Wifi - BT hub - dropping out.
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Were they UK or India based the people you spoke to. I would try them again and then write to BT executive complaints -just send an ordinary letter addressed to the Chairman at BTs head office, address is on the internet under BT Plc . They know the HH5 is not all that good and say you have tried and tried and tried and that the regular customer service people wont help you.
I know writign to the Chairmant seems an over reaction but he has got teams of people working on executive level complaints and its BTs own fault fr havign such poor customer service anyway.
PB
I know writign to the Chairmant seems an over reaction but he has got teams of people working on executive level complaints and its BTs own fault fr havign such poor customer service anyway.
PB
Believe it or not, despite surfing all over the BT website i could not actually find a contact telephone number. In the end I got involved with live chat session with a young lady in India. She was obviously trying her very best bearing in mind I imagine she was following a preset script and made a couple of useful suggestions that I knew would not work. However, I effectively steered her down the route I wanted to go and whilst she could send out an HH5 she did not have the authority to send out a HH6. She offered to ring me at home and put me in touch with 'Customer Options', this she did immediately and put me through - to 'Customer Options' in the UK who had no idea why I was put through to them. They listened patiently and decided I needed to speak to another department the name of which I forget now - but I was put through to a very nice Welsh lady.
She tried explaining a few technical matters me, but I managed to persuade her that all her suggestions, whilst perfectly reasonable would not work for me. She offered me a free replacement HH5 but could not authorise a new HH6 and I would have to pay for that (special offer £50 + delivery). I baulked at that and insisted I wanted a HH6. She went away and spoke to her manager but replied I would have to pay for a HH6. We chatted away again for quite a while and I poured my heart out to her so she went away and consulted again. But the response was still in the negative. I do think she was trying to help.
So, a replacement HH5 should arrive next Tuesday and I have to give it a go don't I?
Whilst it is tempting to contact Chairman's office I think they would likely initially respond that it is reasonable for me to try the replacement HH5 first.
yes they are very helpful as are some-but only some of the BT staff and as you saw there is no way to contact anyone above first line customer service.
Give the HH5 a try but as i say it is known to have deficiences in the very areas you are having problems with, ie muddling up 'public' BT networks with your own router and not handling the channel hopping. When is your BT contract up for renewal
Give the HH5 a try but as i say it is known to have deficiences in the very areas you are having problems with, ie muddling up 'public' BT networks with your own router and not handling the channel hopping. When is your BT contract up for renewal
Technical and commercial problems as above. Several BT users in the area.
Daily reset helps maintain a reasonable service.
Initial installation problems of low rate were finally traced to the local exchange, which was eventually fixed by an excellent BT engineer - he ignored the multiple texts warning him that he was spending too much time on this job.
Zero joy from India. Every call responded with the same computerised checklist without resolution, which then resulted in a continuing, repeating, 48 hr response time, including a followup 'how was the service' enquiry.
Commercial / technical issues finally resolved with U.K. contact - 'Blodwyn' from Wales, who had both the intellect and tenacity to understand and correct the issue, including reimbursement.
Hub 6 info noted, may try this option,... if only I had 'Blodwyn's' number
Daily reset helps maintain a reasonable service.
Initial installation problems of low rate were finally traced to the local exchange, which was eventually fixed by an excellent BT engineer - he ignored the multiple texts warning him that he was spending too much time on this job.
Zero joy from India. Every call responded with the same computerised checklist without resolution, which then resulted in a continuing, repeating, 48 hr response time, including a followup 'how was the service' enquiry.
Commercial / technical issues finally resolved with U.K. contact - 'Blodwyn' from Wales, who had both the intellect and tenacity to understand and correct the issue, including reimbursement.
Hub 6 info noted, may try this option,... if only I had 'Blodwyn's' number
Don't completely diss what 'they' can do over the phone - I had a long chat with India about the MiL's flaky cable modem router (once we'd got over me not being the account holder) and he reset it and 'upgraded' it remotely. Not sure how or what but it resulted in a faster, and considerably more steady, connection.
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Don't completely diss what 'they' can do over the phone - I had a long chat with India about the MiL's flaky cable modem router (once we'd got over me not being the account holder) and he reset it and 'upgraded' it remotely. Not sure how or what but it resulted in a faster, and considerably more steady, connection.
I will give some more feedback after the replacement HH5 arrives next Tuesday, but it is a heavy week for me and it may be a while before I can take this further.
As an aside, at our last house, BT's well intentioned efforts to resolve our broadband issues resulted in the local BT area technical manager in our front room on the phone to some chap in the north east trying to get the HH reset and upgraded. Yes I have, no you haven't, yes I have, no you haven't, yes I have, no you haven't.... He gave up in the end and said he would monitor the broadband performance of our line from his own house. He even gave us his personal BT mobile number to keep in touch.
Love or hate them, it's service like that that has kept me as a BT customer for many years, although I wouldn't suggest for a millisecond that service like that is typical! I find breaking down in tears helps matters, but not in this case sadly so I will have to change my modus operandi!!
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Wouldn't dream of 'dissing' any tech help desk, before I retired I was very often dealing with technical problems over the phone myself. She offered upgrade/reset etc etc but the intent of my call was to try and get a HH6 rather than hang on to what I already had.
I will give some more feedback after the replacement HH5 arrives next Tuesday, but it is a heavy week for me and it may be a while before I can take this further.
As an aside, at our last house, BT's well intentioned efforts to resolve our broadband issues resulted in the local BT area technical manager in our front room on the phone to some chap in the north east trying to get the HH reset and upgraded. Yes I have, no you haven't, yes I have, no you haven't, yes I have, no you haven't.... He gave up in the end and said he would monitor the broadband performance of our line from his own house. He even gave us his personal BT mobile number to keep in touch.
Love or hate them, it's service like that that has kept me as a BT customer for many years, although I wouldn't suggest for a millisecond that service like that is typical! I find breaking down in tears helps matters, but not in this case sadly so I will have to change my modus operandi!!
I will give some more feedback after the replacement HH5 arrives next Tuesday, but it is a heavy week for me and it may be a while before I can take this further.
As an aside, at our last house, BT's well intentioned efforts to resolve our broadband issues resulted in the local BT area technical manager in our front room on the phone to some chap in the north east trying to get the HH reset and upgraded. Yes I have, no you haven't, yes I have, no you haven't, yes I have, no you haven't.... He gave up in the end and said he would monitor the broadband performance of our line from his own house. He even gave us his personal BT mobile number to keep in touch.
Love or hate them, it's service like that that has kept me as a BT customer for many years, although I wouldn't suggest for a millisecond that service like that is typical! I find breaking down in tears helps matters, but not in this case sadly so I will have to change my modus operandi!!
If all else fails and they refuse to let you have an HH6....threaten to take your custom elsewhere
Being a long standing customer, they will realise that losing you is worth the expense of a FOC HH6
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yes they are very helpful as are some-but only some of the BT staff and as you saw there is no way to contact anyone above first line customer service.
Give the HH5 a try but as i say it is known to have deficiences in the very areas you are having problems with, ie muddling up 'public' BT networks with your own router and not handling the channel hopping. When is your BT contract up for renewal
Give the HH5 a try but as i say it is known to have deficiences in the very areas you are having problems with, ie muddling up 'public' BT networks with your own router and not handling the channel hopping. When is your BT contract up for renewal
I like BT's service and would be reluctant to leave them, I think it is true that perhaps unwittingly Openreach do give a better response to BT customers. Once Openreach is separated from BT from a managerial perspective then I guess it will be a more level playing field from a customer viewpoint and so a change of provider would not be so 'dramatic' as it were.
As an aside we are currently fttc, but the below ground cable infrastructure is all pipe work and someone on the estate in liaising with BT to see what the cost of fttp might be on the assumption, from BT themselves, that a fibre can be easily drawn into the existing ducting. So, new fibre, new modem - could this be the answer!!
The ONLY way to stop the thing connecting to your FON... SSID from time to time is to delete the relevant profile.
To get windows to forget for example the BT...FON Wifi SSID
In a run as "Administrator" Command Window type
netsh wlan show profiles
Make a note of the exact name and capitalisation of the one you want to delete. Then type eg.
netsh wlan delete profile name="BTWifi-with-FON"
This will stop the device from connecting to that WiFi name automatically unless it is once again manually selected from the list of WiFis AND the "Connect Automatically" box is checked.
By the way - If you delete a profile that has a WiFi Key associated with it the WiFi Key will need to be re-entered if you wish to connect again.
You can otherwise safely delete any and all of the profiles.
I would delete any that you do not anticipate using again.
I suspect that -
netsh wlan delete profile name="*" will work.
This will though forever forget all your saved WiFi Keys.
Good luck.
To get windows to forget for example the BT...FON Wifi SSID
In a run as "Administrator" Command Window type
netsh wlan show profiles
C: \Users\T>netsh wlan show profiles
Profiles on interface Wireless Network Connection 2:
Group policy profiles (read only)
---------------------------------
<None>
User profiles
-------------
All User Profile : BTWifi-with-FON
All User Profile : AndroidAP99
C: \Users\T>
Profiles on interface Wireless Network Connection 2:
Group policy profiles (read only)
---------------------------------
<None>
User profiles
-------------
All User Profile : BTWifi-with-FON
All User Profile : AndroidAP99
C: \Users\T>
netsh wlan delete profile name="BTWifi-with-FON"
This will stop the device from connecting to that WiFi name automatically unless it is once again manually selected from the list of WiFis AND the "Connect Automatically" box is checked.
By the way - If you delete a profile that has a WiFi Key associated with it the WiFi Key will need to be re-entered if you wish to connect again.
You can otherwise safely delete any and all of the profiles.
I would delete any that you do not anticipate using again.
I suspect that -
netsh wlan delete profile name="*" will work.
This will though forever forget all your saved WiFi Keys.
Good luck.
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Hi,
As a hardware alternative, you can use a non BT modem/router with a BT service.
In difficult situations I recommend:
Billion BiPAC 7800DXL
Which you can get from the South American river place. At just under 100 notes it is not cheap, but in this case you get what you pay for.
It will do both ADSL and direct Ethernet connection to a fibre modem and as a backup you can plug in a 3g dongle.
In terms of wifi it has both 2.5Ghz and 5Ghz and you can run several virtual SSIDs to separate out users.
I have successfully used one in place of a BT HH5.
HTH
EG
As a hardware alternative, you can use a non BT modem/router with a BT service.
In difficult situations I recommend:
Billion BiPAC 7800DXL
Which you can get from the South American river place. At just under 100 notes it is not cheap, but in this case you get what you pay for.
It will do both ADSL and direct Ethernet connection to a fibre modem and as a backup you can plug in a 3g dongle.
In terms of wifi it has both 2.5Ghz and 5Ghz and you can run several virtual SSIDs to separate out users.
I have successfully used one in place of a BT HH5.
HTH
EG
Our wifi issues may be unrelated to the OP's but this is what I found.
My partner kept finding her desktop PC would lose the wifi link and then fail to reconnect without rebooting the machine. Doing wifi network diagnosis and repair would not get her back on line. I have a utility on my netbook which monitors wifi and bluetooth signals. It showed the signal from our router being intermittently swamped by BT_fon, there were multiple incidences of BT_fon and all were jumping all over the channels on 2.4GHz wifi. I tried bumping our router to several different channels but the BT_fon always stepped all over it. The affected PC is at the front of our property and the wireless router is at the rear. This arrangement is called for because I use the signal from the wireless router for connection to my computer in my workshop in the rear garden. I also see internet dropping out occasionaly but I have an on screen display of wifi signal strength and quality which never drops, the loss is clearly on the incoming phone connection.
In our case the solution has been to use a bunch of powerline adaptor network links to get the signal from the router to our Freeview hard disk recorder, to her PC and also to a network enabled printer in another room. We still have internet dropping out at a low incidence level but all machines pick up where they left off when the router gets the live internet link restored.
Rans6
My partner kept finding her desktop PC would lose the wifi link and then fail to reconnect without rebooting the machine. Doing wifi network diagnosis and repair would not get her back on line. I have a utility on my netbook which monitors wifi and bluetooth signals. It showed the signal from our router being intermittently swamped by BT_fon, there were multiple incidences of BT_fon and all were jumping all over the channels on 2.4GHz wifi. I tried bumping our router to several different channels but the BT_fon always stepped all over it. The affected PC is at the front of our property and the wireless router is at the rear. This arrangement is called for because I use the signal from the wireless router for connection to my computer in my workshop in the rear garden. I also see internet dropping out occasionaly but I have an on screen display of wifi signal strength and quality which never drops, the loss is clearly on the incoming phone connection.
In our case the solution has been to use a bunch of powerline adaptor network links to get the signal from the router to our Freeview hard disk recorder, to her PC and also to a network enabled printer in another room. We still have internet dropping out at a low incidence level but all machines pick up where they left off when the router gets the live internet link restored.
Rans6
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OK, time for an update, sorry for the delay.
The last position was:
I had powered off/on the home hub.
BT (In India) said they had reset my connection - although I'm not clear what this means.
I had changed the wifi channel manually to be channel 11.
I have gone into the BTWifi-with-FON connection properties (under properties>connection) and unticked the box marked 'Connect automatically when this network is in range).
Since then the laptop, which is always physically in the same place, has not connected to the Fon signal, and, the Apple Airport express now sits with a nice green light on which is indicating it is happy with its wifi (and hence internet?)connection.
I suppose this is good news of some sort and I am tempted not to do anything further for a suitable test period. I have had a replacement HH5 delivered. Any further thoughts from the team?
The last position was:
I had powered off/on the home hub.
BT (In India) said they had reset my connection - although I'm not clear what this means.
I had changed the wifi channel manually to be channel 11.
I have gone into the BTWifi-with-FON connection properties (under properties>connection) and unticked the box marked 'Connect automatically when this network is in range).
Since then the laptop, which is always physically in the same place, has not connected to the Fon signal, and, the Apple Airport express now sits with a nice green light on which is indicating it is happy with its wifi (and hence internet?)connection.
I suppose this is good news of some sort and I am tempted not to do anything further for a suitable test period. I have had a replacement HH5 delivered. Any further thoughts from the team?
Last edited by yellowtriumph; 13th Apr 2017 at 13:01.
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The ONLY way to stop the thing connecting to your FON... SSID from time to time is to delete the relevant profile.
To get windows to forget for example the BT...FON Wifi SSID
In a run as "Administrator" Command Window type
netsh wlan show profiles
Make a note of the exact name and capitalisation of the one you want to delete. Then type eg.
netsh wlan delete profile name="BTWifi-with-FON"
This will stop the device from connecting to that WiFi name automatically unless it is once again manually selected from the list of WiFis AND the "Connect Automatically" box is checked.
By the way - If you delete a profile that has a WiFi Key associated with it the WiFi Key will need to be re-entered if you wish to connect again.
You can otherwise safely delete any and all of the profiles.
I would delete any that you do not anticipate using again.
I suspect that -
netsh wlan delete profile name="*" will work.
This will though forever forget all your saved WiFi Keys.
Good luck.
To get windows to forget for example the BT...FON Wifi SSID
In a run as "Administrator" Command Window type
netsh wlan show profiles
Make a note of the exact name and capitalisation of the one you want to delete. Then type eg.
netsh wlan delete profile name="BTWifi-with-FON"
This will stop the device from connecting to that WiFi name automatically unless it is once again manually selected from the list of WiFis AND the "Connect Automatically" box is checked.
By the way - If you delete a profile that has a WiFi Key associated with it the WiFi Key will need to be re-entered if you wish to connect again.
You can otherwise safely delete any and all of the profiles.
I would delete any that you do not anticipate using again.
I suspect that -
netsh wlan delete profile name="*" will work.
This will though forever forget all your saved WiFi Keys.
Good luck.
Much of this thread shows up the poor general state of Internet access in the UK . Most of it comes down to poor regulation allowing providers to get away with low service performance levels and leaving the customers with contracts that are hard to escape from. Basically any demonstrated poor service that lasts more than a month should allow the customer to move supplier but as always in UK business comes first.
As to the OPs problems which seem to have diminished to a degree , perhaps some HH settinngs have been altered which ahve improved things and even if they will only send you an HH5 these are not all the same - they bought a lot of them over a period of team and as with all such equipment various software/firmware fixes are incorporated in later generations.
Perhaps the formal seperation of OpenReach (chat toa BT tech if you know one about what this means for cohabiting BT employees , human rights violations all the way there) will make it easier to change but in itself thats not simple.
Where I live -in a small raod which is private but which is not a private road as we do not join onto a public highway but drive over the pavement to get to it this means we cannot get Virgin who are allowed to skip roads that dont suit them. Sky are next best as the others are too small really but I object to giving the scum who own that enterprise any money. So when it comes down to it it is BT or nothing and soem of their products are best in class. Not BT email though stay away from that unless already committed.
What you could try is write to a suitable BT exec with a brief synopsis and say you feel you have been let down by the company who put contractual detail ahead of customer service and that this will make it unlikely that you will continue with BT when your contract runs out. Make the comment that the HH5 is known to be less than perfect (a lot of the UK based BT tech support people are quite open about this if you 'chat them up' and that one way of keeping you would be to give you the HH6 ahead of your new contract because thats ikely to persuade you to stay. However a new HH5 could help so give that a try first. Good luck
As to the OPs problems which seem to have diminished to a degree , perhaps some HH settinngs have been altered which ahve improved things and even if they will only send you an HH5 these are not all the same - they bought a lot of them over a period of team and as with all such equipment various software/firmware fixes are incorporated in later generations.
Perhaps the formal seperation of OpenReach (chat toa BT tech if you know one about what this means for cohabiting BT employees , human rights violations all the way there) will make it easier to change but in itself thats not simple.
Where I live -in a small raod which is private but which is not a private road as we do not join onto a public highway but drive over the pavement to get to it this means we cannot get Virgin who are allowed to skip roads that dont suit them. Sky are next best as the others are too small really but I object to giving the scum who own that enterprise any money. So when it comes down to it it is BT or nothing and soem of their products are best in class. Not BT email though stay away from that unless already committed.
What you could try is write to a suitable BT exec with a brief synopsis and say you feel you have been let down by the company who put contractual detail ahead of customer service and that this will make it unlikely that you will continue with BT when your contract runs out. Make the comment that the HH5 is known to be less than perfect (a lot of the UK based BT tech support people are quite open about this if you 'chat them up' and that one way of keeping you would be to give you the HH6 ahead of your new contract because thats ikely to persuade you to stay. However a new HH5 could help so give that a try first. Good luck
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I have had terrible trouble over the past few years with BT Broadband.
Internet dropping out constantly, very lucky to see speeds above 1Meg (more usually around 300k), weekly 'live chats' with tech support who have to 'reset the connection' every time (and have to spend about 30 mins of back and forth before getting to this step).
And then the wonder that is Openreach tell us our cabinet is enabled for fibre, despite Hampshire County Council's superfast initiative telling me that we are too far away from the cabinet to benefit. Cue a week of more back and forth, where Openreach say we can get up to 40Meg and BT Broadband (and any other third party ISP) telling us that we are too far from the cabinet and do not want the risk of us not getting the promised speeds (and they estimate 1.5Meg)
Openreach then deign to arrange an engineer visit, and they make it quite clear they need access to the property so someone must be in at the time. I arrange a day off work for the 0800-1300 window. At 1245 I get a text from them saying that the visit has been cancelled as they have 'just discovered' that they need access to the property and will reschedule to allow me to ensure someone is present!!!!
Openreach finally come clean the next day and say that I will not be able to get fibre, and to regularly check the website in case the situation changes. I go to the website, and guess what, it says I can get fibre!
Oh well; I'm now cancelling my BT contract as I have a Vodafone data sim card in my Huawei 315 4G router and I'm getting 20Megs now.
Well done BT.
Internet dropping out constantly, very lucky to see speeds above 1Meg (more usually around 300k), weekly 'live chats' with tech support who have to 'reset the connection' every time (and have to spend about 30 mins of back and forth before getting to this step).
And then the wonder that is Openreach tell us our cabinet is enabled for fibre, despite Hampshire County Council's superfast initiative telling me that we are too far away from the cabinet to benefit. Cue a week of more back and forth, where Openreach say we can get up to 40Meg and BT Broadband (and any other third party ISP) telling us that we are too far from the cabinet and do not want the risk of us not getting the promised speeds (and they estimate 1.5Meg)
Openreach then deign to arrange an engineer visit, and they make it quite clear they need access to the property so someone must be in at the time. I arrange a day off work for the 0800-1300 window. At 1245 I get a text from them saying that the visit has been cancelled as they have 'just discovered' that they need access to the property and will reschedule to allow me to ensure someone is present!!!!
Openreach finally come clean the next day and say that I will not be able to get fibre, and to regularly check the website in case the situation changes. I go to the website, and guess what, it says I can get fibre!
Oh well; I'm now cancelling my BT contract as I have a Vodafone data sim card in my Huawei 315 4G router and I'm getting 20Megs now.
Well done BT.
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Mine is Infinity 2 from BT with a speed of upto 76 meg....I live about 20ft away from the cable cabinet and that is about 200ft away from the exchange
I get average 35-45 meg
Contacted BT to complain, they looked into it agreed that the speed was well down on what is advertised and cut my monthly bill
I have the mobile/broadband/landline package from them and FreeSat for the TV
I shifted from Sky to BT and even with the occasional hassle from BT, I am still saving well over £120 a month, so the occasional dropout is acceptable, not happy but acceptable
I get average 35-45 meg
Contacted BT to complain, they looked into it agreed that the speed was well down on what is advertised and cut my monthly bill
I have the mobile/broadband/landline package from them and FreeSat for the TV
I shifted from Sky to BT and even with the occasional hassle from BT, I am still saving well over £120 a month, so the occasional dropout is acceptable, not happy but acceptable
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Latest update. Things continue to go well insofar that the laptop has not randomly connected to Bt-fon and the Airport express continues to display a 'happy' green light for it's wifi connection. So, has the previous work sorted it out?
But ... by means I cannot discuss here, BT have sent me not one but two of their latest Home Hub 6's!! (plus the replacement HH5).
I am sorely tempted to change over to it, but on-line reviews are mixed and not universally great. Any team thoughts?
Edited to add, spoke to my neighbour opposite yesterday, he said he suffered from the same random connections to BT-fon, he has a HH5 too. He gets around it by using ethernet via the mains wiring around his house, that was going to be my very last resort.
But ... by means I cannot discuss here, BT have sent me not one but two of their latest Home Hub 6's!! (plus the replacement HH5).
I am sorely tempted to change over to it, but on-line reviews are mixed and not universally great. Any team thoughts?
Edited to add, spoke to my neighbour opposite yesterday, he said he suffered from the same random connections to BT-fon, he has a HH5 too. He gets around it by using ethernet via the mains wiring around his house, that was going to be my very last resort.
Last edited by yellowtriumph; 16th Apr 2017 at 12:27.
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Last update (I hope!). I fitted the HH6 on the 16/4/16 and everything has been very stable since with the laptop not attempting to connect to Bt-fon and the Airport express remaining connected to the HH too. I hope that is the end of it - my neighbour is bidding on a HH6 on eBay in the hope of resolving his wifi connection issues too. Thanks to all for your help on this one.
Last edited by yellowtriumph; 4th May 2017 at 16:45.
