serious wireless connection problems - what is causing this? at end of tether

[squeezywheezy]

Hi

I am at the end of my tether with Virgin. I have been a customer for 18 months and every 2 months or so (sometimes more frequently) my wireless stops working completely. I have to connect the etehrnet cable into the computer and phone the tech guys etc etc. I dont know how much money I have spent on the phone. well i am now at the of my tether as yet again it has happened, and becasue my printer is wireless, every time this happens I have to reinstall the printer driver. I could scream! I started paying £25 a month for tv and broadband, this has slowly crept up to £30 as apparantly i am getting a faster broadband service - one that I never asked for and now I have it, it doesnt even seem any faster!

I have had two new routers and am sure it is not them. I have a laptop. desktop and mobile and it surely cant be all three of these devices that is the problem . I am on the verge of cancelling the whole thing. Sory for the rant but Ive had enough of phoning ppl and being put on hold forever. i think im just going to write to them and wait to be cut off. before i do this can anyone clarify is it me that has the problem? ie is there a problem in belfast bt6 9ax?

many thanks (and apologies for rant)

Louise

[shaunhuk]

I dont often post here, but I do read the forum regularly.

However, this particular problem sounds very familar to me.

In my case I know what causes it, but not how to fix it permanently.

In my case the problem is wireless interference.

The wired part of my network will work perfectly, but my wife's and daughter's wireless laptops, and my wireless printer will stop working or will start running like they are on dial-up.

The only fix I have found is to go into the router and change the wireless channel.

Try pinging your router with a constant ping and look at the response times and packet losses.

In my case, the ping times go from a usual <1-2ms to totally random 50-500ms, and packet loss rises to 50-75% and in extreme cases the wireless devices will not even connect to the router at all.

Try changing the wireless channel and repeating the test until you get a channel that gives the best ping responses.

This will usually fix it for me for another few months, until it decides to do the same thing again.

Hope this helps.

[caph]

Just to add a little to what Shaun says. You can get programs like InSSIDer that will scan your area and show you what channels are already in use and are likely to cause interference. You can then pick a channel which is not already used which should eliminate WIFI interference.

[kwikbreaks]

WiFi connections are entirely outside the control of the ISP. By all means cancel VM but don't expect to get ADSL instead and find that the problems are fixed because they won't be.

[nefu]

Remember as well that other devices operate in the same 2.4ghz spectrum as your wireless router, so it is worth checking that it is not near a DECT phone or TV Remote Sender for example.

[kwikbreaks]

Video senders are really bad news for WiFi and I doubt they'd be detectable with programs like InSSIDer because they don't follow any 802.11 protocol at all. Fortunately the converse is also true and most people trying to use one near a WiFi AP will give up because of the interference which they suffer.

Although some DECT phones operate on 2.4GHz I'm pretty sure most don't.