Best Router / Mesh System

[Fortinbras]

I have just moved into a 3 bed mansion flat and I'm tied into a contract with Talktalk.
They have supplied a TT super router which provides acceptable wifi in room where router is situated but signal was poor elsewhere.
Advice please from those who are au fait with this sort of conundrum.
What router would be better than TT
Do I try TP mains extenders
Do I install a proper mesh system.
I am fairly computer literate .
Many thanks in anticipation

[Derek Smith]

Which? tested routers this month. If you're interested, I'll dig out their best/worst buys.

[Piersman2]

Recently added a Ubiqiti router and Deco Mesh 3 set (S4) to home to run alongside frankly useless Vrigin Media HUB4 router (which is now nothing more than a modem)

No complaints, in fact very impressed. 2.4 and 5g network all around house with the 3 points all meshed in together.

[TEKNOPUG]

Depends how much bandwidth you want and how much you want to spend.

[xeny]

Piersman2 said:

Recently added a Ubiqiti router and Deco Mesh 3 set (S4) to home to run alongside frankly useless Vrigin Media HUB4 router (which is now nothing more than a modem)

No complaints, in fact very impressed. 2.4 and 5g network all around house with the 3 points all meshed in together.

Why the additional router? I thought Deco did routing already?

[stemll]

xeny said:

Piersman2 said:

Recently added a Ubiqiti router and Deco Mesh 3 set (S4) to home to run alongside frankly useless Vrigin Media HUB4 router (which is now nothing more than a modem)

No complaints, in fact very impressed. 2.4 and 5g network all around house with the 3 points all meshed in together.

Why the additional router? I thought Deco did routing already?

More to the point, why a Ubiquiti router and then not go for Ubiquiti APs?

[biggiles]

stemll said:

xeny said:

Piersman2 said:

Recently added a Ubiqiti router and Deco Mesh 3 set (S4) to home to run alongside frankly useless Vrigin Media HUB4 router (which is now nothing more than a modem)

No complaints, in fact very impressed. 2.4 and 5g network all around house with the 3 points all meshed in together.

Why the additional router? I thought Deco did routing already?

More to the point, why a Ubiquiti router and then not go for Ubiquiti APs?

I have a similar setup: six Deco mesh M5/M4 units, and a Ubiquiti Edgerouter in front of them. The mesh functionality works very well, but the QOS isn't good enough (IMHO), so for our limited broadband the Edgerouter handles QOS perfectly.

If you have fibre etc. then you should be fine with the Deco mesh units by themselves. The Ubiquiti APs are good, but they will be 3x the price.

[b14]

Deco works really well for mesh in our house, although we've got FTTP. Very easy to set up.

[michael_JCWS]

Reading with interest.

I’ve got deco M5’s and have had quite a bit of trouble. Particularly general performance and sorted. We have Virgin 350, giving about 358 at the hub.

I spent 6 months trying to get skyQ to play nicely, hardwiring the sky Q and Q mini to discs, my sons PS4 is also hardwired and this has had issues.

I’m in the process of sending them all back to amazon

I’ve a company coming round to perform a WiFi survey next week and they seem to recommend ubiquity h/w

Cheers

Michael

[Condi]

Cheapest way is to simply use an old router/wifi point to act as a second access.

I used powerline adapters to "wire" the internet to the other end of the house, then set up an old HomeHub router to have the same access point settings (name/password etc) as the main router. It now supports 2 devices connected via ethernet cable and other devices via wireless which connect automatically to whichever signal is strongest from the 2 access points.

Its not perfect - sometimes you can get a small drop out of wifi when walking around the house and the devices changes access point, but it was free to set up (already had the powerline adapters), and the speed is no different wherever you are in the house.

[C n C]

+1 for Ubiquiti APs here.

[stemll]

biggiles said:

The Ubiquiti APs are good, but they will be 3x the price.

£78 each for the AP-AC-Lite and 2 of those cover my 4 bed house upstairs, downstairs and, on 2.4Ghz, all of the back garden (APs are both at the front of the house). Need nothing else other than your original router with the WiFi turned off and some free software on your laptop for setup only. No working out how to get your old router into modem mode, no extracting logon details from your ISP to put into the new router (not sure which of the other mesh options are also a router but I know some are).

If you need the 3 pack of Decos M4s (doesn't seem to be a twin pack on Amazon at least) then the new version of those is £146 on Amazon today (old ones £123). Linksys Velop is £216 for a twin pack, Google Mesh twin £226, Deco M5 triple £150. None of those are a third of the £156 for Ubiquiti and two of them are are £60/£70 more, best is £30 cheaper.

[Condi]

stemll said:

£78 each for the AP-AC-Lite

No working out how to get your old router into modem mode, no extracting logon details from your ISP to put into the new router (not sure which of the other mesh options are also a router but I know some are).

No, but its £78 quid each for something which you can get for free with a little bit of work spent playing in the settings. Depends how IT literate you are I guess, but navigating menus and changing the "wifi name" and "password" box is not too complicated.

[stemll]

Condi said:

stemll said:

£78 each for the AP-AC-Lite

No working out how to get your old router into modem mode, no extracting logon details from your ISP to put into the new router (not sure which of the other mesh options are also a router but I know some are).

No, but its £78 quid each for something which you can get for free with a little bit of work spent playing in the settings. Depends how IT literate you are I guess, but navigating menus and changing the "wifi name" and "password" box is not too complicated.

It just isn't. It's £78 each for however many mesh nodes you want to add to your existing router versus however many mesh nodes you want in your one-box mesh kit. The AP AC Lite does nothing that the router does if you want mesh it is just an AP. Very few routers can act as a mesh root other than those sold in the kits and if you have one that can you'll be buying that manufacturers APs anyway.

Whichever you choose you will either need to

1. Use the existing router and just turn off WiFi (with Ubiquiti or other AP only mesh options)
2. Use the existing router, turn off WiFi and work out how to put it into modem mode to use the mesh kit router
3. Use just the mesh kit router and nodes then add a standalone modem and find the ISP logon details for the new modem

Which of those three is the easiest?

[Condi]

stemll said:

Very few routers can act as a mesh root other than those sold in the kits

Thats simply not true, I'm using a BT Home Hub 5 (the free router/Wifi access point which comes with every BB deal) as an AP only. A second router downstairs handles the traffic to the ISP and also does Wifi downstairs. Ironically that is a Plusnet router which is identical internally to the BT Home Hub, just a different colour.

All you have to do is wire the 2nd AP in (in my case via a powerline adapter), change the settings so the Wifi name and password are the same across both routers, then tell the 2nd router that internet access is via the 1st router. There are no settings to change on the main router.

What I have is essentially a "mesh" system made up of 2 free routers. As an added advantage I have 5 ethernet connections on each router so can connect desktop PC/Xbox via ethernet, which is faster and more stable than wifi, but have the ability to take my laptop round the house without losing connection when on a Skype call.

[michael_JCWS]

Looking at both Deco X60 and the Deco M9 plus, trying to decide if dedicated backhall is more important that WiFi 6

[stemll]

Condi said:

stemll said:

Very few routers can act as a mesh root other than those sold in the kits

Thats simply not true, I'm using a BT Home Hub 5 (the free router/Wifi access point which comes with every BB deal) as an AP only. A second router downstairs handles the traffic to the ISP and also does Wifi downstairs. Ironically that is a Plusnet router which is identical internally to the BT Home Hub, just a different colour.

All you have to do is wire the 2nd AP in (in my case via a powerline adapter), change the settings so the Wifi name and password are the same across both routers, then tell the 2nd router that internet access is via the 1st router. There are no settings to change on the main router.

What I have is essentially a "mesh" system made up of 2 free routers. As an added advantage I have 5 ethernet connections on each router so can connect desktop PC/Xbox via ethernet, which is faster and more stable than wifi, but have the ability to take my laptop round the house without losing connection when on a Skype call.

It simply is true but it's pointless continuing this as you don't know what a mesh is if you think you have one. What you have is not "essentially a mesh", it's a router and a wired AP. What you have is exactly what a mesh is meant to replace by removing the need for cables and doing the backhaul betwen APs wirelessly. If everyone was happy running cables or using slow, unreliable and interference broadcasting powerline adaptors there would be no market for mesh systems. However there is a market, just clearly not for you.

If it works for you great but don't kid yourself you have a cheap mesh, you don't and neither of your routers is acting as or is capable of acting as a mesh root.

[Condi]

stemll said:

If it works for you great but don't kid yourself you have a cheap mesh

I have something which works, for the most part and for most people's needs, as well as a mesh system bought from the shop. I would also disagree that powerline adapters (again, for the most part) deliver slow internet - my desktop wired to the "2nd router" gets the same speed as that which comes into the house, although we only have 36Mbps internet. Maybe if you had gigabit then you would see a performance drop between the 2.

From reading the OP he is pretty computer literate, and wants wifi at the other end of his house to the router - in which case the solution I have proposed works perfectly at little or no cost.

[Gren]

stemll said:

It just isn't. It's £78 each for however many mesh nodes you want to add to your existing router versus however many mesh nodes you want in your one-box mesh kit. The AP AC Lite does nothing that the router does if you want mesh it is just an AP. Very few routers can act as a mesh root other than those sold in the kits and if you have one that can you'll be buying that manufacturers APs anyway.

Whichever you choose you will either need to

1. Use the existing router and just turn off WiFi (with Ubiquiti or other AP only mesh options)
2. Use the existing router, turn off WiFi and work out how to put it into modem mode to use the mesh kit router
3. Use just the mesh kit router and nodes then add a standalone modem and find the ISP logon details for the new modem

Which of those three is the easiest?

Number 2 on a Virgin router. 1 click