Virgin Media Community

[Geekboy009]

Hi,

I am four days into having the Gig1 and although getting 500+ at the hub location, this drops to 5mbs in the furthest room, which is where I have had to set up an office. I have had an engineer out and he has pointed to the fact that my house has brick internal walls and this obviously is the main cause and Hub location if fine.

So, in need of a mesh system to sort out my wifi woes.

Contacting Virgin I am told that their pods are OOS with no awareness of when they will be in (that's helpful!).

So, I am after recommendations from people that have a mesh system already set up with the Hub 4 please?

I have no awareness of price but prepared to spend on the right system.

Many thanks in advance...

[Andruser · Accepted solution]

Just about any mesh system will be an improvement on the hub alone (ignoring cheap ones that don't have gigabit ethernet ports), but if you've got brick internal walls then that will certainly attenuate the mesh signal.  Shouldn't be as bad as the unassisted Hub 4, but potentially it may not meet your expectations unless you connect the secondary mesh nodes back to the primary by ethernet cables, which isn't expensive, but can be a trial to to route neatly through a domestic property.

[jbrennand · Accepted solution]

The other option to improve the backhaul and attenuate the "hop-drop" in speeds - if running ethernet cables is a problem - would be to look at a TriBand system. These can be eye-wateringly expensive - look at Asus and Netgear Orbi.

However, transmitting though the brick walls may still be an issue, and there is brick and there is brick. Our estate is 1930's Cheshire brick and is not a problem for normal Mesh systems, but Victorian hard red brick is often iron-rich and you are living in a Faraday cage - so that could be more problematic.

Mind you if running ethernet cables is fine for you to do - you dont really need a Mesh - just run cables to 2/3/4 wireless access points strategically placed around the property. Look at the Ubiquiti range.

[Geekboy009]

Thanks.

I am currently using all ethernet ports on the hub which I can remove but not really wanting to add cabling around the house I have only just decorated 🙂

At the time, I wasn't predicting that the whole family would be holed up indoors.

So you are saying that most mesh systems will improve my performance? What price point is too cheap and therefore a waste?

[Geekboy009]

Thanks.

I am in an 1980s self build house so wasn't really aware of wifi issues / wall issues as signal has been ok, until the whole family stopped going out and we are WFH and home schooling, now it sucks.

Can't watch po*n in the back rooms anymore 🙂

I'll look up your recommendations.

[jbrennand]

I would say ~ £100 is the "entry point, £150- 250 for bigger properties.  Just ensure that they have 1GB ports - the cheaper ones often dont and so will never go above 100Mbps.

Look at the TP-Link M4/M5/M6 range as examples.  And the Asus ones too

[VM-Jon · Accepted solution]

I recently purchased the Linsys Velop Tri Band system and its great. I have gone from around 5meg at the far extremes of my house to around 180meg. Its £246 on Amazon.

Connection is 500meg.

[jbrennand]

Nice price for a good Triband system.