WiFi question

[DonkeyApple]

I love tech that is elegantly seemless and makes your life more simple and conversely I loathe tech that does the opposite. I certainly get zero pleasure from playing with tech.

We have extremely poor wifi. There is no solution to this. It’s a copper BT line from a box a short distance away and simply the most you can get is about 4mb download and around 0.1 upload. That is just how it is. We have explored the local radio WiFi company who have come twice now and flown a drone over the top of the hoise but can find no signal to use. We’ve also had fibre installed a couple of hundred yards away by the Govt backed countryside policy but that is tuck in a feedback loop of the company saying they can connect and sending an engineer and the engineer turning up and saying that they can’t connect but then he doesn’t connect back with his company so it goes on and on in the typically farcical loop of modern business that seems to solely exist to waste people’s time.

So, we have poor WiFi into the house and that’s that. We cope with that, we aren’t a high demand household.

The actual issue is that the house is very thick stone walled and is structurally two properties so a really thick outer pair of walls actually run through the heart of the property. This means getting WiFi out of the room that it comes into is quite difficult.

To date I have achieved this with a pair of strategically placed Belkin Range extenders. They’ve worked quite happily for a couple of years but while they occasionally dropped off and needed turning on and off to get back they have recently just started to lose their actual set up and keep needing a total reset etc. This has started since a BT upgrade after a series of complaints where they sent a more powerful router which did seem to send the signal further but while speed checks showed the same speed as before it was as if the pipe had been throttled to only a trickle of data coming through.

I’ve now switched back to the older hub but the extenders don’t seem to stay connected but interestingly neither do any of our devices, since the upgrade everything seems to disconnect regularly for some reason, so the extenders may not be broken but suffering the same problem.

Obviously talking to BT, like most modern businesses, just sucks your will to live so what I was wondering was whether there was a third party router that you can buy that has a much more potent range as I’m sure the BT ones are pretty basic?

Also, if everything keeps dropping out regularly and the signal strength in specific positions around the house is strongish one second and gone the next is this even a router issue or have they done something to our line in as part of the service upgrade?

[thebraketester]

What’s your internal phone wiring like? How long is the run from where your line comes in to where the router is plugged into? It’s possible to increase speeds by making that distance as short as possible.

It won’t fix the Wi-Fi but it my just help optimise your connection.

[paulrockliffe]

Your WiFi issues won't be fixed with a more powerful router, it might actually make them worse. If your router is better able to propagate the signal than the receiving device then the device will stay connected to the router as it can see it, but won't know that the router is getting little back, so it'll get 0 to slow speeds.

Your best bet is to bridge the thick walls with a cable and setup a mesh network, I use Google WiFi and it's great, but I've no experience of the others and they seems to get plenty of recommendations when people ask on here. With the Google option you plug one into your Broadband Modem and set it up, then connect additional points via WiFi. Once that's done you can put the secondary devices anywhere downstream of the first device via switches or whatever and they'll work over ethernet. Or they will work over WiFi, though that sounds like a bad approach for your circumstances.

All of the ISPs supply dog-st routers because no one will pay for them, but ironically if you go third party for the router then best option is to use the BT OpenReach ADSL Modem, it's actually very good. You'll need to look on eBay for one.

Not sure if the Google WiFi devices have a Modem built in - they might but I already had a BT Modem installed when I upgraded, so I just have the WiFi thingys routing.

[AndyTR]

We've had exactly the same issues. What is your mobile signal like? If you have a fairly decent signal outside then possibly look at 4g mobile data with a 4g router and antenna. We were getting 4mb/0.4mb and now have approx 90mb/30mb, been stable for 3 months and we've cancelled the BT line now. We use power line extenders and wifi access points. There a loads of different solutions and I recommend reading this thread, https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

[DonkeyApple]

thebraketester said:

What’s your internal phone wiring like? How long is the run from where your line comes in to where the router is plugged into? It’s possible to increase speeds by making that distance as short as possible.

It won’t fix the Wi-Fi but it my just help optimise your connection.

Thanks. The openreach box is in the corner of the drawing room and the router is there also, next to it.

I did put the router on a long cable and ran it around the room to get the router closer to a doorway but that didn’t help. Maybe for the reason you suggest?

Even if you are in the drawing room the signal seems really bad. It will show a constant, unerring full strength icon on any device, Speedtests will show a constant speed but one minute a webpage loads in 5 seconds and the next the same page structure can take close to a minute to load.

I do think the line in is really bad and one issue that Inprobably can’t remedy easily. I also think it is part deliberate by BT as this has increased since they supposedly upgraded their service to us. In London Invould always tell if a BT offer was about to come through our letter box as myself and my neighbour’s would suddenly start experiencing WiFi speed and reliability issues in the weeks preceding that would always be followed by a spate of sales calls for us to upgrade and then it would all go back to normal once the sales drive was finished for that area.

The bit I was hoping I could self remedy is my BT hub + 2 Belkin extenders to get the wifi to as many rooms as possible. It’s been working ok but I’m pretty sure that I didn’t accidentally discover the perfect solution and that there is almost certainly something better and more elegant that more educated people are aware of. Such as replacing the standard BT hub with something more potent and using a different brand of extender etc?

[thebraketester]

DonkeyApple said:

thebraketester said:

What’s your internal phone wiring like? How long is the run from where your line comes in to where the router is plugged into? It’s possible to increase speeds by making that distance as short as possible.

It won’t fix the Wi-Fi but it my just help optimise your connection.

Thanks. The openreach box is in the corner of the drawing room and the router is there also, next to it.

Ok... but where does the line come into your house? Distance from the openreach box to where the BT cable physically comes into your house

[DonkeyApple]

thebraketester said:

DonkeyApple said:

thebraketester said:

What’s your internal phone wiring like? How long is the run from where your line comes in to where the router is plugged into? It’s possible to increase speeds by making that distance as short as possible.

It won’t fix the Wi-Fi but it my just help optimise your connection.

Thanks. The openreach box is in the corner of the drawing room and the router is there also, next to it.

Ok... but where does the line come into your house? Distance from the openreach box to where the BT cable physically comes into your house

[DonkeyApple]

thebraketester said:

DonkeyApple said:

thebraketester said:

What’s your internal phone wiring like? How long is the run from where your line comes in to where the router is plugged into? It’s possible to increase speeds by making that distance as short as possible.

It won’t fix the Wi-Fi but it my just help optimise your connection.

Thanks. The openreach box is in the corner of the drawing room and the router is there also, next to it.

Ok... but where does the line come into your house? Distance from the openreach box to where the BT cable physically comes into your house

The line runs up the length of the garden overhead and to the corner of the house precisely where the box is. It’s the corner that is closest to the road, which is then about 100 yards from the green roadside box so we are probably 300 yards from that in total but the closest property serves by it.

[kingston12]

I’d agree with the recommendation above to try mesh WiFi.

I’ve just changed from a standard router and a myriad of powerline and other extenders to Netgear Orbi.

It should be overkill for my situation as it is the version that is supposed to cover about five times the floor area I have, but it just works.

It measures the speed of the broadband coming into the router and that makes it possible to see that it is passing that everywhere with little or no loss.

My iMac is in a location where it can’t be wired, but transfer speeds to and from my (wired) NAS are much faster over WiFi than they were previously using Powerline.

[thebraketester]

OK cool.... sounds like that my idea probably wont help then which is a shame. We had our Master Socket moved to optimise our connection and gained nearly 20Mbps.

[DonkeyApple]

AndyTR said:

We've had exactly the same issues. What is your mobile signal like? If you have a fairly decent signal outside then possibly look at 4g mobile data with a 4g router and antenna. We were getting 4mb/0.4mb and now have approx 90mb/30mb, been stable for 3 months and we've cancelled the BT line now. We use power line extenders and wifi access points. There a loads of different solutions and I recommend reading this thread, https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...

We have 4G just in the corner of the drawing room and the rooms above, this isn’t continuous and will drop off to 3G much of the time. There is no phone signal in other parts of the house.

BT sent a white box with FEMTO on it to boost WiFi calling as you could only talk on a mobile for a minute of two before the phone dropped WiFi calling and the line cut off. The new box will trigger a beep on your phone as you start a call to let you know you are connected. The phone says you have a strong 4G signal through mobile calling but there is rarely a beep and the call still cuts off after a couple of minutes.

To get a 4G signal for a business call I have to walk to the end of the drive and if it’s raining I have to take a car down!!!

4G and WiFi’ is terrible here but the issue right now is propagating that steness as best as possible through the house.

[DonkeyApple]

paulrockliffe said:

Your WiFi issues won't be fixed with a more powerful router, it might actually make them worse. If your router is better able to propagate the signal than the receiving device then the device will stay connected to the router as it can see it, but won't know that the router is getting little back, so it'll get 0 to slow speeds.

Your best bet is to bridge the thick walls with a cable and setup a mesh network, I use Google WiFi and it's great, but I've no experience of the others and they seems to get plenty of recommendations when people ask on here. With the Google option you plug one into your Broadband Modem and set it up, then connect additional points via WiFi. Once that's done you can put the secondary devices anywhere downstream of the first device via switches or whatever and they'll work over ethernet. Or they will work over WiFi, though that sounds like a bad approach for your circumstances.

All of the ISPs supply dog-st routers because no one will pay for them, but ironically if you go third party for the router then best option is to use the BT OpenReach ADSL Modem, it's actually very good. You'll need to look on eBay for one.

Not sure if the Google WiFi devices have a Modem built in - they might but I already had a BT Modem installed when I upgraded, so I just have the WiFi thingys routing.

Thanks. I think I tried something like this. I have some extender boxes that use the house ring main. They had a slight problem in that the old part of the house has one ring and the new part another so there is no wiring bridging the thick walls that are stopping the WiFi signal.

[DonkeyApple]

As an aside, can someone explain 5 or 2.4ghz networks in idiot speak? The extenders used to set up as both but now will only allow one or the other. If I’m using a BT hub is there a specific one to select or does it not matter?

[WindyCommon]

The alternative solution is to throw money at the problem and get a leased line installed from a commercial provider, together with a cabled backhaul(?) mesh wifi network. This will resolve all your issues properly.

I took the plunge and did this about 18 months ago. We now have a rock-solid 100Mbps in both directions, so everything just works properly. Setting up a new device is no longer a trial that lasts hours, we can stream music and films (SkyQ works like a dream), our CCTV cameras work and can now be viewed when we're away. I've been able to use the cloud properly for my photo storage, and for all our device backups etc etc etc. On the odd occasion there's been a service interruption we get immediate support, none of the modern-life-pain you refer to.

To be honest it has been a revelation, and for us definitely a worthwhile investment. I wouldn't have identified us as a particularly tech-heavy family - we've added more recently because stuff just works properly - and we managed for years with a simple BT connection like yours. But fast and reliable connectivity has been a major positive with benefits beyond those I hoped for. Feel free to PM me if you want some more detail.

[dmsims]

Thankfully a while since while moved from 3Mbit broadband

Can you post a picture of the master socket and internals ?

What model of router ?

You can wring (some) more speed out of long lines

WRT to the Wifi signal you can try Tenda MW6 or Orbi

Edited by dmsims on Thursday 2nd January 11:28

[paulrockliffe]

DonkeyApple said:

Thanks. I think I tried something like this. I have some extender boxes that use the house ring main. They had a slight problem in that the old part of the house has one ring and the new part another so there is no wiring bridging the thick walls that are stopping the WiFi signal.

You need to bridge the wall with ethernet cable from one mesh unit to the others rather than powerline.

If you can run ethernet to all the mesh units that'll be the best solution, but if your issue is essentially one massive wall splitting the house in two, then putting a device either side of the wall with an ethernet cable between them might be enough to let you then use WiFi to link further mesh devices.

In one respect your slow internet is a help here because you won't have to work too hard to get your WiFi faster than the internet can supply data.

The extender boxes I'd avoid, they do work, but they can cause issues where a device stays connected to one box which is too far away rather than connecting to a point with signal that's nearby. The mesh systems do the same thing, but they know which device is on which node and move them to the node with the best signal when necessary.

[DonkeyApple]

WindyCommon said:

The alternative solution is to throw money at the problem and get a leased line installed from a commercial provider, together with a cabled backhaul(?) mesh wifi network. This will resolve all your issues properly.

I took the plunge and did this about 18 months ago. We now have a rock-solid 100Mbps in both directions, so everything just works properly. Setting up a new device is no longer a trial that lasts hours, we can stream music and films (SkyQ works like a dream), our CCTV cameras work and can now be viewed when we're away. I've been able to use the cloud properly for my photo storage, and for all our device backups etc etc etc. On the odd occasion there's been a service interruption we get immediate support, none of the modern-life-pain you refer to.

To be honest it has been a revelation, and for us definitely a worthwhile investment. I wouldn't have identified us as a particularly tech-heavy family - we've added more recently because stuff just works properly - and we managed for years with a simple BT connection like yours. But fast and reliable connectivity has been a major positive with benefits beyond those I hoped for. Feel free to PM me if you want some more detail.

There is fibre at the end of the back garden. The problem is that it was put in by one company and another company is selling the service. Combine that with the run being longer than their spreadsheet allows for and my conversations with them have been fruitless regardless of money as it seems there is yet another company involved in specialist installations and they claim not to do specialist integrations!!!

That solution seems trapped in one of those modern business fkwit loops.

[dmsims]

DonkeyApple said:

As an aside, can someone explain 5 or 2.4ghz networks in idiot speak? The extenders used to set up as both but now will only allow one or the other. If I’m using a BT hub is there a specific one to select or does it not matter?

2.4Ghz slower longer range
5Ghz faster shorter range

With your slow broadband disable 5Ghz

[WindyCommon]

DonkeyApple said:

There is fibre at the end of the back garden. The problem is that it was put in by one company and another company is selling the service. Combine that with the run being longer than their spreadsheet allows for and my conversations with them have been fruitless regardless of money as it seems there is yet another company involved in specialist installations and they claim not to do specialist integrations!!!

That solution seems trapped in one of those modern business fkwit loops.

I think I am suggesting something quite different, which will reassign the actions and responsibility for dealing with these sorts of issues. Happy to discuss.

[DonkeyApple]

paulrockliffe said:

DonkeyApple said:

Thanks. I think I tried something like this. I have some extender boxes that use the house ring main. They had a slight problem in that the old part of the house has one ring and the new part another so there is no wiring bridging the thick walls that are stopping the WiFi signal.

You need to bridge the wall with ethernet cable from one mesh unit to the others rather than powerline.

If you can run ethernet to all the mesh units that'll be the best solution, but if your issue is essentially one massive wall splitting the house in two, then putting a device either side of the wall with an ethernet cable between them might be enough to let you then use WiFi to link further mesh devices.

In one respect your slow internet is a help here because you won't have to work too hard to get your WiFi faster than the internet can supply data.

The extender boxes I'd avoid, they do work, but they can cause issues where a device stays connected to one box which is too far away rather than connecting to a point with signal that's nearby. The mesh systems do the same thing, but they know which device is on which node and move them to the node with the best signal when necessary.

Thanks. To get a cable through would require drilling through about 2 foot of hard stone probably in two places but still using a wife extender to get the signal across the drawing room as there would be no way to run a cable.

If you imagine the old house being a solid box with the new part being an L shape enveloping two sides to overall make a larger box, the signal comes in at the furthest outside corner away from the new part. The drawing room is parquet with one wall away from the router being broken with an inglenook and the other with back doors. Even then, while one side of the room has the new property on the other side, the other is still in the old property into rooms with equally thick walls that block signals etc.