Hi guys, I'm hoping you can help me with an issue I'm having with my BT infinity. To be honest, I've had this for around 8 months now, and I've never really been happy with the speed or consistency of it, BT's customer services have been of little help and don't particularly care.
I went for the 80mb Infinity and am close to both the exchange and the roadside box. I was told I should get the top speed available.
I find that with ipad / iphone won't reliably play YouTube or iplayer live, there's always buffering and sometimes "you have insufficient bandwidth to play this programme" BT have been out and retired the pole outside, tested inside and say there is close to 80mb at the socket. The router is a home hub 5, and we recently boosted the signal upstairs with a BT wifi extender, which made no difference. We're well within range at all times, there's nothing knowingly interfering with the signal.
Speeds vary an awful lot, we also have tested with several devices using apps, and websites and we find the same. Download speeds between 15 to 35mb, up to maybe 45 on occasions, and as low as 5 sometimes.
What I'd like to know is :

Should I expect speeds to vary so much ?

Should I expect buffering on YouTube / iplayer

I thought infinity would be amazingly different to standard broadband and yet I can barely notice a difference apart from 'generally' faster download of things like iplayer programms

What should I do if I'm not happy ?


Any advice would be most appreciated

Paul

The first thing to do is to try without WiFi, using a wired connection. That's the only way to find out what the actual broadband connection speed is. It can vary at different times of the day, depending on what other load there is on the network, even for Infinity.
Ordinary WiFi is unlikely to get anywhere near 80Mbit/s, but should still be fine to stream youtube. If the wired connection is OK the WiFi may have interference issues, perhaps a neighbour on the same channel, so you'd need to change the wireless channel on the homehub.

Thanks very much for the advice. I'll test out the wired connection, I'll let you know what the result is, however, during my previous complaining to BT they had me check this on their speedtest website, the results weren't good. It the end they had me start up my PC is some weird mode where it bypassed the junk it contained which was slowing it down, the final result was that it showed something like 76Mb, I continue to be frustrated however by devices which just stutter and stop and start
Also, I'm told that the Home Hub 5 automatically chooses an interference free channel, and that there's no really way to select a new channel, just that the device does it automatically ?

I've not managed yet to test out the connection speed with an Ethernet cable, but tonight I'm trying to watch you tube, and it's endlessly buffering on my ipad, when it does play, half the time it's showing the fuzzy low bandwidth / low quality picture.

This is so annoying !

Can anyone else using 80mb Infinity confirm how their wifi devices cope with this kind of downloading ?

Is there a way to set a poll on the forum .

I feel like BT are absolutely faceless, they don't appear to care in the slightest, and hide behind their Indian call centre defence system . I'm not happy at all and would love to cancel the service with them

Does anyone have a good UK email address for BT where I can vent my frustrations ?

Many Thanks

I have Infinity 2 and wireless devices don't have any problems streaming media. However, as already mentioned, if you have a problem, you need to test with a wired connection. There are too many variables with wireless. If a previous test gave 76Mb from a wired PC, then there isn't a problem with the Infinity connection.

Hypothetically speaking both your connection and the HH5 could be working normally and the entire problem is with the wireless signal. In such a case I would argue it's nothing to do with the provider of your service - they have given you the connection.

You must methodically check things starting with the connection. This must be tested using a wired connection. Note also that if the router is not plugged into the main phone socket you should try doing so. Take off the faceplate and there is a "test" socket - use this. Doing so discounts any internal wiring on your phone line.

If the wired connection appears OK then look at the HH5. Can you lay your hands on another router so test. Even if it's not wireless you can still test the connection. If it is a wireless router then you can check both wired and wireless to see what results you get. Compare them to the HH5

If everything appears OK then it's the wireless signal itself. Can't help with that.

Brian

Thanks guys, I'll get the wired test done and report back

Thanks for the advice

Paul

Paul

Following the thread shown below I've had another look at your postings.
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showt...7#post74494367

Your computer was probably re-started "In Safe Mode" from the Boot menu. You can go there any time you want by re-starting your PC - at some point you are offered F2 or F12 to go to the Boot menu. As you say, this cuts out all the junk on your PC. If you got a speed of around 76Mpbs then this appears to prove your connection is fine.

Now, you didn't say if the PC is connected by wire or wireless. If the former then it showed the HH5 appears to be OK in wired mode. If it's the latter then the HH5 appears to be working on wireless.

Now, if your PC is connected by wireless or you have a wireless laptop running Windows you could try a program called "insider" (Version 3). This gives a visual display of what's happening with the wireless signal. The Help (Learning) pages also explain various things. It is free and available from http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/inssider.html

However be very careful about the download. These sites often try to include other software and use a trick where the obvious down load button gives you the extras.

The following line near the top of the page appears to give the clean program

MajorGeeks.Com » Internet Tools » Diagnose, Monitor & Repair » inSSIDer 3.1.2.1 » Download

Brian

Why download yet more bloatware?

simply go to the 'start' button,

hit 'run'

type in msconfig click 'OK'

go to the tab at the top labelled 'startup'

DISABLE EVERYTHING

Click 'APPLY' then click 'OK' you will then get a pop up saying you need to restart your system, click 'YES'

reboot

any services that are needed will be invoked when you call them, not when windows starts.
this will speed up boot times and also mean you are only running the background services and software you need at any given time

They've not said what OS they're using. You can't do that with Windows 8/8.1.

Here are my HH5 speeds:

The HH5 is in the next room and the partitioning wall is brick.

5GHz http://www.speedtest.net/result/3722238036.png

2.4GHz http://www.speedtest.net/result/3722240606.png

Providing you are not just using a g card you should be ok