Macs dropping wireless connection from BT Business Hub router

[eliseb]

Hi there,

This is similar to a problem posted all over the web, but I wondered if anyone knew a good solution. We have 6 Macs (iMacs and Macbooks) running off a BT Business Hub router. Two are usually plugged in by Ethernet and have reliable internet with hardly any interruption.

Any Macs running off the Wireless experience continual drop outs on their connect, unless they are sat directly next to the router, which is largely impractical. We try to keep all electronic appliances away from the router but being that this is the 21st century, slightly hard to apply completely. Our office is about 12 feet by 24 feet and the WiFi is appalling.

It might be worth pointing out the drop out rate is as high whether there is 1 computer connected by WiFi or a total of 6. This is also not a question of speed, but more of continual drop out.

Can anyone offer any advice?

Best,

Elise

[Fiona]

Hi

I am sorry that no one on the forum has been able to offer and advise on this issue.

There is information on the help and support site for slow or dropping wireless connections, which includes changing the wireless channel. If this doesn't help you could contact the technical team to see if they can determine why the wireless signal is not very strong within your office.

I hope this helps

Kind Regards

Fiona

BT Business Forum Moderator

[themakeupgaller]

Got the same problem.

I've got a PC connected by wire to a BT Business Hub running no problem. But I just bought an iMac and having real problems getting a wireless connection.

Called support on Saturday and after an hour a really helpful guy (Fraser?) got a connection after changing wireless channel, wireless password and security level. 

A couple of hours later my daughter said the connection had gone. Reconnected drops again. Try to reconnect and timeout or 'invalid password' (It was the right password) error messages. Just getting worse.

Logged service call noon on Sunday (110123-000125 in case the moderator is interested) - after 48 hours NO response other than the automated acknowledgement (or you did get it). Just to add insult to injury when I look at the fault on the BT website (status OPEN) it tells me it doesn't recognise BT's fault reference and that my phone number is not registered to my profile!

Just tried email contact but that generates new fault report (110125-000939)  - I don't think I'll hold my breath for the next 4 hours.

[a-hill]

I've found that Macs don't really work too well with WEP authenticated wireless networks. In most cases, I swap over to WPA-PSK2 and create my own customer encryption key and set it up that way... have had far fewer problems with WPA. Doing this however will mean that all of the devices will need to set up again for wireless.

You can do this by going to Settings> LAN> Wireless. To save messing about with preferred networks, you would probably be best just changing the SSID. This can be anything but i'd make sure there's no spaces in the name just to be sure (e.g. mybusinessname). On Authentication Type, drop it down to WPA-PSK and WPA-PSK2 option, scroll down and put a check next to Use Custom Encryption Key and enter a desired password. This can be a normal word which I believe has to be 8 chars or more e.g password1243. Click save and it will ask for the router password, default is the serial number if it hasn't been changed (12-digit code found on a sticker on the base of the router).

If there's issues getting connected with this at all, you can go to Settings> Diagnostics> Resets and reset the wireless settings. Since you didn't remove the old preferred network, it should connect ok by itself again.