Warning, clueless luddite alert.

Wife has been WFH for months and both daughters occasionally participate in online school / college classes. Simultaneous use crashes the home wifi and it’s my job, as the token bloke, to fix this. The router is downstairs and all office / classroom work occurs upstairs.

Our router is an EE Brightbox working off the master phone socket. We are well over a mile from the exchange and there’s no fibre option. The Brightbox works fine in the room but has poor longer range.

We tried, and still have, a BT Mini WiFi home hotspot 500 powerline kit. It’s pretty unstable, with the Wifi signal dipping in and out. Each unit has it’s own SSID? and password as well, requiring different logins depending on where we are in the house.

We also have a TP Link Archer C7 AC1750 router that I was going to setup in place of the EE Bright Box but configuring this as a Brightbox clone defeats me. Not sure how the TP Link would work without the Brighbox as it is an EE product and has a built in modem.

The Brightbox, BT extenders and TP Link Router all have Ethernet sockets but I don’t currently have the cable to hard wire them together.

I was thinking that the simplest option may be to keep the Brightbox as the principal modem / router, connect via ethernet to the downstairs BT extender, then connect the upstairs BT extender by ethernet directly to my wife’s laptop. That’s going to mean setting up her work laptop to an ethernet source? Also connect the upstairs BT extender by ethernet to the TP Link router and wifi to the kids devices from that? That’s going to mean different upstairs / downstairs wifi SSIDs and passwords.

Any other configuration that may work?

Alternatively, bin everything and go mesh? Would that give me a single network / SSID / Login / Password through the whole house?

Thanks in advance.

I got a bit whole home mini mesh setup, it was very simple and I now have great signal all over the house and garden. If you don’t do tech then it will work for you.

I bought a netgear orbi mesh WiFi set up. Wasn’t cheap but it covers the whole house, half the garden, and a detached garage. Was very easy to set up

BT Wholehome mini here as well. We’ve got an old house that used to be two, 3ft stone wall between the two and the signal could barely get through the wall. Wholehome mini and we’ve now got full coverage. Even reaches the garage at the bottom of the garden.

Mesh is definitely the way to go. Persevered with a crappy Plusnet router for ages but two of us working from home made me do something about it. Bought a BT Smart Hub 2 router and mesh disc off eBay and set them up in next to no time. Just needed to update the username and password on the router, the most painful part was going round the house updating passwords on every device.

I do seem to recall that BT routers will only work on their broadband or Plusnet though but sure other mesh set ups will be fine on EE.

I’m on Vodafone Broadband but have BT mesh which just plugs into the back of the Vodafone router so the Vodafone WiFi signal is no longer used.

Mesh appears to be the way to go. I’ll keep the Brightbox2 as the recognised modem, plug a mesh thingy into it’s fastest ethernet outlet and place other mesh thingies around the house.

Thanks all.

I only get 2mb where I live. We are going through the rural voucher scheme (insane as we live between Stourbridge and Wolverhampton).

Will mesh do anything to improve my signal? It’s killing me trying connect to our servers at work.

A mesh system will likely improve your Wi-Fi signal. If you only get 2Mbps at the router then it’s not gonna do shit about that.

I bought a cheap mesh system, one recommended on here, a few months ago. It didn’t make anything better. I sent it back and bought a TP Link Archer, fixed it to the wall, plugged it into an ethernet channel of my Virgin Router and it works a treat. Good signal all over the house and garden, even inside and beyond my garage which is 30 metres away.

Tip – I changed the ID of my Virgin box before I started and gave the previous name and password to the TP Link. That means no devices needed to be changed. I also didn’t turn off the wifi of the Virgin Box (because that’s a bit hard to do) which means that if I ever find a spot where the main signal is low or slow I can sign in via the other box.

Definitely go mesh, but spend a bit extra and get a tri-band system with 1 master and 1 or 2 remotes. The tri-band will give you a dedicated, back-end channel for the mesh devices to talk with each other, so there’s no contention between ‘back end’ network traffic and your device to/from internet traffic.

I installed an Orbi system (1 main, 2 remotes) a couple of years ago now and can max out my 200Mbits broadband all over the house and garden.

I only get 2mb where I live. We are going through the rural voucher scheme (insane as we live between Stourbridge and Wolverhampton).

Have you looked at SIM/4G/5G options? We had the same issue and got very bored of Gigaclear Fibre delivery slipping (3 years late and still not here!).

I’ve got a basic (£130) tp-link mesh system with 3 boxes.

It works really well with the router put into modem mode and seems to cope better with our internal brick walls admirably.

I’m sure the triband would be better but it’s only some X box and work most of the time so it stands up to the job (no smart home stuff for example).

Have you looked at SIM/4G/5G options? We had the same issue and got very bored of Gigaclear Fibre delivery slipping (3 years late and still not here!).

Unfortunately only three works here, and only in a couple of our rooms. It’s a proper blacks pot!

Does the BT mesh setup have ethernet ports on the remote nodes, as looking a t a mesh system but want one with ethernet ports so can use in the home office.

Does the BT mesh setup have ethernet ports on the remote nodes

Yes my BT Whole Home system has ethernet ports. Not sure if the Whole Home Mini does so you’d have to check if you want that version. I’ve got one on the end of a Cat6 cable in an outbuilding office as it was too far away to mesh with the ones in the house.

Great thanks Alphabet. Was looking around as Google nest does not and the Orbi seems expensive.

Looks like the BT Mini Discs have an Ethernet port too @freeridenick

but spend a bit extra and get a tri-band system

Complete waste of money for a slow Internet connection. Better off spending money on more disks

The bt shop has the refurbed mini disks at £50 for 2. 2 packs of them will see you right

with the refurb BT stuff can you just buy 6 and run 1 as the main unit plugged into my broadband router

I think you still need a BT router to configure them off, at least I did with mine, very straight forward though, just connected the disc via Ethernet until it is finished and plug back in to the mains where you want to place it. No technical configuration required.

SC-XC

Starlink satellite internet is coming to the U.K. later this year, while pricey and needing space for a dish its an option if speed is needed you’d get 100-200mbs I suspect

Starlink is targeting coverage in your area in mid to late 2021. You will receive a notification once your Starlink is ready to ship.
Hardware
£439.00
Service
£89.00 /mo
Shipping & Handling
£54.00
Pricing above includes local taxes totaling approx. £97.00
Due Today
£89.00

So over on EE Bright Box Track World it looks like folk have issues putting the EE box into modem mode but have some success with tp-link deco mesh units.

https://community.ee.co.uk/t5/Broadband-home-phone/Using-EE-Smart-Hub-with-a-TP-Link-Deco-Mesh-setup/td-p/961330

Might be worth checking if there have been successes with other mesh systems

putting the EE box into modem mode

The advantage of the bt whole home systems is you don’t have to. They use your router as a router and just extend a wired port into the WiFi mesh. No need for a bt router, mine is on some old Asus thing

Unfortunately only three works here, and only in a couple of our rooms. It’s a proper blacks pot!

What is it like outside? If it’s OK then you could use an external aerial to feed the router.

I’m aware the BrightBox2 doesn’t like being modem only. Apparently it can be modified but that’s way too technical for me. I’ll leave the BB2 alone, it can continue providing TV streaming services to the same room.

I’ve ordered a three unit Lynskeys Velop TriBand ac6600; a Which! Magazine best buy and their highest rated ac system. Didn’t see the point in spending extra on ax as my router is n and ac. Fastest download speed is around 20Mbps and often much lower. I’ll plug one unit into the high speed ethernet port of the BB2, place the second one on the other side of an internal brick wall and bung the third one upstairs in her office, which sits between the two ‘classrooms’. Hopefully that’ll restore harmony.

Will update once fitted.

A world of difference from ye olde router and BT Home hubs thanks to the Linksys mesh nodules. Mrs Shep has been working away quite happily without any dropouts or poor quality video / audio on Teams calls. Can highly recommend (and thanks to others for recommending) a mesh setup.