Wireless signal fluctuating

[MasterBlaster76]

My wireless signal just can't make up its mind! It can go from as high as 80% to as low as 33% (which is where it is now). I have recently upgraded to BT HomeHub v2 - and they claim in the manual that the connection will speed up/slow down for ten days, while they try to establish the best speed for the line. Is that accurate, or is it a load of BS in your opinion?

My download speed however, is stable at around 350kbps, which I'm perfectly happy with. As I type this, it's jumped back up to four bars on the signal meter - no, it's just dropped back to two bars. It's never had all five bars filled. The Hub is downstairs, not in the same room as the PC.

Edit: Weird: My signal meter is only showing two bars, yet my download speed has just jumped to 400kbps. Is this sort of speed/signal fluctation normal, or are there settings I can tweak to maintain a stable speed (or give BT their ten days)?

 

[Kshitiz_Indian]

As long as your speeds are stable and there are no drop outs, why worry? What is your connection speed?

 

[Abhas]

You can make your wireless card roam more aggressively, but that generally wastes more power. If you're having a good download connection, I don't think you should worry much. Is the signal available throughout your house? If there are no other issues apart from fluctuating signals, let it be.
btw.. I'm sure there would be doors in between.. Open them, the signal would increase, close them, and it should decrease. Maybe that's what's happening in your case?

 

[MasterBlaster76]

I don't think the doors are causing it - I'm not touching the door, and it keeps going up and down. Still, if it's nothing to worry about, I'll leave it be - just wanted to make sure it was a normal thing to happen. Thanks for the quick replies!

Edit: These speeds that the IPs quote are so misleading, it's not funny! Apparently, BT are rolling out 20mb speeds - so why have I never gone above 3, Mr BT?

 

[Abhas]

Coz those speeds are 20Mbps. Mega bits per second
What your computer shows is MBps - Mega Bytes per second

The speed you should be getting is : 20/8 = 2.5 MBps download. (Approx)

 

[MasterBlaster76]

Coz those speeds are 20Mbps. Mega bits per second
What your computer shows is MBps - Mega Bytes per second

The speed you should be getting is : 20/8 = 2.5 MBps download. (Approx)

OK, thanks for clearing that up! I only understand about bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes and terabytes! :doh Well, according to that, my speed is fine - just what it should be, maybe a little more since it sometimes goes above 3mbps.

Funny thing happened a few weeks back - I started a download, which raced away at 900kbps - but that gradually dropped to 300/350kbps - what was that, some kind of spike??

 

[Abhas]

Yeah, if you're getting 3 MBps download, that's amazing. I'm on a 30 Mbps connection, and hardly manage to get 1.5-2 MBps!

 

[Kshitiz_Indian]

OK, thanks for clearing that up! I only understand about bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes and terabytes! :doh Well, according to that, my speed is fine - just what it should be, maybe a little more since it sometimes goes above 3mbps.

Funny thing happened a few weeks back - I started a download, which raced away at 900kbps - but that gradually dropped to 300/350kbps - what was that, some kind of spike??

How were you downloading? Unrelated it may to this case, but it may happen sometimes when part of the file is already buffered and the application jumps directly to some percentage of the download, thinking it has downloaded it all in the second that passed since its starting. That's what does happen for me many times...