Sudden slow wifi

[Riccard_2393905]

I just got another smarty unlimited broadband sim added to my first one in the same household. I got two tp-link router and to start with both broadband worked ok. From the second day onwards both broadband speed got really slow. I tried to switch one off and it made no difference. I contacted smarty before doing this and they told me it would be ok to have two sim cards but clearly it is not. How do I solve this? Before the speed was ok, not amazing but ok. Now is really slow and even searching for a simple thing online takes ages for the page to load 

[SmartyTrousers]

@Riccard_2393905 Why would you need two unlimited data SIMs in one household?

If it's because one router doesn't cover the whole property, that's a rather expensive way of going about solving that problem.. you could just have paid for one unlimited data SIM and one router, plus a wi-fi extender device.

Anyway, Smarty's network will not have reduced the speed because you have two SIMs in the same household.. the network can't even tell that both SIMs are in the same household.

A more likely explanation is that both routers are using the same wireless channel and interfering with each other, thereby reducing the speeds attainable. So see if that's the case, and if so, put one of them on a different wireless channel (one that isn't already in use by neighbouring wi-fi networks).

Alternatively, there could just be a temporary network issue in the area.

[Riccard_2393905]

Thank you for replying to me. The reason for getting another sim and router is not because the first one did not cover the house but is because we live in a rural area and the wifi is not strong so is two of us and we wanted one system each to do our work at the same time without affecting one another. However, now I shut down the latest router and sim but the previous one is still working slow and I have no idea how to bring it back to its previous speed. Do you suggest to change the frequency even in this case? Will it help?

[SmartyTrousers]

@Riccard_2393905 Thanks for the explanation about the two routers, I get where you're coming from.

Yes, it's worth ruling out an issue with the wireless channel the remaining router is using. There are various apps for iPhone and Android, as well as Windows and MacOS, which can show you which wireless channels the various wireless networks nearby are using. You can then set your router to one of the channels that's less congested than the others.

But as I said, it may just be a local network issue, so try putting your postcode into Smarty's network status checker page. 

Another possible explanation is to do with where you've sited the router in your house. It may be that in some parts of the house the router connects to one mast, while in others it connects to another one with more capacity and therefore higher available speeds. So I would try positioning the router at different places around the house and running a speed test with it in each of those places, to see where you get the best speed. In fact, it might be worth trying that first before you start looking at the wireless channel.

[Riccard_2393905]

Really thank you for your support is really appreciated. I tried different places but is no difference and I also think that being in the middle of the north pennines there aren’t many mast to connect to….I checked the smarty service in the area and it appears to be in full working order. Then I did a wifi service diagnostic which shows an ok service for this wifi with a slow ping and little intereference which appears to not be an issue….so I do not have a clue of how to sort this out…I will start working soon and all I really need is for it to have enough capacity to allow me to have my clients sessions as I am a therapist and this is priority number one as you can imagine….will find out soon enough…

[SmartyTrousers]

@Riccard_2393905 No problem 🙂

Ah yes, in an area like that the chances are you may only be within range of one mast anyway.

It is normal for the ping to be quite high on a mobile network, and in my experience, particularly on Three's network. Around 50ms is ok.. if it's in the hundreds then that would indicate that your local mast is under a heavy load and you're probably going to struggle with lag on your client sessions.

Assuming your sessions are audio and video, and that the ping isn't too high, I'd have thought just a few Mb/s (say 3Mb/s) download and upload speed should be more than sufficient for it to work.