Wifi Connection

[whatwhat]

Hi all, I was wondering if I may ask you a question? We have had awful WiFi for years, so when I rang my provider, they said they could hugely improve our speed by giving us fibre. They didn’t change anything at the house, but said that was normal. They sent a new router and said we have great WiFi speeds.. the problem is it dips in and out.. my son plays Xbox and it goes from a ping 4.. to 700 and back again throughout his game! Iv called them and finally they have agreed to come out, but want proof of the problem.. now.. bar filming his game (Is this proof?!) I wondered if there was something I could download to show the dips of WiFi? I don’t really want to be fined £200 if they can’t find a problem!! Many thanks xxx

[Prudie]

Presuming you have a laptop or tablet you could take screenshots of various broadband speedchecker results?

[whatwhat]

Would you mind recommending one? Do you mean wait for it to show a slow speed and screen shot it? I was hoping I could find one that recordes over a period of time?

[Fitzer]

Your ISP will not be responsible for your WiFi speeds, they are responsible for your broadband speed to the modem/router/hub (whatever they call it). WiFi can be subject to all manner of interference from things such as microwave ovens and your neighbours using the same WiFi channel as you (not on your connection more like listening to the same radio station). To check your speed accurately you need to connect a computer by a cable directly to the router and then do a speed test (well several at different times throughout the day). If they all show a decent and similar speed the problems lies in the WiFi, at which point you need to start thinking about what might be interfering and whether you can manually configure your set up to use a different channel to see if that helps. Also, do you have dual band WiFi, normally 2.4 & 5Ghz, 2.4 tends to get more interference but has better range so if you are close to the router try the 5Ghz connection to see if that is better.

[Prudie]

Well I use this one
https://www.broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk/

and your ISP certainly does have an influence on speed, especially if you have upgraded to fibreoptic although of course there could be issues from the router but I'd certainly start with checking the speed coming in to the house - and yes using an ethernet cable will give you that reading.

[TonyV]

I use this one to check periodically, plus you can have results sent to your email, so you could build up a log.

[Fitzer]

Of course the ISP has an effect on speed but not WiFi speed per se, which is why the OP has to do an ethernet connected test before considering calling them out

[TonyV]

^^^^^
Would have helped if I had attached this - DOH

https://broadbandtest.which.co.uk

[johnk]

Change providers and tell your current one why you've moved.