Broadband Issue

[#1]

I have had issues with wifi dropping out in other parts of the house. I have already bought 2 wifi extenders and still have issues. It has been suggested that I try a powerline adapter. I’m really disappointed having to spend more money and am wondering why I should have to waste more money when I should be receiving g the service I am
Paying for.

[#2]

@LolaPaw Welcome to the forum. You say you 'have been having issues with Wi-Fi dropping out in other parts of the house'. How big is the house, does it by any chance have aluminium-backed insulation?

It is very difficult, without specific detail, to give any advice.  Who suggested you try Powerline adapters? Note that an ISP's responsibility is only to supply a signal as far as the master socket - anything beyond that in the home is yours to sort out.

If you can give us more detail, maybe we can assist.

[#3]

It’s a small 4 bedroom house, no idea re insulation. Previous owners using BT had no issues at all, happily working from home using multiple lap tops etc. plus net suggested powering adapters.

[#4]

OK. Where in the house do you lose connection, and on what devices?

[#5]

In the front room and upstairs bedrooms .
Unable to use iPlayer/netflix,basically anything in the smart tv!

I never thought I would be having to check whether my walls in the house are too thick, or whether there is aluminium etc, it seems ridiculous. Clearly as the other owners had no issues, it can’t be the house!

[#6]

I assume you are using the Plusnet Hub2 - where is it located in relation to the problematic rooms, and is it plugged into the master socket with no extension cabling?

Sorry for all the questions, but we can only work from what we are told.

[#7]

@LolaPaw First, extenders can sometimes cause more trouble than they're worth, unless they implement a true 'mesh' system.

Previous owners using BT had no issues at all

Its very possible that the previous owners had the addtional BT Whole Home wifi system, which is a mesh system.

The Hub 2 attempts to automatically select the wifi channel with the least interference from adjacent networks. However, as far as I am aware the hub only looks at congestion at the hub location. The problem is that the congestion can be totally different in the room where you use your wireless device. For example, a hub is located in the centre of the house and sees only low level transmissions from neighbour's wifi. However, in the living room, the next door neighbour has his hub located in a position where it is closer to devices than your hub. You therefore get a stronger signal from this than that from your own hub.

The answer is to use a WiFi sniffer app, I use WiFi Analyzer on an Android phone. If you walk around the house with this you can find the best compromise at both the hub location and where you use your devices. Remember, this is a two way link so both are equally important..

I'd suggest turning off the extenders, then use a wifi analyzer , particularly where the TV is located (since that seems to be the main problem , and then changing the Hub wifi channel as appropriate. Once that's done, if there are still problems in other areas then maybe carefully experiment with the wifi extenders but also using the analyzer to check.

[#8]

@LolaPaw 

"Previous owners using BT had no issues at all,"

To be clear, did the previous owners actually tell you that they didn't have any issues with WiFi coverage in the home - or did they not tell you that they did?

Those two things are not the same.