse the web at an incredibly slow speed for 10 minutes. Data usage was 10mb on Chrome <1mb on a few other system things.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

If battery powered devices such as an iPad are breaking the connection the chances of this being a REIN issue is very small.

Any idea what it could be then as OpenReach's line tests (done from where it goes from pole into the ground if that makes a difference) states REIN problems?

If it is REIN caused by an external effect then should show up with a single battery device connected via Ethernet (and all Wi-Fi turned off and other electrical in the home).

If that test is clear, then as you switch stuff back on you get problems then the issue is something you own pumping out noise

NOTE: if you leave iPad charges plugged in they might still be a source of problems, so unplug/switch off not just disconnected from device.

I would suggest that this isn’t REIN.

Have experienced something similar on a couple of occasions. Both times it was software on one or two bits of kit that was saturating the upload of the circuit.

Not much help in identifying the exact culprit, but hopefully a pointer in the right direction.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Have experienced something similar on a couple of occasions. Both times it was software on one or two bits of kit that was saturating the upload of the circuit.

That was my thinking - something is saturating the link. Could be a Windows or Mac machine that has been switched off for a while catching up, or an iPhone/iPad or Android device syncing lots of photos down.

What is the speed of the connection? up and down.

I’d ignore the Openreach test results. It’s not a REIN issue.

Thank you so much for helping me today.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

If it is REIN caused by an external effect then should show up with a single battery device connected via Ethernet (and all Wi-Fi turned off and other electrical in the home).

Ok, So I took the laptop and plugged it into the router (only device connected) and as before connection dropped to 0. I then turned off wifi on the router and ran a speediest on the laptop, it worked perfectly.

So what could this mean? and if it's the BT router's wifi that is the problem why did we also see it when we turned off the wifi on the BT Hub and connected wirelessly through the AirPort Extreme?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

NOTE: if you leave iPad charges plugged in they might still be a source of problems, so unplug/switch off not just disconnected from device.

We literally unplugged anything we couldn't turn off at the fuse box and started from there so not a charger sadly. I'd like it to be something easily replaceable though