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Homeplugs, mesh or other solution

dwelly
Dialled in

I live in a two floor house with thick walls between rooms - 5 upstairs and 4 downstairs. A Hub3 is upstairs in a room at one end of the house. I have M200 fibre broadband but the wi-fi signal across different rooms is very unpredictable, especially the further away from the Hub I go. I used the Virgin Connect app to check wifi strength but it was useless, especially in connecting in the three or four rooms where we have very poor connection. Outside the house in the garden there is no connection at all.

We use 4 multi tv boxes, three mobiles, a PS4, iPad, iMac, laptop and a Smart TV so wi-fi is always in use. I'm looking for a solution that will allow a strong and stable signal across all devices and rooms. A friend suggested home plugs like Belkin or a mesh but to be honest I don't know what to do and would be grateful for some advice.  

 

22 REPLIES 22

minispiney
On our wavelength

I'd been using TP-Link Powerline stuff to get some wi-fi upstairs at the back, where the Virgin box is downstairs at the front.  It had been working OK until two things happened:
- My wife got rid of the hall table the Virgin hub had been standing on, leaving it on the floor
- I got a speed bump from 100M to 200M (and saved a few quid and got more TV channels) by changing package
After both of these things, which happened about the same time, my speeds in my home office dropped.  I tried adding a third TP-Link device but I just couldn't make it all work together.  I ended up dumping it all in favour of an Eero mesh system, initially with three pods (one at the router, one in the dining room and one upstairs in my home office) and now up to four (added one in the kitchen by my wife's computer).  Everywhere except the kitchen I can get pretty much the full 200Mbps download.  The kitchen one is behind a double thickness brick wall with cavity insulation as it's in an extension outside the original house without line-of-sight to another pod, but it still gets up around 100Mbps.  Very happy with it overall.

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Hub 5 - Modem Mode - Eero mesh
My Broadband Ping - VirginMedia OL15

Sautoy
On our wavelength

My experience...

Old 5 bedroom detached house. Virgin router (M350 BB) downstairs at one end of the house. 350 Mb/s in the room with the router. 15 Mb/s (or zero) elsewhere. 2 very unhappy teenagers.

Bought some TP-Link powerlines and attached old ISP routers (Sky/BT) to these which improved the situation. On a good day got maybe 70 Mb/s in some of the other rooms. Set up was reasonably stable but still too many shouts of "The wifi's not working, Dad."

Thought about a mesh system but decided to run ethernet around the outside of the house. Drilled holes in the external walls to take 3 ethernet runs from the router (via TP Link unmanaged switch) around the outside of the house to 3 other rooms, 2 downstairs, 1 upstairs. Terminated the cable runs with wall sockets. Connected the old ISP routers. 300 Mb/s everywhere. Total stability. Happy kids.

I am no DIY expert, but I am not completely useless. Watched a few youtube videos to understand what to do. Took me a weekend to complete the job. Wife was satisfied with the cosmetic result. Kids no longer complain (well, not about the wifi at least).  

Andrew-G
Alessandro Volta

@dwelly  TP-Link powerline kit is completely different to the mesh systems in question.  They can be useful for some people in some situations, I don't rate them myself, and personally I'd always go with a mesh system, but it's always a question of understanding your needs, budget, and the potential limits of the kit you buy. 

The Amazon Eero is OK, but unless you get a good deal it's overpriced (in my view) compared to the likes of the Deco M4 and S4; With Amazon's focus on Black Friday there will almost certainly be deals on offer, although don't forget that Amazon aren't a hardware maker, they're selling Eero's to track customer browsing data "to support product development".  I wouldn't have either Google or Amazon mesh systems, that's a personal choice, many are very happy with them.

Regarding the M4, E4, S4, M5, M9 etc, it's really up to you what you choose to spend, and indeed whether TP-Link's market positioning appeals.  Asus and Netgear produce some fabulous mesh systems, and even full blown routers that can be setup to work as mesh systems, but at a heft price.  Tenda produce kit at a lower market positioning than TP-Link - used within its constraints the Tenda kit can be a bargain, but tends to be a little bit more limited compared to the TP-Link, and TP-Link are a bit more limited than Asus.  In terms of fiddelability you certainly get what you pay for. 

The TP-Link M4 and similar S4 are excellent entry level mesh systems.  The E4 is to be avoided as the primary mesh unit, because it is constrained by the 100 Mbps physical ethernet ports.  And you can choose to go with the higher spec M5 and hope that it delivers more than the M4 in your environment.  I see excellent speeds on my M4 setup, in a medium/large 4 bed detached house even with only two M4 units, and still with entirely useable and stable speeds 50 feet away at the bottom of the garden, so I can't see a case for anything more costly for me, but this house is for the most part quite an easy wifi environment.  There's always some extra trinkets to justify spending a few more quid on wifi (be that tri-band, aerial count, Wifi 6, nominal throughput claims etc) but if you aren't careful you'll find yourself with a £450 wifi system.

I still reckon you should consider trying a three pot Deco M4 or S4 for a hundred quid, if it doesn't do what you want return it and then consider spending the considerable money on a tri-band and/or Wifi 6 mesh. 

Whatever you consider, check out tech press and website reviews and tests, along with customer reviews on seller websites, maybe check out the maker's web sites - does the maker's web site provide good, accessible information, does it respond to its own user forums etc.

There's a lot of very insightful information there, Andrew. Thank you!

My house is an extended semi detached with stone walls between rooms so the biggest complaint is about coverage in the rooms furthest away from the router. Obviously everyone's house is different and what worked for you night not work here but I'm going to follow your advice and go with the three unit Deco M4 system.

My wife gets out of hospital later today and will be stuck in our bedroom for a few weeks while recovering so she'll certainly welcome an improvement in the signal. Fingers crossed it works well! 

Andrew-G
Alessandro Volta

Finger crossed here (otherwise I shall look a twerp). 

Some types of stone and brick are near impervious to wifi, and if there's multiple solid walls that's a very harsh wifi environment.  In those cases most of the signal then propagates through doors, windows and by reflection off surfaces such as down an indirect hallway, so if the results disappoint, first thing is to move the units around.  There's always fall off in signal across multiple mesh units, the key objective is that you get the coverage for any reasonable use at any point, if you find that's still a problem, then if you'd ever consider wiring the units together, then a really long Cat 6a ethernet cable costing fifteen quid or so trailed through the house but not "fitted" would establish whether that works and is worth the effort of doing a good and tidy permanent installation.  Using a fifteen quid ethernet switch off of the first Deco's spare port would allow both other Deco units to have a wired connection.

Yes, that sounds like a good plan B but hopefully plan A works well and we won't have to resort to that. I'll let you know....

Adduxi
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

@Sautoy wrote:

<snip>   Thought about a mesh system but decided to run ethernet around the outside of the house. Drilled holes in the external walls to take 3 ethernet runs from the router (via TP Link unmanaged switch) around the outside of the house to 3 other rooms, 2 downstairs, 1 upstairs. Terminated the cable runs with wall sockets. Connected the old ISP routers. 300 Mb/s everywhere. Total stability. Happy kids.

 


Absolutely the way to go if you are happy with a bit of DIY.  I have my property pretty much flood wired for ethernet, and anything with an ethernet port is cabled.  PoE wireless access points only for phones etc.  

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@minispiney BQM in your signature looks rather nasty, and probably down to a noisy coax line; I'd have thought that if you do any gaming, video calling or other latency sensitive things you'd notice an assortment of hiccups?  If you do see any symptoms and want to see about getting them fixed best to start a new thread.

@dwelly Apologies for cutting across your thread with this.

@Andrew-G (how do I do a real @mention?) I've tried, see https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Networking-and-WiFi/Any-way-to-change-hub-access-address-in-Mod...

I'm on fibre to the house and everything has been replaced except the couple of metres of cable that runs around the outside of the bay window between the fibre termination box and the cable socket on the wall.

 

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Hub 5 - Modem Mode - Eero mesh
My Broadband Ping - VirginMedia OL15

jbrennand
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person
Just as an aside. I have seen several threads on here recently where poor BQM's and connection issues have been caused by dodgy ethernet cabling and/or 3d party devices.

Can you try disconnecting all devices connected on etherne cabling (Eero?,Switches, etc) and use the Hub in normal router mode on its own for a few hours (overnight) and see whether the BQM "cleans up" and the issues go away when there is just one computer/laptop connected on a new and good ethernet cable.

If it does clean up - plug the devices back in one at a time until the issues reappear - then you know where the problem lays. If it doesnt help then you know its a VM equipment/connection issue for sure

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John
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I do not work for VM. My services: HD TV on VIP (+ Sky Sports & Movies & BT sport), x3 V6 boxes (1 wired, 2 on WiFi) Hub5 in modem mode with Apple Airport Extreme Router +2 Airport Express's & TP-Link Archer C64 WAP. On Volt 350Mbps, Talk Anytime Phone, x2 Mobile SIM only iPhones.