This topic

Wireless coverage

shough — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 08:59:06 GMT

Hi became a bt fiber customer yesterday. First he put the wiring in the front room where I didn't want it, so now the back of my bungalow has no internet. Rang bt this morning to be told I had to have 3 disks which cost me more. SO now if I have them it works out dearer than my old provider. I am so disappointed in this. Say full coverage but don't say only if you have these as well. Any ideas before I cancel it. Any help greatly appreciated..

Re: Wireless coverage

Stu_H — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 10:51:45 GMT

Hi, did you ask them to add the connection anywhere else?

When you say back do you mean inside the property or in the rear garden area?

Re: Wireless coverage

shough — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 13:22:23 GMT

Said modem could only go in front room closest point. Asked for in hall way got a no because of covid but already in house so made no sense.The rear bedroom has no internet can't connect to modem as signal to weak.

Re: Wireless coverage

licquorice — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 13:27:56 GMT

Have a look at https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-networking/powerline/

for a suitable powerline extender. Price will be dependent on your speed and wifi band requirements.

Re: Wireless coverage

Stu_H — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 15:58:35 GMT

That’s not great service as you said he was already in and I’m sure he was alone working.
I would be on to BT and complain in a polite way about the service after all you asked for it in a different place and so I would push for some help towards coverage or arrange to have them back and do the job as you requested.
I know we all have to be careful but I’m sure he and you were following the guides laid out so it’s not particularly fair you now need to purchase equipment to get coverage.

Re: Wireless coverage

Lordsnooty — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 20:17:34 GMT

Like you I got FTTP and was on the 300 Mbps Fiber plan. At first, I was lucky to get 50 Mbps and then it eventually went to over 110 Mbps. I wasn't overly pleased with it but I was willing to accept it and thought maybe it will improve over a period of time. I went on to a number of forums including this one and it was suggested that I look at getting the BT mesh system (3 discs).....I did that and wasn't that impressed. It improved slightly but nothing to write home about plus I was getting interference from some of the discs (I have a Four bedroom house over 2000 sq foot plus a conservatory) one of the front bedrooms was down to 50 Mbps. I had my internet checked by BT and they confirmed that I was getting 300 Mbps. So I removed the discs and the speed went up to 190 Mbps...certainly better than I was previously getting but still the front bedroom was much lesser than the other rooms in the house. Then I got the offer of the 900 Mbps at around £10 extra, so I immediately went for it expecting great things. BT sent me the latest Hub and a disc. But I was so disappointed that it went up very slightly. I again checked with BT and they confirmed that I was getting the 900 Mbps package. I discussed this matter with my son-in-law who is a Senior Software Engineer and he suggested getting a new router as he felt the problem lay with it. He said that the BT Hub's in general are not great, that they are mass-produced, and that you pay for what you get. He also suggested that I look at getting a WiFi 6 router that although I have no equipment that is Wifi 6 compatible it would be a way of future-proofing. I took this all on board and found the TP-Link Archer AX1800 WiFi 6 Gigabit Dual Band Wireless Cable Router. I purchased it and set it up (extremely easy to set up with its own Tether App) and I immediately am getting 700+ Mbps and this is almost constant....unbelievable I hear you say well here is the proof with the two-speed tests one taken with the BT Hub router and the other with the TP-Link and no discs. My suggestion is to get a new router and see your speed fly

Re: Wireless coverage

shough — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 12:33:05 GMT

Why would I buy something when the said it was guaranteed to be in all rooms best modem out there. Well my old talk talk one was way better. Well got some cat 5 cable as checked the cable that was connected by them the red ended one. Ran new cable to where I wanted it and bingo 150 in all rooms.

Re: Wireless coverage

Lordsnooty — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 16:55:52 GMT

when you say "They said it was Guaranteed" do you mean BT said it was guaranteed"....are you sure they definitely said that? because they never ever guaranteed me anything other than 900mbps would come into the house (which it did) but BT never could give a complete guarantee that you would get that throughout the rest of the house because first they don't know how your house is constructed (block and brick or stone walls or timber). So you have to be careful in what they actually said and what they promised you. What I mean by that is they promised me that I would get 900mbps to the house and when I checked my BT Hub I was getting that but for the rest of the house I was getting barely getting 100mbps it wasn't till I changed to a WiFi 6 TP Link router did I get 700mbps....so maybe you will have to spend a bit more money to get the figures you were hoping for

Re: Wireless coverage

Stu_H — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 17:41:42 GMT

I believe they mean coverage ie.wifi

Re: Wireless coverage

Lordsnooty — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 18:13:04 GMT

Stu so they are guaranteeing wifi speed? They never guaranteed me that all they promised was the 900 Mbps to the house. And as I have said I checked that and it is coming at that promised speed but there is no way BT's Hub was able to push that out (even with ethernet cable)

Re: Wireless coverage

imjolly — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 18:33:11 GMT

I think BT are guaranteeing wireless coverage if you have the discs but that is not guaranteeing speed no ISP guarantees wireless connection speed

Re: Wireless coverage

Lordsnooty — Fri, 27 Aug 2021 19:39:34 GMT

Yes, if you have the discs. I bought those and in my situation they were downright useless. In fact they caused me interference. I thought (wrongly) that they would improve the speed and they didn't and don't....they probably improve coverage but as I thought they would improve the wifi speed. The problem lay with the BT Home Hub and now after getting the TP Link WiFi 6 router I am getting the speed and the coverage I need (without the need for discs. So you do need to spend a bit of money in improving the router to get the speed and the coverage

Re: Wireless coverage

Stu_H — Sat, 28 Aug 2021 08:40:32 GMT

I think you should be able to achieve better results than that, it should be into the 900 mark when wired. As you don’t have any WiFi 6 devices it’s defaulting to 866 on AC 5Ghz and since the device you use will no doubt be 2x2 so you will get in the region of 40 to 60% of that when you are at optimum distance.
the fun part is while an all in one unit offers coverage the client must also talk back and often clients don’t have the range so as you push to the limits retransmissions occur. That may not be a huge concern but range is one thing but quality of service is another. At that point it’s hogging airtime and slowing down the network.

The BT routers might not offer throughput to match others, yours for example does not offer it compared to others and all routers are massed produced and many are built by the same manufacturer to different specs. While I’m not a user of a BT router it does offer the needs for most and to be honest when you start hitting a gig you might as well try to achieve that but if no devices support that and the router is not able to handle a gig sometimes it’s best to step back and think of what your needs are ie what benefits are there for me.

Re: Wireless coverage

shough — Sat, 28 Aug 2021 08:47:33 GMT

Only on the 150 internet and now I have ran my own cat 5 cable and put the modem in the hallway where I wanted it which is the centre of my bungalow I'm getting the 150 everywhere. SO a simple job of running my own cable to the right place solved the problem. Why the engineer couldn't do that when he was already in my house is a joke.

Re: Wireless coverage

licquorice — Sat, 28 Aug 2021 09:02:03 GMT

Because running Cat 5 cable is not the responsibility of the installer, internal wiring is your responsibility. The installer only provides a patch cable to connect the ONT to a co-located hub.

Re: Wireless coverage

Stu_H — Sat, 28 Aug 2021 14:42:54 GMT

@Lordsnooty No speed is not coverage, You might have been better looking into routers before going with that one. My RAX120 had a 940mbps throughput and that’s an AX router but the leader so far for a single point router is an Asus AX86U that’s performing really well. You have what is classed as an entry level WiFi 6 router. That’s why it’s throughput is so low and it’s an inexpensive router.
The BT routers get you online, that’s it. For most it’s fine in fact performance wise it’s on par with yours as you probably don’t run a server at home and just use the internet for day to day stuff.
The draw back you have is it’s AC performance and it’s lack of streams as you upgrade to wifi6 devices that use mu mimo and OFDMA. That’s down to price point as you need to step up to see gains and that’s if you have a busy network.
WiFi 6 is not just about throughput, it’s about range, client numbers and it’s ability to help in congested environments however you need to look at the chipset inside to see what draft it is and then see if the functions are implemented.
In your case you could save a £10 and still have the same network performance with the tp router.
your devices will not open or play streams any faster with the extra throughput and downloads are often restricted ie consoles, steam and so on.
as for future proofing, your router uses the Broadcom BCM6755 ARM-A7 quad-core @ 1.5 GHz which unfortunately does not support WPA3 and so you lose some WiFi 6 functions that must be used in conjunction with WPA3. It’s fine saying future proofing but in the router world that never really is the case.