Wi-Fi extender

[s-tillman2022]

I have particularly bad wifi strength in parts of our house. Trying to work from home and colleagues complain when on Team that I keep freezing. I have brought a TP-Link N300 to try and extend the signal strength but I cannot get it to work on my Hub 3? Surely it should just see the wifi link? 

[jbrennand]

Extenders are a cheap and not very good solution to wifi issues (there are lots of better options) - but that said it should still work.

Try pinhole reseting the Extender (see its manual) and then go through the set up again with the N300 plugged in close to the Hub and go through the "connect" sequence as per the manual. When thats completed, unplug it and move to a more distant location and see if that extends the signal. Of course if there is a thick stone wall, an iron rich hard red brick wall or an insulating foil plasterboard wall, etc., between the Hub and extender - the signal will be attenuated

[Paulina_Z]

Hi @s-tillman2022,

Welcome to our Community Forums! Thank you for your post and I'm very sorry to hear that you're experiencing some issues with your WFi connection and performance. I can understand how frustrating this can be. 

We do provide our own WiFi Pods which help to extend our customer's WiFi Signal. You can read more about them on our website for further information.

I have been able to run some further checks on your broadband and I cannot see any issues that would be impacting your connection at the moment. Can you tell us a little more about your connection problems? Have you been able to take a look at our WiFi issues page to see if this can help?

Is this issue still impacting you when you're connected via Ethernet? Please let us know so we can help further.

Thank you.

[s-tillman2022]

Hi Paulina

I have the hub in the middle of the house on the first floor as advised. I have my work laptop on the ground floor dining room not directly below the hub but not that far. A wall does separate the hub from my room but that should not interfere I thought?
I often only have two bar strength on my laptop and when on a Teams meeting will often freeze. My Remote Desktop will often throw me off because of weak signal. I also struggle to get a signal when sat in the garden close my back door. 
I have looked at your pods but I don’t see why I should have to pay extra for them just to use the wifi I already pay for. The £13 extender Is now working and has helped the situation but why can’t Virgin at least provide a full service by providing extenders for free? I don’t want to have Ethernet cables running through the house, yes that would better but not practical. 

[Tudor]

VM supply you with a broadband connection, they give you a cheap hub that work excellently as a modem, but the WiFi is not very good. Your speed is only guaranteed on a Ethernet cabled connection. Many users have invested in their own networking equipment rather than pay VM for their pods.

[s-tillman2022]

What kind of networking equipment? Are they easy to set up? I can’t have cables running through the house. Just not practical.

[jbrennand]

For "cableless" look at a Mesh system.

Start with looking at the TP-Link Deco M4/M5 2/3 packs as a good starter. Pay more for more features (Tri-Band - wifi6).