Home WiFi woes
 

Can anyone suggest any clever fixes here? I can get 100Mbps or more from my home internet set up (4G modem/router with EE and an external antenna) but I’m having difficulties getting much of it into the corner of the room where my tv is. As you can see from the picture, in the same corner of the room, the tv gets 6.6Mbps while the iPad achieves 83. (When I ran the same test with the iPad elsewhere in the room I was getting over 100Mpbps).

I know that the iPad is on my router’s 5GHz band and the TV is on the 2.4GHz band. The TV can’t use 5GHz (apparently no Samsung TVs made before 2018 can). I have repeated the experiment with the Roku Express from the spare bedroom with similar results - it’s a little better because I can move it round a bit. But it seems it, too, is restricted to the 2.4GHz band.

I have been into the router admin pages and experimented with forcing it to use different channels; it is now set to channel 6 which was the best by far.

I can’t move the router because it is attached to an external antenna which has to be suckered to an upstairs bedroom window in order for us to get any decent 4G signal at all.

I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m out of options, short of doing serious, intrusive DIY to bring a network cable through the ceiling and into the living room. Although I am curious whether one of the more upmarket streaming products will work on 5GHz. The Roku website doesn’t seem to want to confirm whether their enhanced 4K products will do this.

Help!

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...1&d=1633073985

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

Mesh system perhaps? but seems an expensive solution

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

Get some powerline wifi adapters, set them all to the same ssid and encryption as your main router, and it'll do a mesh kind of thing on the (very) cheap.


I've done the same with some TPLink ones, you need a standard powerline plugging into the router (via a LAN port) then just pop others in weak spots. Works a treat.

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

A second for power line adaptors.

My VM SH3 and Netgear nighthawk X6 router are both on a shelf above my airing cupboard, I run a cable into my dad's room into a power line adaptor I have a second one behind the TV which goes into a switch.

Every device in my home that can be hard-wired is.

My brother In-law is about to run Cat8 to various rooms.

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

If I bought 2 power line adapters and put one by the router and one by the tv could I connect to both via Ethernet? Hardwiring the TV is a very attractive proposition as it is a bit flaky at remembering WiFi networks.

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

are you on one ring main or 2?

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

Yes.


Once you have connected one to your router you can add anywhere on the mains socket. (Provided your wiring is up to it).


We have one by the TV as well as a couple of wifi points, the last one was added when we got some outside furniture to boost the range outside (and is just on the other side of the back wall). Anywhere where you need a better connection than wifi, or just better wifi, has powerline adapters.


I have these which do a good job - though ended up with a v4 and a v5, the latter seems to need fewer reboots.

https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-netw...ne/tl-wpa4220/

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

Coolio … I’m looking at the kit version of that, with one master and two extenders - if I’m going for this I might as well try to deal with the shoddy reception in one of our other rooms while I’m at it.

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

If you do buy a TP-Link buy one that has 2 or more Ethernet ports.


The one upstairs connects to my router and a TiVo box, the one downstairs connects to an 8 port switch the other goes to a lead in which I can connect a laptop so I can connect directly to the router.

---------- Post added at 16:58 ---------- Previous post was at 16:56 ----------

IIRC you can buy multiple units and avoid cables.

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

There are 3 socket rings covering most of our house, and 2 more fed from a secondary consumer unit (though the secondary unit is fed from the main one).

In the main part of the house we have separate rings for upstairs, downstairs hall/lounge, and kitchen. The dining room and a further bedroom each have their own ring, fed from the secondary consumer unit in the extension.

Well, you did ask … :D

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

I bought the 9020 version which is up to 2gig

---------- Post added at 17:02 ---------- Previous post was at 17:01 ----------


Check the model before you buy, as some may not work on your set up

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

It seems quite difficult to get the higher spec extenders as add ons - they only seem interested in selling starter kits, which is kind of annoying. For future proofing I’d rather have a gigabit setup with dual band WiFi but while I can easily buy a TP-Link AV1000 starter kit, I don’t seem to be able to buy additional single WPA-7517 units.

I’m not too worried about extending into the rooms covered by the secondary consumer unit because if I can even put one of these in the space next to the dining room (which has sockets on the primary consumer unit) then the WiFi extension signal will be more than adequate. I’m not too worried about the rest of it because I’m finding most contributors on places like Amazon don’t seem to understand what terms like ‘ring’ or ‘circuit’ actually mean, and are tying themselves in knots when trying to explain what works and what doesn’t.

A setup like this would be pretty useless if it could only work between sockets on the same ring - if you only have one socket ring in your house the chances are it’s small enough not to have any WiFi black spots in the first place. The usefulness of these is pretty much predicated on them being able to feed off a router located downstairs on one socket ring and provide service to an extender in the far corner of an upstairs bedroom.

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

You can get a Tenda Mesh system for only a little more than a pair of powerline adapters

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

Perhaps, but I have a strong suspicion that the root of my problems is WiFi interference from my neighbours - my recommendation that they all get 4g broadband because BT still haven’t fibred us up has been a bit too successful and there have recently been lots of additional routers appearing in the immediate locality, closely followed by multiple Rokus and Chromecasts. While WiFi extension is a nice-to-have, what I suspect I need in order to bomb-proof my smart TV is a wired Ethernet link between it and the router. Powerlines appear to be a better option than actually drilling through my daughters’ bedroom floor to get an Ethernet cable into the lounge.

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

you should coerced them into Starlink hahahaha

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

Your daughter has a floor in her bedroom ???

My daughter did once, she's since converted it into a combination wardrobe/washbasket/CD/DVD storage area :D

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

The phrase for that storage solution is "floordrobe"…:D

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

Why do you think I’m desperately trying to avoid doing any sort of DIY in their bedroom …

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

I have a main WiFi router, and a number of repeaters dotted about, on several SSIDs.

(and a couple of powerline adaptors as well), its all been built up over the years.

I've decided its time to upgrade to a Mesh system, I'm looking at the TP Link Deco Systems.

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

I ordered these last night and they arrived this afternoon. So far, so good - on the TV over Ethernet I am getting 100% of the speed I’m seeing on 5GHz WiFi on the iPad, which is a win as previously the TV was on 2.4GHz and getting little more than 10% of what was available. I can’t report absolute speeds at present as the home network is being quite heavily used, as is our local 4g cell. I should be able to identify the best throughout I can get from powerline in my home first thing tomorrow morning (or maybe late tonight).

It does work, after a fashion, on the socket ring in the dining room which is on a secondary consumer board but it’s weak. I’m getting much better results from putting the second adapter in the kitchen, which is on our main consumer board. End result, the iMac in the dining room is connecting via 2.4GHz to the plug through the wall, less than a metre away, and getting a good, stable connection.

So thanks everyone for your help :tu:

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...1&d=1633185811

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...1&d=1633185811

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

The powerline adaptors should be plugged directly in to the socket and not an extension lead

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

There’s no socket nearby …. That’s why it’s on an extension lead. It’s a long one. ;)

It’s working fine, and at present the TP-Link app says the data rate between the plugs is around 30Mbps which is way more than adequate, given that the only thing we need of it is the hardwire to the TV. The 5GHz signal direct from the router is fine for sitting here with the iPad.

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

They do work, I have done that before, though they work better directly plugged in.

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

Depends on how old (or cheap) the extension lead is.
AFAIK, the issue is the protection systems in them (like anti surge).

(Home-made extensions dont have an issue, nor should ones without extra protection circuits).

However, its generally better to plug directly into the socket, and use an ethernet extension, rather than a power line extension.

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

Issue is, we have no unused sockets in the living room. In common with many houses that didn’t have electricity when first built, they didn’t put enough sockets in when it was eventually installed. It really is fine though, I’ve achieved what I wanted to with the installation (and the extension lead is surge protected fwiw)

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

Hi, if anyone can help with this I'd be grateful, we lost all network connection last week and I had to reboot our superhub, since doing that I had this message come up on our Iphones, "Hotspot login cannot open the page because it could not establish a secure connection to the server"
At first, I could not connect to wifi using VM8807911-2G_2GEXT or the 5GEXT, but I could connect using VM8807911 and I'm using this connection at the moment.
I tried to connect to one of the other connections but keep getting the same message as posted above, any ideas?

Thx

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

I dont know about that, but since my previous post Ive switched to 3 x TP-Link Deco M5's and my wifi has been fine in all rooms.

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

i got the M4s but want wifi 6 for my Meta Quest 2 so might sell them and buy a AX kit

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

sounds to me like it is trying to login to a wifi hotspot which your hub has enabled by default and the iphones arent happy with a presumably self-issued security certificate the hub is providing as the server. It is a pain in the ass for Joe Public outside of your house however you are connected to and using the
in-home wifi for your account and that seems to be working fine. The iphones will remember the ssid's and passwords and reconnect when the connection becomes available again.

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

Wi‑Fi 6 or 6E ?

WF6 is about 40% faster than Wi‑Fi 5 (max) - not sure if its really worth it.

Now Wi-Fi 7, that will be nice when it comes along - 40Gbits/s max.

Re: Home WiFi woes
 

The OC2 has wifi 6 and when streaming PCVR games wirelessly that extra bandwidth will make a massive difference :)

Gonna try to get the new superhub when I negotiate my next deal in July. Hopefully they will just give me that and I can then just connect t that