Poor wireless on SSE TG589VAC router?

I am living in a small semi-detched house, built (2000) with partition wall. Switched from BT (HB5) to SSE (TG589VAC). I found that the SSE router's wireless signal is pretty poor comparing to th BT one. Barely getting any signal on the 1st floor and connection is dropping constantly.

Did anyone have the similar experience?

TONNY

Not so much a poor-signal wireless connection, but we do get a LOT of dropouts.

The 2.4GHz network is not seen. Its enabled on the router, was working fine last year when we migrated to SSE, but no we might as well switch it off; neither iPad nor any mobile phone detects the network.

The 5Ghz network is visible, and works throughout the house (three story town house, router on ground floor). However, the signal often drops down to 54Mbps.

More worryingly, the connection often drops, on any device in any room, on any floor.

Now Arstechnica had a story earlier this week describing the same symptoms; wireless connections often dropping and sometimes the wifi network would disappear. The author checked router stats, and was astounded to see his upload traffic stats were hundreds of gigabytes. Conclusion? Router had been hacked, and was part of a DDOS botnet.

I've often noticed the SSE router internet activity lights flashign away like a bad 70's disco, so I looked at my stats. Jesus H Christ on a bicycle;

3.8 TERRABYTES of upload traffic. WTAF?!!!!

Of course, there is no CLI access to the router to dig into stats, examine running processes, etc. We have the older "v1" (white and black) TG589, so am going to upgrade the firmware later ( mikedj's page confirms that although the upgrade is not specifically for this model, it does work), and see if that solves the issue.

However, I am considering replacing the router with a modem and OPNSense firewall, assuming one can use a BT fibre modem.... see separate thread.

3.8TB over what period? Also, are you certain it is terrabytes rather than terrabits?

Its most certainly bytes!

Todays stats

2078MB transmitted - this is with pulling down email, a bit of facebook, a quick ebay serach, and the OH watching a clip on Victoria Derbyshire.

3.8TB since router went live in July - these seem to survive reboots, otherwise its 3.8TB in the last 78 days....

If you are logged in to the router can you see the stats increasing in near real time? If so can you turn off all the devices (apart from the one you are monitoring the router from) and see if the rate of increase then drops? If that stops it then it would suggest a device is doing the upload - it might be that one of your devices could have malware or a bug that is causing it to transmit

You could also download a network packet sniffer and monitor traffic to see if that shows you where the traffic is coming from.

Yep, can see that.

And the router is transmitting even with every thing off, wireless disabled,and router unplugged from network...

Could try a factory reset of the router but not sure if SSE have any specific settings as I haven't used them as an ISP.

Could just be buggy firmware also.

If you run a speedtest are your upload speeds slower than they should be?

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Could just be buggy firmware also. If you run a speedtest are your upload speeds slower than they should be?

Yes, about 9.7Mbs, half that we achieving last year...