Just switched from Be to BT - problems

julianhj

julianhj

julianhj

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I took up BT's recent offer of cheaper BB connection, mainly as I wanted the free wi-fi access that was bundled with it, and I'll be getting Infinity when my street is enabled (exchange already up and running).

The switch occurred on Monday and so far I've noticed that whilst Speedtest results are just slightly slower (10.5 vs 10-11Mbps download and 0.9 vs 1.1Mbps upload), internet browsing seems really, really slow in comparison.

I understand that speeds can vary in the first week or two of a new connection, but is it likely something has gone awry? The sales bloke stated that the BT service would be equal or better than Be's. Is it possible that BT has a higher contention which might be causing the slow browsing? The connection has dropped a number of times as well, once requiring a router reset, the other times it has popped back of it's own accord after a minute or two.

An example of the slow browsing is that on Be if I opened the Random Image thread on General Discussion, the images would appear almost as quickly as I could scroll down. Now it can be up to 30 seconds for them to appear.

Are there any settings that may need tweeking to make the best of the connection?

I am aware that the Home Hub 3 can allow others to use the wi-fi connection as part of BT's public access - is this just for Infinity customers, or all customers? Is some of my bandwidth likely to be allocated to this?
 
julianhj said:
I am aware that the Home Hub 3 can allow others to use the wi-fi connection as part of BT's public access - is this just for Infinity customers, or all customers? Is some of my bandwidth likely to be allocated to this?
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All customers, but anyone joining that free wifi is limited to 10% or so of the speed and have less priority on bandwidth. I opted out of the free wifi to disable it when I was an ADSL customer since my connection was only 4mb, but when the Infinity upgrade became avaliable, I opted back into the free wifi. Although to be honest, the android app to auto join the free wifi was rubbish and unreliable, so I don't even use the free wifi anymore... the areas I'm usually in don't have BT wifi anyway :p.

+1 to Google DNS, I found the BT ones to be quite unreliable and sometimes slow, changing it to Google sped things up. You can't change it in the HH3 settings but you can do it in the PC settings: https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/docs/using#setup
 
Cheers for your replies. So frequent freezing, and needing resets at the HH3 is part of it settling down, or is there another issue(s)?
 
Have BT actually acknowledged there's issues with their DNS servers?

We're having the same problems here and it's very frustrating when you have devices where you can't change the DNS servers!
 
Its not an issue with BT's DNS servers (tho they aren't great and changing to external DNS servers can result in somewhat avoiding the issue but not entirely).
 
Its something to do with some kind of proxy/cache/inspection system they use not really sure of the exact details but I did some playing around awhile back with using my dedicated server as a VPN, etc. and IMO was pretty conclusive it was more than just a DNS issue.

That said BT's DNS servers can be quite inconsistant performance wise so changing from them isn't necessarily a bad idea either.
 
Rroff said:
Its not an issue with BT's DNS servers (tho they aren't great and changing to external DNS servers can result in somewhat avoiding the issue but not entirely).
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What is the issue then?

We've been having a lot of issues recently, and it's becoming a real annoyance!

I've switched over to Google DNS months back, but we still have devices where we cant change the DNS servers, and still use the HH3 so we're stuck with BT's on this front.
 
Maybe in your case. Changing DNS should sort the OP's issue, unless he's being affected by the https issue that should have been fixed a while back.
 
OpenDNS or google DNS

Also check for signs of MTU problems as this can cause slow web browsing and sometimes pages not loading at all
 
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Hello again, after trying the Google DNS servers the issue persists. Over a wired connection it seems fine, however the wi-fi connection is incredibly flaky, despite a full signal. For instance, on my Mac I'm getting a 14Mb download right now, whereas my wife sitting next to me is getting no connection at all. Resetting the router frequently solves the issue, only for it to return after 30 mins to an hour. I've been on the phone to BT and they've run various line tests to no avail. I've run a wi-fi analyser on my phone and whilst there is some contention from neighbours' routers, but Home Hub seems to cope with that.

We have the public wi-fi enabled (Openzone/FON), and my wife can log in to this and use it without issue - obviously this is running off our hub too, so what's the issue???
 
Having had a BT connection using the Home Hub 3 since earlier this week I would say it's probably due to it's wifi being a steaming pile of ****.

I get occasional hangs connecting to websites with it over wifi (via ipad) even with a static ip address and Google DNS. This is even for connecting to things which are on the internal network here rather than out on the internet.

Wired connections ... fine. Drop in a separate wifi access point and use that instead ... fine. Use wifi on the HH3 ... ****.
 
Ah, if it's wifi you're having a problem with, then replace the HH3. I had wireless problems as well and replacements didn't work, so I gave up and bought my own.
 
julianhj said:
Any recommendations for the replacement?
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What's your budget? I've always used cable myself so not too familiar with non-cable routers. I assume at the moment you are on ADSL and awaiting Infinity? Just make sure the equipment you get will be usable on both.
 
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