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Not by anywhere other than on here.
Where else matters? 🙂
Well, yes, there is that. I just could've done with that conversation having occurred before I started setting it all up.
Thanks Cougar, I think I might save up a bit more for the Orbi system. Having said that the weak spot in the house seems to be fine for my kids chromebooks so its dropped down the priority list.
I'm also toying with the Virgin SH4 and Giga package as it'll only be a £6 a month cost increase in costs and should up the wifi speeds as a base unit. Someone please correct me if I'm talking pish 🙂
SH4 has mixed reviews, have a look on Virgin's forum.
Netgear are launching a cheaper and smaller orbi system tomorrow at the Consumer Electronics Show.
Should be fine for all internet connections up to 1Gbps ish.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08FT9BLQX/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_imm_t1_yZ1-Fb1W8G5S0
To be fair the Virgin website has put me off an upgrade just by being so bloody awful. I login and can't see a way to upgrade, it punts me out as a new customer every time I loom at the broadband options. I think they are trying to tell me something!
Thanks for all the responses. Been doing lots of research this afternoon and have pulled the trigger on a pair of Asus CT8s.
Backhaul 5Ghz channel, lots of features to play with (parental controls, VPN host, dynamic DNS etc). Ethernet and usb which I might make use of. Gets good reviews. Reasonably priced for the features. Only thing missing is wifi6 but don't have any of those devices yet and whenever we do can expand with another wifi6 node if we really need the performance.
Thought long and hard about the Google as we are bought into their devices otherwise. However administrative features and ports are very much lacking vs the Asus. Also if don't need any speakers and even if I did I wouldn't put them in the Same place as a node!
"Looking forward" to doing the network migration when it turns up on Tuesday 🙄. Let's hope it's not as frustrating as cougar's tenda!
BT Whole Home Wifi for me. Connected to the standard Plusnet router, turned off the routers wifi and get great wifi throughout the house. Had loads of no-spots before so used standard wifi extenders, but these all have to have their own network name which was a pain as I moved around the house. 3 B discs share the name throughout, my wife and I both work form home and 2 kids schooling from home all day, with a 14-18MB/s connection, all works great.
Not had to reset them yet either.
Bought the BT discs from Ebay second-hand for about £120 iirc
The only way around this that I can see is to put the Tenda into Bridge mode, the SH3 back into Router mode and let the hub do the DCHPing. Which reintroduces its own Wi-Fi broadcasting to add to the general noise and in any case isn’t why I spent two hundred quid on what I thought was a high-end product.
Can you not do this but turn off the wifi on the SH3? So mesh system in bridge, original router handling routing/DCHPing but with it's wifi turned off? That's analogous to what I do with my non-Virgin set up. I know Virgin is horrible, but I would have thought just being able to disable wifi was a pretty fundamental feature.
Can you not do this but turn off the wifi on the SH3?
Yup this is what I do at the minute.
i'm not very IT savvy and have Virgin. After extending our house the wifi wouldnt reach everywhere. I got three of these :-
Absolute doddle to set up and work a treat.
Can you not do this but turn off the wifi on the SH3?
Not directly but I think you can disable the two frequency bands independently.
It's a pity that new Orbi doesn't have a dedicated backhaul, bit pricey without IMO.
I’ve got that Deco system that Lowry has, and it’s both a doddle to set up and has been faultless
Which Deco system is that? Looks promising.
Any comments on Netgear? Always used their kit commercially.
Moving on...
Normally anything with BT on it would have me running but these seem to get good reviews and are reasonably priced.
Anyone have any experience?
Virgin have just announced they are partnering with Plume for some kind of new mesh offering. I have found my Plume kit to be spot on so might be worth looking at...
+1 the Deco discs. Great kit, great wifi performance and the app is easy to use and monitor kid's online with timings and whatnot.
Plus if you need to plug in a streamer (e.g. Bluesound player) then you can plug it directly into the Deco disc using an ethernet cable, so the player is plugged straight into the wifi. That made a big difference to the quality/reliability of my streamer.
@Coyote I just got those, it was easy to set up and I now have full WiFi signal round the whole house and to the end of my garden which is significantly more than what I had with a old fashioned WiFi extender. For someone who isn't super into their tech it was simple.
M5 here too. I got three. I also bought some brackets off ebay to fix them to the wall.
Same as the others, M5 I got 3, I think it probably took longer to unbox them than it did to actually set them up and running.
At the moment my setup is quite basic - I have plusnet broadband running at about 11mb download, with the router in the attic workroom (that's where the primary socket is, as the prevous ownwer of the house had a home office up there). We have a TP-Link TL-WA850RE wifi extender in the hallway which most of our devices connect to (Ring doorbell, phones, tablet, chromebook etc). My PC is hardwired as there's a cat5 network
Mostly this is ok but not brilliant. I get anywehere from 6mb down to absolute zero through the wifi extender, but since we don't du mich nmore than browsing it's mostly OK. We don't stream a lot of TV and when we do the NowTV box is hardwired
If I were to go to mesh system, I'm not sure I can justify spending several hundred pounds. There are cheaper options though if anyone has feedback on them?
Mercusys Halo S12(3-Pack) for £55
any tips or pointers appreciated. Note I may be "upgrading" to fibre broadband at some point when the contract expires, but even then I htink we're only going to see speeds around 30mb, not the 300mb of a virgin connections (though that is an option if they're not vastly expensive)
OK well I did my Network migration to the Asus CT8s yesterday evening.
Going well so far. Virgin Hub now in modem mode, CT8s handling routing / Wifi. Most of the devices connected a few more to do.
Only hiccup so far is with the shitty USB wifi network adapters on a couple of PCs (just what I had lying around unused). I'm back on ethernet powerline for one of them, but some new wifi cards ordered to sort that out (another £30). All other devices fine, at worst a 'good' signal everywhere in the house so I am sure it is the USB adapters in the PCs at fault.
Everything else running smoothly. No dropouts. I have not speed tested but anecdotally noticeably faster browsing on phones, no buffering of iPlayer last night, no problems with 4 of us WFH today including internet streaming, watching youtube as part of lessons etc.
Pretty clear the virgin hub in router mode was the weak link hardware just struggling to keep up with demand.
All the controls / stats available through the CT8s android app and web admin console are extensive and useful. I think it definitely makes it worth the extra spend vs. a cheap system which just extends wifi or gives limited controls.
Not had time to bugger about with them all yet. Oh what fun lies ahead throttling the kids' traffic 😀
Bumpty bump, anyone got any notes (good or bad) on my post above please?
Bumpty bump, anyone got any notes (good or bad) on my post above please?
Both the ones you link to are dual band. You really want to try and go tri-band so that the mesh has a dedicated channel for backhaul.
Other than that, I can't see just two nodes cutting it for you. To avoid horrendous complexity you want to ditch your current extender and turn off wifi on the router. You would always have one node at your router, therefore two only gives you the same coverage that you currently have, albeit likely to deal with device hand-off better as it is one integrated mesh rather than router + WAP.
Been talking to chap at work abut this and and looking at the same points you raise. I've Cat5 network throughout the house, so if I understandit it right I could plug nodes into the LAN for the backhaul I think?
As for atwo node pack not being enuggh he did say the same - but a 3 node TENDA pack is $60 at currys ebay outlet so not a huge extra expense/
Footprint of the house is about 1000 sq ft but we've 3 floors. I'd maybe stick a node on each floor like that, plugged in.
OK, yeah, if you have wired, then that's a better solution for the backhaul. I would double check that those support a wired backhaul though as I am not sure that is a given.
Three nodes would probably be fine. They say if you are not using wired backhaul then too many nodes can be a bad thing as they can fight over available bandwidth, but with wired backhaul I think the more the merrier.
I've found wifi generally seems to propagate much better through floors/ceilings than walls, so spreading horizontally along the house rather that vertically through the house worked better for me. My house is quite long though - but also 3 floors if you count the cellar. Something you really just want to experiment with.
Do you guys all have massive houses or something? A single standard BT router covers my whole 4 bedroom house with no problem.
The house has ethernet wired into all the rooms, but I don't use it as wifi is fine everywhere (inc streaming 4K etc).
Wondering what I'm missing 🤔
Two-foot thick walls, for a start.
you don't need a separate backhaul channel for web browsing. With 11mpps broadband you won't come even close to maxing out the slowest, single channel mesh. I wouldn't get one of those (as dual band improves availability), but the sort of thing you have suggested is fine.
I'd probably stretch to the bt mini disks, as the brand & support is probably worth the extra £20..
https://shop.bt.com/products/bt-mini-whole-home-wi-fi---three-discs-096450-F7C0.html
Two-foot thick walls, for a start.
I suppose that would do it 😄
you don’t need a separate backhaul channel for web browsing. With 11mpps broadband you won’t come even close to maxing out the slowest, single channel mesh. I wouldn’t get one of those (as dual band improves availability), but the sort of thing you have suggested is fine.
Probably all true. Personally, I always try and buy stuff that is on the overkill side for my current situation. I aim to future proof and keep stuff for a long time, as the disposable nature of stuff that is just about good enough isn't my bag. I'd also say it is very easy to underestimate what you are asking of a wifi network. If you'd have asked me I would had said I probably had about 10 devices. Looking at the Plume app now it is telling me I have 27 devices connected, and has seen a total of 47 in the past 30 days (I guess some of that is down to some devices sporadically changing their MAC address for privacy though).
Do you guys all have massive houses or something? A single standard BT router covers my whole 4 bedroom house with no problem.
I am finding increasing issues with four of us working/schooling from home (1,800 sq. ft. 4 bed detached) with 2 x laptops, 2 x iPads, 4 x iPhones, 2 x TVs, 3 x music devices all connected to the wireless set-up (although not necessarily all being used at the same time) – that's superfast Virgin Fibre on a v.3 Virgin Hub. The wired connection gets 80+ mbps but wireless connections are usually around 15mbps but sometimes drop to <1mbps.
I’m also toying with the Virgin SH4 and Giga package as it’ll only be a £6 a month cost increase in costs and should up the wifi speeds as a base unit. Someone please correct me if I’m talking pish
+£6 seems fair. However, first check your bandwidth use over a few days. Why pay +£6 for gigabit (and the one-off fee for the SH4) if you're regularly under, say, 300Mbps? The upload speed is still only 50Mbps.
Having said that, I've found the SH4 to be more reliable than the SH3 and there are some occasions when we hit the bandwidth limit. IRL I'll likely downgrade to 500Mbps or 350Mbps when #1 child leaves home next year.
FWIW my setup is ASUS MESH-based:
AX92U as the main router connected to the VM SH4 in modem mode, then 2 AC67Us and an AC86U connected with an ethernet Gb backhaul.
Aside from one of the AC67Us disappearing a few times off the network a couple of months back it's been good. Naturally the AC67U that dropped off was the one closest to my children's rooms and resulted in much woe. Resetting it and setting it back up as a node was simple and no problems since.
Nearly as good as MESH though has been installing a Pi-hole DNS + Unbound. Makes web browsing faster and less annoying.
Bumpty bump, anyone got any notes (good or bad) on my post above please?
Tenda Nova MW3 user. It's only fallen over once in the last 4 months and a quick restart sorted it. Otherwise it's been flawless.
My house is constructed of entirely of radio wave blocking materials so I need 6 nodes to get full coverage of the house.
There are currently 5 users (2 adults and 3 home schooling high school kids) all doing Teams / video calls with no performance problems.
Recommended for the el-cheapo bargain price.
Another recent Tenda Nova MW3 user here. Prior to getting the mesh system I had upgraded from a Virgin "Superhub" 2 to a "Superhub" 3 (quotation marks as it's anything but super). With the Superhub 2 I could get some coverage in my rear bedroom / office but anything using a lot of bandwidth often dropped off. The Superhub 3 was even worse with absolutely no coverage into the rear bedroom/office. The MX3 mesh, with one box connected to the Superhub 3 and a box in the front and back bedrooms, has improved coverage throughout the house and means I can actually work in my bedroom/office rather than the kitchen. They are pretty cheap at around £80 but I'm not sure I would benefit that much more by buying a system over 200 quid.
@johndoe that's pretty much exactly representative of my situation / problems.
Virgin 3 hub, struggling to keep up with demand. Lots of strange drop outs and problems to do with the router crapping out, rather than modem connection out to the internet
Virgin SH3 (350 mb package) with Tenda MW6s here. Router is in modem only mode and the first Tenda unit is doing the dns and routering bits. I’ve also got a cable out to the other end of the house with another MW6 doing the same there.
Speed in the room with the first unit is the full 350 mb and it’s rarely sub 100 mb anywhere in the house.
tldr Put the virgin hub in modem only mode and use something better
I left Virginmedia because of the hub 3 and this fault with the Intel Puma Chip .
Wifi was atrocious and at times the modem was dropping out so much that streaming TV was impossible. No one would commit to a timescale for fixing it or when the next generation hub would arrive.
Another Virgin Superhub 3 user here. I bought one of these last week and the difference has been amazing – from shaky (anything from <2mbps to >100mbps depending in its mood) to constant >100mbps across the whole house (we are on the 100mbps package). Also the app and its parental controls is very good.
we use a VF router for wifi, which is patchy in some parts of the house, especially with the kids at home. From the router we have a network of cat cables that service some rooms in the house and my garden office. Stunning planning means that there are some rooms that have no cat cable and patchy wifi!
Would one of these mesh systems play nicely with my existing set up i.e. would all the cat cables still work where they currently do and the mesh things just fill in the gaps?