I need some advice on improving my home broadband. It’s a pretty odd setup: the router lives in a cupboard opposite my front door. It receives broadband via a coaxial cable, but then the ethernet sockets in the router feed cables which go up into the ceiling and, via various forms of black magic and trickery, supply connectivity to Ethernet sockets throughout my flat.
The WiFi is dogshit at the best of times (basic ISP-provided router), with a noticeable slowdown around 5PM when everyone comes home from work. But if I hard-wire a device into the ethernet sockets around the flat, I usually get pretty good performance (100mbps+). The flat has 2 floors and is quite long, so there are 2 rooms that the WiFi just doesn’t reach.
There are also coaxial sockets in most of the rooms. One of these coaxial sockets feeds our cable TV box, which also has a Netflix app. Even when the wifi and the ethernet sockets are failing to work, Netflix on the TV box usually works.
So, my question is: what is the best way to get wifi throughout the flat, whilst retaining the use of those hard-wired ethernet sockets? Could I plug a second router into one of those coaxial cables, or should I just buy a bunch of repeaters?
I’ve actually used these before. They’re very_ effective - almost ethernet speeds - but for some reason my devices couldn’t communicate through them - Apple TV couldn’t see my computer hard drive etc.
Have you looked into Google Wifi? We had a similar problem - router at the front of the house downstairs, couldn’t get a signal upstairs. Put Google Wifi on each floor (one plugged into the router) and now the signal is great everywhere.
Just going to piggyback off this because Sky are melting me at the minute.
We got a new TV the other day which we’ve put in upstairs. The chromecast and firesticks don’t run at all up there which is primarily the reason we got it. Our sky router is an original Sky hub which is about 6 years old at least. I was looking into the best way to solve it and it sounded to me like a new router with Dual Band was the way to go. Got on to Sky about it and they won’t tell me how much their newest router would cost and have said my problem is because there is a fault on the line. They’ve since “sent out” two engineers and the problem still exists. Long story short, I’m pretty sure they haven’t sent anyone out.
Skip to the end…
am I better getting a new router myself or would one of those mesh things work better?
Downstairs wifi works great. I think it’s more of a dead spot issue. The TV is right beside a chimney breast which I’m guessing might be blocking the signal
Does your phone pickup WiFi at the same location? Did you try connecting the new TV, firestick etc. Downstairs to test if it works where you know the signal is good?
Sky don’t usually support 3rd party routers and won’t give you your credentials to access you connection but it can be done. Let me know f you need info
We had new neighbours move in about 5 months ago and when their house got connected to the telegraph wire across the road, whatever the engineer did knocked out our connection or damaged it in some way. We went down to about 3mbps and the whole network was at a crawl. It took them a few weeks to sort it and the laptop was then pulling speeds of about 30mbps after that. All good or so I thought.
When we got this new TV and we couldn’t get any decent connection (the firestick and chrome were mains powered) I tried to find out about getting a dual band router off Sky. They ran a speed test and said I had a fault on the line. That was last Wednesday, they said they’d send an engineer within the next 72 hours. I was stuck at home potty training my kid all week and never saw anyone out at the telegraph pole… Now maybe they were at an exchange doing work there instead but there is a diagnostic tool on the sky website that I ran after I had been informed the problem was fixed and I’m still getting “Your broadband could be performing better” errors, so I got back on to them last night around 7.30 and they said they’d send another engineer. I got a text this morning at 8am on the dot saying the engineer had been out and sorted the problem but I’m suspicious that they could have fixed it in that little active working time.
I could go home and find out that everything has been fixed, but I’m a bit suspicious
So are you saying buying a 3rd party router is more hassle than it’s worth? Kind of short on cash so it’d probably be an either or with the router or the mesh thing so would want to buy the one that would work best… if either are even suitable for my problem.
It’s nothing you wouldn’t be able to do in a hr or so with a bit of patience, they just won’t give you the details.
If you’ve got problems with coverage then a stronger signal from a differing router might not be the answer. If range is an issue then the weakest radio of the two that are communicating is the one that needs fixing and that usually isn’t the radio in the router, it’s the radio in the client (I.e. the tv)…so yes, adding new radios (powerline or bridge type extenders) is the only real answer.