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Trouble Shooting

SWS Broadband – Troubleshooting

Please click on the subject below to view our suggestions for identifying the cause and resolving some of the common connection issues encountered.

If your connection issue isn’t listed, please contact us, email us on support@swsbroadband.net or call us on 0333 7000 227.

Your feedback is very important in resolving connection issues – don’t stay quiet if our attempts or suggestions to fix an issue don’t work.

If we have requested your feedback or an update it is likely that our investigations will be put on hold until we have heard from you. If we don’t receive your feedback within a reasonable time frame (usually around two weeks), your case may be archived.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if any problems you experience are not covered here or there is no improvement following our suggestions.

Reduced or fluctuating bandwidth

Check your speed

Before you start checking your speed, switch off all boosters and extenders. When you achieve a speedtest which shows your expected speed or you’ve completed the tests as described below, switch boosters and extenders back on one by one, checking connectivity as you do so.

1. Reboot the router and radio – ensure both are switched off for at least 30 seconds before switching back on. The radio can take up to three minutes to complete a full reboot.

2. Check that there’s no background activity like gaming, streaming, CCTV, cloud backups etc.

3. Run a speedtest.

4. If the results aren’t what you’re expecting repeat the speedtest with a device cabled to the router.

5. If results are still below expected rates repeat the speedtest with a device connected to the LAN port of the transceiver/radio power adapter.

6. Still below expected speed? Double check results with a different device.

Forward your speedtest results to us and let us know what time of day you experience reduced or fluctuating speeds and how long it’s been happening.

To help us identify the cause of bandwidth problems we may ask you to carry out multiple tests and different times of the day and on different devices if you are able.

Buffering when streaming

If you are experiencing buffering, run the speedtests as described above to establish a baseline.

Buffering can have a variety or causes:

* Poor network connection# (please see our WiFi Coverage page)
* There may be a restriction within your home network
* You may be maxing out your connection capacity
* There may be a network bandwidth bottleneck preventing us delivering your bandwidth to you

#A single device with a poor network connection can affect the quality of all other device connections as your router can dedicate too great a proportion of its operation to maintain the poor connection. Check that all your devices have a strong network connection – if you have not-spots or areas where connection is poor, take a look at our WiFi Survey & Coverage page before contacting us.

Contact us if your speedtests indicate that we are not delivering bandwidth to your connection or if you would like to ask us about extending your home network.

Slow response times

If web pages or emails are taking time to load, run the speedtests as described above to establish a baseline.

A single device with a poor network connection can affect the quality of all other device connections as your router can dedicate disproportionate effort to maintaining the poor connection. Check that all your devices have a strong network connection – if you have not-spots or areas where connection is poor, take a look at our Wifi Survey page before contacting us.

Contact us if your speedtests indicate we’re not delivering bandwidth to your connection or if you’d like to ask us about extending your home network.

Regular / multiple dropouts

The most likely causes of regular dropouts are addressed below.

If your router status lights indicate that your internet connection is down i.e. the light is orange, red or off altogether, please contact us.

Poor network connection

A single device with a poor network connection can affect the quality of all other device connections as your router can dedicate disproportionate effort to maintaining the poor connection.

If you’re experiencing unexplained dropouts on individual devices check that all your devices have a strong network connection – if you have not-spots or areas where connection is poor, take a look at our WiFi Survey page before contacting us.

Occasionally problems can be resolved by adjusting the position of your router and devices connecting to it – please see our WiFi Coverage page for hints and tips to make your home network most efficient.

IP address conflict

If you are experiencing connection dropouts regularly, during evenings or weekend the most likely cause is that your devices are dropping connection to the router due to conflict within your home network.

1. Switch off all wireless access points, extenders and boosters.

2. Reboot the router and check connectivity.

3. Reconnect extenders and boosters individually, checking connectivity as you do so.

For seamless roaming within your property ensure that all extenders, boosters and access points are configured to use exactly the same Wireless Network Name (SSID) and password as the router.

4. Carry out IP address reservation for all devices connecting to your router – please let us know if you’d like instructions to do this.

Let us know when outages that aren’t resolved by these steps occur so we can investigate.

Incorrectly configured boosters or extenders

If your devices see more than one WiFi network then you might experience dropouts as your devices swap from one network to another.

For seamless connectivity throughout your property any boosters, access points or extenders should clone the router settings, resulting in a single WiFi network within your property.

Devices automatically swapping between 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks

If your WiFi network uses the ‘faster’ 5GHz band (instead or as well as the 2.4GHz band) the effect of walls and distance is far greater. It is generally advised to only use the 5GHz band within the same room as the router, as it may not work effectively through walls.

Change your device settings to prevent automatic connection to the 5G network if you are likely to roam around your house when using it. In general we recommend that devices with a fixed position, in the same room as the router e.g. TVs, streaming devices, audio equipment etc use the 5G network if available and any mobile devices such as phones, tablets, laptops etc are restricted to the 2.4GHz network.

Please bear in mind that both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz connections operate at greater speeds than the bandwidth capacity of your connection, while 5GHz is promoted as faster than 2.4GHz in reality there is often no discernible difference when using.

Extending your home network (eliminating not-spots)

Access points and homeplugs/powerlines/mesh systems

Please see our home network coverage page for more information and options.

If you extend your home network either independently or following our recommendation, even if we have provided or installed equipment, SWS Broadband provides limited home network support only. We will work with you to provide home network troubleshooting free of charge via email or over the phone.

If we are unable to resolve home network issues remotely you can request an engineer’s visit, for which there may be a charge. Please see our engineer visit and charges page for further information.

We recommend that all extenders and access points ‘clone’ your main router settings to create a single, seamless home network and prevent devices dropping and re-establishing connection while roaming.

Devices connecting to home network but there is no internet connectivity

Check that your router has an established connection to the internet (globe/www icon is lit). If not, check cables are seated firmly and report loss of service to us.

Your cabled access points and homeplug units will indicate whether they have a connection to the router (the house icon will be lit). If this connection has dropped it can often be restored with a full reboot of the equipment.

Re-pair homeplugs (if reboot doesn’t restore connection)
Identify the pairing buttons on your units (usually small buttons on the bottom of the unit, almost flush with the main body). Move the remote unit of your homeplugs to the same room as your base unit when carrying out pairing – the connection should be maintained even when you move it back to the original location.

1. Press pairing button on base unit – lights should flash
2. Press pairing button on remote unit – lights should flash

Devices can’t find home network

Check the equipment is switched on and has connectivity to the router. If you can see a generic network name e.g. TP-Link-xxxx it is likely that your equipment has been reset to factory settings.

Re-clone homeplugs
1. Activate WPS on your router (press the WPS button for two seconds only)
2. Activate WPS on homeplug remote unit (press the WiFi light for two seconds only).

Re-configure access point
Please contact us for our easy to follow instruction sheet.