General broadband discussion

Surprising how poorly the UK does in this global speed index, especially for fixed line broadband. It’s actually below the global median.

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I was hoping for some advice on my setup at the moment. We’ve cancelled Sky Broadband now I have Starlink through work. I’m looking for the best way to cover the house signal wise. Currently the Starlink router is out in my home/office/summerhouse with a cable underground running back to an ethernet port in the house which currently has a TP Link router attached to for signal around the house. The issue we have is that the Sky Router seemed to give much much better coverage across the house than the TP Link one and upstairs is just pretty terrible now.

Current setup is this: TP-Link AC1750 Wireless Dual Band Full Gigabit Wi-Fi Router, Wi-Fi Speed Up to 1300 Mbps/5 GHz + 450 Mbps/2.4 GHz, With1 x USB2.0 Port, Qualcomm CPU, Supports Parental Control, Easy setup (Archer A7) : Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

We only have a smallish 2/3 bedroom house but it’s ex-army so the walls are solid all brick apart from the room I split in two upstairs.

I was looking at Mesh Systems, however, most just seem to be too costly for the moment, can anybody recommend anything that doesn’t break the bank? I assume really we just need access points rather than anything else? Somebody help.

I fitted a Deco Mesh system at my grandparents house when they having issues getting signal to their TV’s, they seem to work great but their house see’s very little usage so can’t really take anything from that on whether they would be any good for us.

Praise to Google WiFi here, got the 3 hubs for £149 I think, been a dream around our house (Virgin 350meg).

Edit: https://store.google.com/config/google_wifi?hl=en-GB

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For the latest future-proofing, sure. But if you can live without the tech none of your devices use yet, you can get them fairly cheap, like the Deco mesh system you highlight. Google Wifi is well received here, and is solid kit that’s not expensive for what it is, so they might be a good place to start. You can get a 3 pack for about £160, or buy them separately for about £70 a pop.

Define this and I’ll try and point you in the right direction. What doesn’t break the bank for me, might for you, or vice-versa.

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I was never sure whether the Google Wifi or the Nest Wifi was the better/newer option. The Google Wifi or the Deco’s seem to be the most common at the sort of price point we’re looking at.

Max of £200 i’d say, may well improve things in the future but my fiancee hates me spending money on tech, especially tech she doesn’t appreciate or any idea of what it does.

I also don’t know if mesh systems are the answer if our biggest obstruction is thick brick walls.

Edit:
I’ve had this in my Amazon saved for later for years, my friend used to have one and i think i just love having the data displayed on the front, not sure if this system would actually help.
Ubiquiti AFI R Amplifi HD WiFi Router : Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

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We use the Deco M4 system in our house where speed / signal / coverage is at a premium for us and they’re great.

We live in a bungalow too and it has really good area coverage, especially through all the walls. You can plug directly into them too which is a bonus.

I’m tempted by them, they’re what i put in for my grandparents. Do you have thick walls?

I’ve used both the decos and currently here have the Covr system by Dlink.

The Covr is brilliant providing our full 350mbps service anywhere around the house with a mesh point on each floor. The biggest plus is WiFi 6 I wouldn’t buy any new system without it now your future proofing yourself.

The Decos I had the S4 were also brilliant, app is a lot better than covr however we only had 25mbps speed but it was that everywhere

Definitely look into Covr excellent price for features and you’ve taken the most important first step.

Binning off the awful supplied router.

How is starlink by the way?

Mesh systems can certainly aid here. It might just take more nodes closer together to get through/around these walls. You’d need to experiment with placement to optimise a bit.

You mention having Sky previously, and not experiencing these issues. If you had/have Sky Glass or Sky Q, and/or whole home wifi, or essentially any other piece of sky equipment in your home in various rooms, then it would suggest a mesh network would be viable for you. Sky’s equipment all meshes together to provide better coverage to your home for broadband. It’s pretty neat and innovative, and rewarding for being all in with them. They can also utilise power line tech for that meshing, meaning the backhaul goes through your electrical wiring as opposed to over the air. I’m not sure if that eventually became standard or was always a dev thing though. But my point here is, it’s worth considering your sky setup and how it may have avoided these issues, because it won’t be the result of better hardware or range.

Another option is to go with something like unifi and run ethernet between the APs. That’ll work great, consumer options might be a bit limited in that aspect.

It’s a very good router, if a little old now. If a router like that can’t solve your woes, then it’s going to need to be ethernet or a carefully positioned mesh network. The app based ones like Eero, Google, Amplifi will guide you through that.

You can always go in order and return what doesn’t work. A lot of folks on here went the google wifi route and have been quite happy with that. I’m not into google, so I can’t say what the difference is between google and nest. My understanding is Nest is also a smart speaker. I’m not 100% on the tech specs of them either, but given the price I’m gonna presume Wifi 5, as Eero 5 is similarly priced.

Trial and error is probably necessary here, but I’d personally skip the standalone all in one box and go straight to a consumer mesh network, and if that falls short (I don’t think it will, even with your walls), return and look into pro-sumer/enterprise stuff like unifi and running ethernet. The techy in you will probably love tinkering with this stuff too!

I’ve got them in my Amazon basket now as well, thanks for the suggestion.

It’s good, set up was a bit of a mare as the long roof mount which cost us £60 extra isn’t long enough to stick out past standard size UK soffits. Failing that we mounted it on the wall against advice but it longed itself directly back into the wall so didn’t really work, although quite impressed it could tell us we’d lose connection every 52 seconds.

Now it’s on top of my office/summer house roof with a perfect view. It’s good when it works but speeds and pings fluctuate massively, it’s best speed has been about 208mb worse about 4mb. You get warnings in the app that speeds will drop between 5-10pm every day as it’s their peak period but overall it’s performed massively better than the FTTC line we had before. Having said that, I wouldn’t have it if I was paying for it.

I knew they mesh but I’ve never read anything about them utilising powerline tech, I’m not sure about the Mesh proving anything for us though as the main box was next to the router and the mini box(which is the main device we’re having connection issues with) is on the other side of the house upstairs, as it needs to receive a good signal to push it out again it just hints to me that the Sky Router gave a stronger signal than what we have.

Agree Mesh seems to be the best option, just can’t decide which

I wouldn’t say so no. Just a large coverage area.

This is a good point. We have Sky Q and they had to install a booster box so that the minibox in the bedroom could connect - even with this it was still hit or miss whether it worked.

With the Deco mesh system we just have one of the nodes in the bedroom now and connect the sky box to it via ethernet. So we removed the booster box and have never had an issue since.

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They used to. Early Q systems, with the 2nd Gen Router/Hub, had a Powerline enable setting in the settings. When enabled, the Q 1TB/2TB main box would communicate with the Mini’s and the Hub via powerline - if connected on the same ring. It was taken out of the settings a while ago, which indicates it wasn’t reliable or wasn’t needed. I tried it a long time ago, but never experienced any advantage when it was enabled.

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Ooh, interesting thread!

Been meaning to ask for advice about this sort of stuff since I moved into the attic of an old Victorian building.

Found out that with my Zen Router (FRITZ!Box 7530) I have no reception in the lounge and patchy in the bedroom. Zen offered me a repeater but it’s rental at £10 a month plus £15 p&p!

So I guess I’m looking at a Mesh system?

Couple of these do?
AVM FRITZ!Repeater 600 - Repeater - WLAN https://amzn.eu/d/gt4GwrR

That’s the same brand as the router so if I’ve got the right thing they should work?

I did ask their help desk and they recommended this:

But the only UK supplier I can find is… Zen Internet.

So am I looking at Covr if the 600 Repeater isn’t right?

Thanks.

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Eero is my go to suggestion for most people. Mostly because Google makes me uncomfortable, but their kit is fantastic too, and if you don’t mind google, or even like em, You’ll probably have a good time with their hardware. It’s tried and tested, and a good chunk of folks here went with them. Don’t think there’s been anything bad said about them on this thread yet. For Eero, you’d be wanting to look at a trio of Eero 5s, as that keeps things within your budget. The trio of google wifi boxes is also within your budget and a bit cheaper. Amazon is the more privacy friendly between the two in my view.

There’s also Ubiquiti’s consumer line, Amplifi. The first consumer brand router being the one you had in your saved for later. Amplifi instant is their Google Wifi/Eero competitor that might be worth looking at. They’re often a two pack as opposed to a trio though, and are in the same price ballpark as a trio from google or Eero. If you can convince your fiancé, the Amplifi Alien is just a plain cool meshable router that’s quite popular in the tech space. I’ve installed em for folks, and I see them a lot in tech homes/studios, cropping up quite often in the background of YouTube videos from the channels I tend to follow.

Linksys Velop is backed by Apple if you’re an Apple household and that matters to you. Eero has benefits here too with HomeKit support.

It’s hard to really go wrong with choosing a mesh system. They’re all usually going to better than your typical all in one wireless router setup, and for most people that’s enough to make any, regardless of make, fantastic. I’d always err towards big American tech though, if only for the fact they seem to radiate an image of better security. It’s probably what makes google wifi so popular. It’s Google. And for many people Google are the internet. Can’t feel more secure than that.

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What does backed by Apple mean?

I didn’t catch what the budget was, but a trio of Eero 6 (one router + two extenders) will very likely be £150 with payment over 5 months on Black Friday.

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They sell it on their store. Their store is carefully vetted and vendors have to adhere to specific conditions to be deemed worthy of being sold in their stores. It transitioned into being a bit of an exclusive club under Ahrendts. Linksys Velop is now currently the only router they sell. I believe they used to sell Eero too prior to the Amazon purchase.

£200, which Eero 6 is above currently whilst it’s not on offer. Black Friday is absolutely worth waiting for if they can! All of these mesh systems have some kind of offer over that period, often very attractive ones.

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Funny as I’m the opposite, I wouldn’t trust Amazon one bit. I know Google harvest my data, but they give me clear controls on how they use it and I haven’t seen any instance of them losing that data due to hacking or error. I can think of a few instances of Amazon where it’s been a bit dodgy, Ring comes to mind.

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Should probably have included an asterisk to say except ring

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Yeah I think we can both agree Ring are pretty dodgy :joy:

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