What to do? What to do?

beakerjoe

Hi guys,

I'm a little out of my depth with broadband issues so I thought Id rely my conundrum here to seek guidance.

So I have Broadband with my provider for years, no issues until this time last year.

We had a Technicolor router and it was working fine. However, we had a home phone package and our homephone line was not functioning at all. BB provider sent us out a new Zytel router and once we set it up, the home phone worked again.

That said, our wifi signal has been poor ever since. With the Technicolor we never had an issue, BB filled the house no matter what room we used a tablet or phone. With the Zytel, the signal strength is poor in comparison and the signal doesnt reach our bedroom for example to watch our tablet in bed.

So we have managed and put up with it until now, but I had to call our BB provider recently due to an outage and while they fixed the outage, I brought up the issue about the signal strength.

He recommending buying Netgear powerlines to address the issue.

I lad in work suggested buying a new, better router.

Another lad believes Google Nest is the way to go.

What do you guys think?

Thanks in advance.

trant

How big is the home, how many floors/rooms? Concrete or partition walls?

I was in a similar situation and added an Asus AC86U in access point mode, leaving my ISP router to do everything else. This comfortably covers a four-bed bungalow with excellent signal.

If your home is on multiple levels it might make sense to go with a mesh solution but power line adapters would be my last choice as there is a speed compromise.

beakerjoe

trant wrote: »

How big is the home, how many floors/rooms? Concrete or partition walls?

I was in a similar situation and added an Asus AC86U in access point mode, leaving my ISP router to do everything else. This comfortably covers a four-bed bungalow with excellent signal.

If your home is on multiple levels it might make sense to go with a mesh solution but power line adapters would be my last choice as there is a speed compromise.

2 floors plus converted attic (so technically 3 floors), small enough home though. When you say mesh solution, as a complete novice, what do you mean?

trant

You can keep your current ISP router/modem and purchase a Mesh WiFi solution (e.g. one node for each floor). They link together (usually wirelessly but can be wired if you have CAT5 cabling on each floor) back to your ISP router/modem. They will not offer quite as fast network speeds as your primary router if they link wirelessly but will certainly solve the range problem.

Google Nest, Netgear Orbi and Linksys Velop all do the same job but some will offer faster speeds than others, and at different price points.

That said if your previous router did the job and provided satisfactory coverage you could go with the original suggestion - a WiFi router in AP mode so that your ISP router does the issuing of IP addresses, firewall etc. You probably won't be able to replace the ISP router as you need the phone. This is exactly what I did and for the same reasons.