Hi,

As above I have an old house, with some thick walls. The wifi is particularly patchy in two parts of the house, both away from the main router (which is located in our bedroom, as this is where the feed comes in).

I can not get the Amazon Fire Stick and TV things to work well – both lose connection and it is very frustrating. I use a Sonos a bit, but this always seems fine.

Looking for recommendations on either a router upgrade or a wifi extender? I have a plusnet router (which I think is the best one they do, which appreciate may not be saying much).

Mesh wifi system of some flavour* if you want ease of use.

They all have a dedicated backhaul, so you get better throughput on the satellites.

Not cheap though.

*Orbi, google, BT etc

I went for a orbis netgear mesh netork in my house and love it. House is not that old but router was at one end. This was probably 18months ago and it has been faultless despite being used for home working (lots of Skype type calls), streaming etc for a house of 4 adults. Was not cheap c£350 but happy I made the investment.

Thanks both. I love Singletrack World – advice is always good, but I tend to always upgrade on my original plans and end up spending more!!!

Google system on order.

Couple of TP Link plugin range extenders sorted us out. One, in the kitchen, covers a large part of the garden as well!

Bought a BT wifi extender from sainsburys last week, 20 quid, get really decent coverage all over the house now (also an old thick walled building).

Second the mesh suggestion. Don’t bother with the plug in extenders. Unless you’re very lucky with placement, devices will refuse to roam onto the closer access point until it’s completely lost signal from the far away one.

I’ve got a set of Tenda MW6 which are very much the budget option for mesh (don’t believe they have dedicated backhaul) but it still means I get at least 100mbit and mostly over 200mbit throughout the house.

(and those are real tested speeds using iperf3, not a theoretical number reported by windows)

Mesh – so much better with the devices connecting to the most powerful signal without having to switch over (as with a traditional extender).

Was with BT so upgraded to the mesh system. Needed 1 extra disc to get the signal out to the detached garage

Mesh ++ here, I had limited success with range extenders, but the mesh stuff just works brilliantly.
I bought the cheapest setup from Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tenda-Nova-MW3-Whole-System/dp/B07D9CC637

We’ve got a cheapy (TP Link I think) plug in extender and it works fine, though we’re not particularly heavy users in that bit of the house – basically phones and tablets.

Not all mesh wifi routers have a dedicated backhaul, I think it’s just those supporting triband.
I’m pretty happy with the tp-link m5 setup I’ve just got, it using cat5 for backhaul (that was already there) and seems rock solid.

The tp-link P7 kit runs the backhaul over powerlines so might be an option if you have stupidly thick walls.

Recently moved to a UniFi mesh system and an utter revelation.

Moved from a Plusnet router to a TalkTalk one. Significantly better coverage across our old stubborn house. Was surprised at the difference tbh

I got some TP Link Powerlines last week. Jnr struggled to connect his PS4 to WiFi, now he’s connected to the Powerline using a cat5 cable. I got one of the ones with WiFi so it the extends WiFi signal too.

Sounds like you need a roll of CAT5e and a power drill.

BT Mesh here – works well!

Are you just using the provider’s router?
Before surrending in a mesh setup is look at changing that.
We swapped to a mid range TP link router for about 80 quid and suddenly had decent reception everywhere in our double thick brick wall cottage. Much simpler than mesh. Cheaper too.
Free routers are generally pretty crap.

Google WiFi mesh here – brilliant.
Expensive but brilliant.

Mesh wifi system of some flavour* if you want ease of use.

They all have a dedicated backhaul,………

I’d vote for a mesh system much much better than previous with a wifi extender

Have a Deco system easy to set up and monitor any problems on app’ and as far as i’m aware only supports backhaul if you ethernet link the stations not been a problem I thought might be with on line gaming teen but all quiet

Worth having a play with your current router placement. If the coverage is “patchy” then just a minor tweak may sort the problem. I had a similar issue, room + garden away from router were patchy at best. I made two changes. Firstly I had a NAS box just in front of the router. Moving it out of the way improved things dramatically. And secondly, twisted the router 90 degrees. Just by random trail and error. Now reached the end of the garden, which was well outside of the original coverage. Cost me nothing aside from a half hour of moving things.

Cheap plug-in TP links worked a treat for me.

They all have a dedicated backhaul,

I sit corrected.

All the ones I looked at had dedicated backhaul. Seems like it isn’t a universal feature.

We get poor reception in an extension. I have looked at mesh networks but by christ are they expensive! I’ve thought about those plug sockets with wifi repeaters in, but for now I just turn the wifi off and use 4G instead…

I bought 2 UniFi Aps for 70 quid each, one wired into current router and one adopted wirelessly. Covers a 5 bed thick stone wall house. Didn’t think that was too expensive ?

We have the same issue in our old victorian house. I got 2 of the TP-Link ones that use the ringmain as a data cable and then wifi sockets to extend the circuit. As folk have said where you have overlap it can cause issues resulting in full signal but not interent. Also wifi printers seem to hate them as although the network name is the same they’re not. In the end i’ve sacrificed internet in the kitchen and the distance betwen the main router and the far one is enough that devices propoerly swap to the correct network.

Another issue i had was the whole swithcing between the different frequencies. In the end i gave the 5Ghz a different SSID and all of sudden that improved things massively as well

Ok, hopefully not quite a thread hijack as OP seems to be sorted! I have an ethernet connection to a PC in an out building but no wifi coverage from the main house. Can I fit an RJ45 splitter to continue using the PC via ethernet cable, but also use the splitter to connect a device that will convert signal to wifi? Will a TP-Link N300 function in this way, or will it only take a wifi signal to provide an ethernet port connection? What device do I need to create a wifi booster/coverage using the ethernet splitter? Thanks.

Ok, after more gooflefu I think I just need to connect another wifi router and configure them to link together! Simples I hope…!

I decided to go google Wifi route. It is expensive but I am happy to pay for simplicity. Seems ok so far after being installed last night. Will test over the weekend.

Thanks for the help all.

Another reommendation for a mesh network here. We had the same issue, old house, thick walls. Our 65mb connection lost half its speed in the next room, and couldnt make it to the kitchen or bedrooms. I installed a BT Whole home network in about 5 minutes, and now every room has 60mb +. Its a doddle to setup.