Weapons-grade home WiFi suggestions

[Alucidnation]

bodhi said:

Just a heads up for any of you using Sky Q - we tried to get ours to use the Netgear Nighthawk for WiFi rather than the Sky Q Hub with no joy - would only connect to the Sky Wi-Fi itself. Sky advertise Q as working with anyone's Broadband so I don;t see why this should be a requirement, but may be one to consider.

We've got the Sky Wi-Fi working alongside the Netgear one - means we have 2 Wireless Networks but seems to work well - the Q boxes connect to Sky, everything else to the Nighthawk and SSID Broadcast turned off on the Sky Q Hub.

Hmmmm it should work.

When you go into network settings there is something about connecting to other WiFi.

However, ours did not find the network at all so I just put the ssid and password in manually and works a treat.

This was for a sky q mini but should work with the main box, although ours is wired into the switch via cat 5

[budgie smuggler]

Anyone know of any comparative benchmarks for these systems?

Struggling to find anything other than "I only got 30mb lol" on reviews. I want a table showing a comparison showing performance under the same conditions.

Edited by budgie smuggler on Monday 14th January 19:22

[sparkyhx]

DoubleSix said:

If one is using the router in modem mode only, is there anything to be gained from ditching the crappy ones we get from Virgin et al?

you will probably lose any semblance of support from your supplier, any issues will result in pretty much zero support unless you plug everything back in...........Not even sure they would entertain 'line issues', although they should.

I'm not sure but I don't think replacing modem with your own modem only will give you much extra unless you spend a fair bit. If you are not experiencing problems its not worth it. If its not a particularly good line (slow or flaky), a 'higher end' modem might help that, but at the end of the day, if the line is bad ......its bad

[dmsims]

sparkyhx said:

DoubleSix said:

If one is using the router in modem mode only, is there anything to be gained from ditching the crappy ones we get from Virgin et al?

you will probably lose any semblance of support from your supplier, any issues will result in pretty much zero support unless you plug everything back in...........Not even sure they would entertain 'line issues', although they should.

I'm not sure but I don't think replacing modem with your own modem only will give you much extra unless you spend a fair bit. If you are not experiencing problems its not worth it. If its not a particularly good line (slow or flaky), a 'higher end' modem might help that, but at the end of the day, if the line is bad ......its bad

In Virgin's case you cannot ditch their router anyway

[DoubleSix]

sparkyhx said:

DoubleSix said:

If one is using the router in modem mode only, is there anything to be gained from ditching the crappy ones we get from Virgin et al?

you will probably lose any semblance of support from your supplier, any issues will result in pretty much zero support unless you plug everything back in...........Not even sure they would entertain 'line issues', although they should.

I'm not sure but I don't think replacing modem with your own modem only will give you much extra unless you spend a fair bit. If you are not experiencing problems its not worth it. If its not a particularly good line (slow or flaky), a 'higher end' modem might help that, but at the end of the day, if the line is bad ......its bad

I get a rock solid 100+mbps so no complaints at all, I just wondered what benefits, if any, could be had from switching out the Superhub.

[robbieduncan]

dmsims said:

In Virgin's case you cannot ditch their router anyway

No, you cannot. However you can stop using it as a router. It can be switched to modem mode very easily and you can then use whatever router you like. Unfortunately it still suffers from Intel Puma issues in modem mode

[dmsims]

robbieduncan said:

dmsims said:

In Virgin's case you cannot ditch their router anyway

No, you cannot. However you can stop using it as a router. It can be switched to modem mode very easily and you can then use whatever router you like. Unfortunately it still suffers from Intel Puma issues in modem mode

Not if you make them give you a Superhub 2AC!

[essayer]

Soo the Tenda MW3 has been in a few weeks and great coverage but today the upload speed ground to a halt and I needed to reboot the main node to restore.
Anyone seen this? It’s set to scheduled reboot, but I’ll send it back if it’s going to be needing regular power cycling

[Bullitt Five-Oh]

essayer said:

Soo the Tenda MW3 has been in a few weeks and great coverage but today the upload speed ground to a halt and I needed to reboot the main node to restore.
Anyone seen this? It’s set to scheduled reboot, but I’ll send it back if it’s going to be needing regular power cycling

Maybe try singing "love me tenda" if it happens again?

[OldGermanHeaps]

is the firmware up to date? i gave up on tenda back in 2016 because their firmware was buggy as hell.

[a7x88]

budgie smuggler said:

Anyone know of any comparative benchmarks for these systems?

Struggling to find anything other than "I only got 30mb lol" on reviews. I want a table showing a comparison showing performance under the same conditions.

Edited by budgie smuggler on Monday 14th January 19:22

Smallnetbuilder offers some pretty good testing and analysis

[anonymous-user]

a7x88 said:

budgie smuggler said:

Anyone know of any comparative benchmarks for these systems?

Struggling to find anything other than "I only got 30mb lol" on reviews. I want a table showing a comparison showing performance under the same conditions.

Edited by budgie smuggler on Monday 14th January 19:22

Smallnetbuilder offers some pretty good testing and analysis

This came up when I was looking a few days ago - https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/wireless/wireless-...

[budgie smuggler]

Thanks

[essayer]

Noticed there was an update to the Tenda app and then it allowed a firmware release
From 1.0.0.27 to 1.0.0.31(6705), release notes:



Glad I bothered to use google translate to see what the Chinese meant

[boxst]

boxst said:

I got the great news this morning that FTTP is live finally so just ordered that. Which means I need decent mesh speed to take advantage of that glorious 300 down and 50 up.

I will have two FritzBoxes (will get another one with the new connection) that apparently work in mesh mode so I may try that first before investing in Orbi.

I set up three Frtizboxes and they do quite a good job. The range of each one isn't spectacular but together they cover the 7500 sq ft house and they do do a great job of switching between 2.4/5ghz and the access points themselves.

If you have some kicking around (or sign up with Zen twice as I did (FTTC and then FTTP) that gets a free router) then they are definitely worth trying before paying for Google or Orbi.

[AC43]

OldGermanHeaps said:

Order66 said:

This is the correct answer. Someone will be along to try and recommend ubiquiti stuff (I swear they must be paid to do it on PH) but it really is very poor in a home setting - just not designed for it. You need mesh. I ended up with a Netgear Orbi setup that has been better in every way to the prior Ubiquiti.

what makes you say it is very poor? i have fitted it in dozens of very large houses and never ever receive anything other than praise of its performance, in many cases after their diy mesh attempts resulted in disappointment.
yes I do get paid to fit it and yes it is expensive but performance wise no mesh system can come close to multiple ac pros hardwired and professionaly designed and configured.

I'm not an installer but paid for someone else to put a Ubiquity system in my new place.

Before having it installed I tried all manner of boosters and extenders including powerline adaptors but had problems with all of them. I finally tried Orbi's which, when they worked, were brilliant. BUT I never managed to stop them dropping periodically. And frequently. Like all the others. Which was absolutely infuriating. Especially given the cost. My wife also hated the look of them (they are pretty chunky......).

Despite having read loads of recommendations here for Ubiquity I doggedly stuck to trying to get the Orbi's to work reliably in the new build. The cabling gay said "ubiquity" and I ignored him. Then my wife saw a ceiling mounted Ubiquity and loved it. I still said no. But finally, when the BIL said he used Ubiquiti I gave up and went with the flow.

And here I am, 5 months later and loving it. 5 months, no down time, bomb proof. What a relief.

[essayer]

essayer said:

Noticed there was an update to the Tenda app and then it allowed a firmware release
From 1.0.0.27 to 1.0.0.31(6705),

I found the MW3 really unstable after upgrading to 1.0.0.31 - wifi would cycle every few minutes - but enabling a new setting "Capacity-oriented mode" seems to have sorted it.

[OldGermanHeaps]

pffft... fanboy.

[ecsrobin]

So just ordered the Tenda Nova MW6 as a 3 pack but expecting to only use 1 possibly 2 of them at my home. Does anyone know if I can then run the spare 1-2 at a family members house or is 1 a dedicated router they attach too.

[Whoozit]

ecsrobin said:

So just ordered the Tenda Nova MW6 as a 3 pack but expecting to only use 1 possibly 2 of them at my home. Does anyone know if I can then run the spare 1-2 at a family members house or is 1 a dedicated router they attach too.

I have the 3 unit kit. IIRC each one can act as a main router, the others are then added . So you could use just the 1-2 in another house.