Hub One - 5GHz WiFi issue

[#1]

Just found this thread this evening, this has been driving me nuts.

I get the 5Ghz signal connected to wifi, but no internet. 2.4 works all the time with about 6 devices.

I'll describe here as per the first post, but seems like you have a fix already?

2 devices on 5Ghz: macbook, and Sony Android tablet. Both lose IP. Android tablet says connected to wifi but no IP. Macbook disconnects from wifi and demands password if I try to force it back, but is never satisfied. This happens every few days. It is sometimes triggered by waking up the macbook, but usually waking up the macbook doesn't cause a problem. I can get a few seconds of 5Ghz signal back by turning it off in the router then on again. But this only lasts about 5 or 10 seconds. Wired and 2.4 are unaffected, work 100% of the time.

Resetting the router is the only "fix", lasts several days. But changes my public IP so it's a pitb.

The hub reports the android tablet connected to wifi 5Ghz during this time, the tablet says connected to wifi but no internet. I have split the 2.4 and 5 signals, so I can toggle between them very quickly on the tablet: 2.4 gets internet, 5 doesn't, 100% consistent.

I don't have a foolproof way of reproducing this.

Devices that disconnect are all in the same room, line of sight to the router. Wifi signal is strong. No other APs or boosters involved.

I'm still reading back through this thread to see if the new s/w is deemed solid or not i.e. not expected to make things worse. If so, I'm more than happy to have it pushed out to my router. Is there a proper way to request that Bob?

Many thanks for persevering with this. Not all ISPs do.

Brett

[#2]

I'm having the exact same issues - been ongoing for a year or so it seems, and I'm finally losing my patience. I'm having to reset my router daily now, and working from home every day means this is driving me nuts.

How soon can we expect updated firmware to fix this?

[#3]

@Trixiemay Thanks! How did you decide on this router? I really resent having to buy one but since we're working from home now it's quite frustrating. 

[#4]

@lucylucylucy I googled the specs and looked for reviews.  The description said 'For cable or fibre optic broadband'.

It was easy to set up ... just plug in and select the isp (they have many in the list including Plusnet) and it auto sets the correct settings.  However I split the chanels and appended to the ssid 0f the 5ghz

There is another model that has higher specs but this one is sufficient for us.

The advantage of buying ones own is that it is better than many 'free' ones supplied by isp's

[#5]

@bobpullen my router is getting increasingly troublesome. Before I go and buy one can I give the firmware update a try? My username is pelerin@plusdsl.net

Thanks

[#6]

@lucylucylucy  You could get a BT Hub 6 on a well known auction site for considerably less money. It will work well on PlusNet and does not suffer from the Hub1 WiFi problems. Here is a link to some set up instructions provided by Baldrick1.

https://community.plus.net/t5/My-Router/Using-the-BT-Smarthub-6-on-a-Plusnet-Account/m-p/1587673#M85... 

[#7]

I bought the Home Hub 6 off Ebay for £23.99. It was very easy to set up with only your Plusnet username and password required. I am disappointed that I had to do this and it was a good job that I did as I am now working from home and home schooling my 10 year old daughter. This has been ongoing since Feb 2019 so there won't be a solution for the Hub 1 anytime soon.

[#8]

@sallonoroff @markangeltruema, your devices have been updated now. They'll both have rebooted so apologies if you were in the middle of anything.

@CymonP wrote:

@bobpullen Okay, some 3 weeks (24 days, actually) after updating of firmware and no resets or issues, today I noticed a slowish / intermittent(?) connection (speedtest suggested 18Mbps but it was causing HD video streaming judder) on the 5GHz band wifi. 2.4GHz was still functioning at consistent full speed (about 37Mbps here). I cross checked several times and the results were consistent, so almost certainly valid and not the result of local congestion. 

I first tried simply turning off and on the 5GHz wifi signal but that made no difference.

A soft reboot of the hub (via the network interface, not powering off & on) and the 5GHz band is back up to full speed and handling HD streaming fine.

Degradation to 5GHz throughout is being treated as a spearate issue at present. We are able to replicate it and it is under investigation. To save confusion, probably wise to keep any discussion about speed outside of this thread.

@briston wrote:
Why did BT drop the hub5 which emerged as the hub1?

Because they launched a newer, more capable device. Commercial decision. They still have a huge number of HH5A's in use and have supplied them until failry recently across certain lines of business.

Was a firmware update done earlier in the year?

A firmware update was last completed about a year ago.

And if such an update did happen, why?

To deliver patches for certain things and fix a number of other customer-affecting issues.

@lucylucylucy wrote:

Thanks @bobpullen for the router update...the signal has almost completely disappeared from the top of our house now (where our studio is where we're working from home) and still getting a lot of connection dropping. What can we do?! Our internet was totally fine until we upgraded our broadband and received this router  - I don't know what or why we're paying for this?! 

The 'update' doesn't touch anything that would affect signal strength/reach, so something else is at play here. Your Internet connection itself is stable and at the time of writing the four devices you have connected have a fairly healthy signal strength (with the exception of the iMac, that you might want to try connecting to the 2.4GHz channel - see if there's any improvement).

@purpleunicycle  @senorben @Hotspur @RRams @ktmckenna @melanie99- @longroad64 & @bconnor - We've had a request to isolate some of the affected devices for some additional debugging by the teams that are investigating the problem. Rather than push the firmware workaround to your units, I have offered them for further analysis (hopefully for the greater good!) - I'll happily push the workaround once the team has done what they need to, and appreciate your patience in the meantime.

[#9]

@AndyMarsh  @tonywalsh, I can't see a Pusnet Hub One associated with either of your accounts. Feel free to private message me confirmation of your account usernames and router serial numbers/MAC addresses and I'll take another look.

[#10]

@bobpullen Thanks for the response.

From your comments we can say BT had a better product so shoveled the old, now inferior, product on plusnet

So the hub1 had firmware issues which were patched and maybe this was not successful.

On another note, thank you for your comments on one of my tickets. Clearly now you can see that tech support say one thing until you produced the graph which indicated otherwise. I think I had a disconnection around 23.50 BST on 2/4. Begs the question can we trust customer telephone facing tech support, or at least some of them.

[#11]

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@briston wrote:
From your comments we can say BT had a better product so shoveled the old, now inferior, product on plusnet

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Not really. We launched the Hub One years ago at which point BT were still shipping HH5A's.

[#12]

@bobpullen that should have been GMT not BST

[#13]

Support helped with getting me back online yesterday, and many thanks. Just now my internet on the TV has gone although router fine and I have Internet on my mobile phone through it.
I've noticed that my freeview box gets very hot, so much so that I've been unplugging it at night due to fear of fire. Is it normal for the box to get so hot?

[#14]

We were promised 2 months free Fibre because we were sold the package when Plusnet were aware that there was a problem with the router and we had to buy another. We received 1 month free but not the second.  Online chat is offline and the phone number is recorded message only.  How do I contact them so they can correct their error?

[#15]

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@bconnor - We've had a request to isolate some of the affected devices for some additional debugging by the teams that are investigating the problem. Rather than push the firmware workaround to your units, I have offered them for further analysis (hopefully for the greater good!) - I'll happily push the workaround once the team has done what they need to, and appreciate your patience in the meantime.

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@bobpullen Sure. Anything you'd like me to do to help? My 5Ghz is disabled currently to prevent anything connecting to it.

Do you have a guess how long before anything happens? I appreciate it's just a guess. I need to decide whether I can wait or need to buy separate wifi kit.