Weak wifi signal in house , advice please

[Bluebird13]

I'm not the most technical of people but need some help please. The floor plan of my house is quite big and position of my router is at the front of the house where it enters the building. By the time you get to my kitchen and rear bedrooms any wifi signal has gone. Until now I have managed on a wifi extender which gives me some wifi access at the rear but we are currently having a garden room/office put in which needs wifi too. Do Virgin do anything to make the signal better or more far reaching. It would need to be powerful as it is about 40m from the router to the building location ? Or can you recommend anything compatible with a virgin router that works well and is easy to set up ?

[jbrennand]

See this
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If it is a wifi only issue, then on a Hub3/4/5, you can try separating the SSID's of the 2.4 and 5 GHz wifi bands by renaming them in the settings and at the same time switch off "channel optimisation/Smart wifi” “ apply and save the settings.

This is easily done by logging in to the Hub's settings. Afterwards, all wifi devices will need reconnecting to the best SSID at each location.

You can also use a wifi scanning App to find the best wifi channels to use (just select and use channels 1,6,11 on 2.4GHz) - this often helps Hub users get better wifi performance - but its still no substitute for getting better kit 🙂

To address the wifi issues, VM now supply “wifi Pods” (no longer doing cheap and cheerless “boosters”). However, their Pods are only free to customers on the 1GB, Volt (or old Ultimate Oomph) packages - is that you? If so they are worth trying - they should work for you.

You do have to call in to order the first one (cant do it online the website is borked) - or just wait here for a VM person to respond in a day or two and they will sort the first one for you .

If not… you will be charged £5/month (note - BT charge £10/mo for their whole home wifi solution). It’s a simple solution and should work for you.

However, you would soon pay off that cost by buying your own wireless solution that will be yours to own and use forever, but it isn’t the simple plug and play option of the Pod(s).

You would need to get either a… (1) Mesh System, (2) Wireless router, (3) Wireless access point (4) Powerline adapters (+/- inbuilt Wifi,) (5) A combination of (2,3,4).

[Anonymous]

See above and also https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Networking-and-WiFi/WiFi-for-garage/m-p/4977060#M468342 

[newapollo]

Hi @Bluebird13 

You might also want to consider moving your VM hub to a different more central location to help spread the signal over a wider area (depending on walls etc)

If you do decide to take that option then speak to Faults (option 2 from a VM landline/mobile) or freephone number 0800 052 0422, or 0345 454 1111  from any other phone, but best to call at 8am when lines first open and are least busy to avoid call queues

It's a £25 charge for a non fault callout (it used to be £99)