Broadband signal strength

Vovski

First time posting so hopefully ok.
So I just signed up to Fibrely 550Mb after being with Sky, noticed that signal strength was very poor, contacted their CS and they told me to split my channels 2.4 and 5Ghz, which I did but this made no difference, so in the living room which is about 12 feet away from router my signal drops to 1 bar about 60Mb download speed !!, upstairs and in the kitchen I have no signal !! Rang CS and they told me to purchase some of their boosters at £40 each. My question is should I have to be buying boosters if my signal is so weak ? should they not provide them as I am not getting the service for what I am paying, surely you would expect the Wi-fi signal to be stronger than 12 feet, what should I do ? I have been with them for only 3 weeks.
Apologies for the long post 

Keep_pedalling

Sounds like a faulty router, you should see no performance at 12 feet away unless you router is sitting in a metal box.

Ayr_Rage

If you have close neighbours check for WiFi interference.

Ask for a replacement router, at 12 feet in the same room you should have full strength, however your device could have issues, try another device.

Exodi

Sounds like an issue with the router, however have you tested with another device to rule that out? You should obviously have perfect signal sitting 12 feet from the router in the same room.

Have you performed a speed test on the router? What speeds are you getting?

Vovski said:

Rang CS and they told me to purchase some of their boosters at £40 each. My question is should I have to be buying boosters if my signal is so weak ? should they not provide them as I am not getting the service for what I am paying

Generally you should pay for them (for example I'm sure you wouldn't suggest that Lord Very-Rich III would be entitled to a van load of free equipment with his subscription because he can't get good signal across his 27 bedroom manor house with the router alone).

However in this instance it suggests there is an issue, a modern router should generally provide signal to each corner of the average house (albeit the signal might be weak at the extremities).

Vovski

Thanks for the replies, just to add - at the router I am getting 500Mb download speed, but as I said moving 12 feet away it drops to 60Mb !! and upstairs and in kitchen nothing, just wondered if I had grounds for complaint as I'm not getting the service I'm paying for, surely no one sits by the router !!

Farway

Vovski said:

Thanks for the replies, just to add - at the router I am getting 500Mb download speed, but as I said moving 12 feet away it drops to 60Mb !! and upstairs and in kitchen nothing, just wondered if I had grounds for complaint as I'm not getting the service I'm paying for, surely no one sits by the router !!

Before complaining I think you need to carry out the checks suggested above

Exodi

Vovski said:

Thanks for the replies, just to add - at the router I am getting 500Mb download speed, but as I said moving 12 feet away it drops to 60Mb !! and upstairs and in kitchen nothing, just wondered if I had grounds for complaint as I'm not getting the service I'm paying for, surely no one sits by the router !!

Well that at least confirms the bandwidth is not a problem.

No-one is suggesting you should sit by the router, don't wind yourself up with your own narrative.

Next use a different device, connect wirelessly and run a speed test. If you get good speeds on the new device it suggests an issue with the original device you used, if you similarly get connection issues it suggests there is a problem with the WiFi broadcasting. Out of curiosity, if you have an Ethernet cable I'd test a hardwired connection, though it doesn't change anything.

If you confirm an issue with the router, I'd next perform a full factory reset and then perform a speed test on a device. If the signal is still poor, contact your ISP.

Some may suggest the router should be in a more central location and avoid metal if possible, though unless you've put your router in a safe, getting poor signal in the same room suggests it's something else.

I wouldn't reach out to your ISP immediately if it's something you can rectify relatively easily yourself. Likewise if you quickly complain and they send an engineer out and the issue is found to be on your end (e.g. there was no issue and the problem was with the device you were testing on), you will likely be billed for the call out.

TheNorthStar

If the router is genuinely in the same room and in line of sight, the problem is either a faulty router or network congestion. If it’s brand new, congestion (Wi-Fi interference) is more likely.

If the router is in the hallway and you’re in an adjacent room, the signal still has to pass through walls. In that case, switching to the 2.4 GHz band can help as it penetrates walls better, although it is often more congested.

Do you have the option to switch off 2.4 GHz and only use 5 GHz? If not, can you give each band a separate name? That way, you can choose which one to connect to, which is also a useful test. Wifi boosters are not the answer to this problem.

Vovski

Have already split the channels as this was suggested by their CS, but it has not shown any improvement. I have tried different devices and the results were the same. Don't know what else I can do ?

Exodi

Vovski said:

Have already split the channels as this was suggested by their CS, but it has not shown any improvement. I have tried different devices and the results were the same. Don't know what else I can do ?

Have you factory reset the router?

I'm guessing it's a TP Link EX230v?

https://www.tp-link.com/uk/service-provider/wifi-router/ex230v/

You can factory reset it by holding the reset button with a pin for 6 seconds.

https://www.tp-link.com/uk/document/27254/

Ayr_Rage

If you have really split the SSIDs then it is highly unlikely that both bands will have exactly the same problem as there are two different transmitters in the router.

You need to have the 2.4 and 5 Ghz SSIDs with different names AND different passwords to stop the devices defaulting to a specific band. then retest.

Edit : Are you using the supplied power supply? A friend used a generic supply and it wasn't compatible and the router misbehaved.