Flaky Wifi - how best to sort it out...?

Posted by: nickpeacock on 02 October 2018

Morning all. Looking for some wifi tips.

Imagine a late-Victorian London semi (not mine, so I don't quite understand all aspects of the network setup), with various floors. At present BT pipes the broadband into the basement Smart Hub. From there it's hard-wired up two floors to an Apple Time Capsule, which provides the wifi network for the whole house.

Wifi coverage is flaky (doesn't cover all parts of the house, eg the basement) and a bit intermittent even in well-covered areas.

So I'm looking for more extensive and more stable coverage. Complicating factors for my notoriously slow brain are: (i) Sky, which needs to connect to the network for the full package to work. I think this may be hard-wired somewhere, possibly via...; (ii)...Apple TV, which is often used by household members. I think the two Apple TV units in the house connect to the wifi but I confess to a general sense of mystification with all Apple products except my phone.

I think one solution might be a wifi mesh system, possibly the BT version, since that would presumably fit reasonably easily with the Smart Hub. It needs to be something which even I can understand, set up and monitor - at the moment all network queries have to go to the people who installed the network, whose responses are a heady mix of geek-speak and condescension.

Ideas?

Posted on: 02 October 2018 by blythe

For around £170 the BT system sounds like an ideal solution.
We have a hard wired ethernet network in our large stone built house, so haven't experienced any such issues or the need to try the BT mesh system.
Particularly if the user is a BT subscriber, I'd have thought BT would be the sensible choice.

If it doesn't work in their particular situation, I'd re-box it and send it back.

Posted on: 02 October 2018 by ChrisSU

If you can cope with a bit of disruption, I would sort out a wired network first. Then connect some strategically placed WiFi devices to that, but use wired connections to fixed devices where possible, such as streamers, NAS drives, TVs, etc. Keep the wireless traffic down a bit, so that it is available for the devices that need it. The materials for networking the house like this are very cheap, and you can pay someone to do it if you don't fancy it yourself.

With or without a wired network, you can still put maybe 2 or 3 wireless access points in to give the house full coverage. The Apple devices are actually very easy to configure compared to many alternatives, and can work very well, although there are more recent devices that will outperform them now. One or two Airport Express, bought very inexpensively from eBay, would get you up and running alongside your TC.

If you go for a Mesh system, best to turn off WiFi on the Time Capsule and just use it as a backup drive rather than trying to mix different wireless setups.

Posted on: 02 October 2018 by Bart

I agree with sorting out the wired network first. Apple TV can connect on WiFi but wired will be preferred especially where WiFi is compromised

I would add an Apple AirPort Extreme, not wired, in “extend the wireless network “ mode. This alone may provide enough coverage. Place it a floor below the current Time Capsule. If that doesn’t do it, return it and look at a Mesh system

Posted on: 02 October 2018 by ynwa250505

I agree with sorting a hard-wired solution in the first place. The Linksys mesh system works well for me. Telephone support for installation was good.

Posted on: 02 October 2018 by Simon-in-Suffolk

Yes an Ethernet soulution can help, however a set of overlapping Ethernet connected access points is usually optimal. Works well in my Edwardian house. I use Ubiquiti. Overlapping ESSID enabled access points is often beneficial to meshing.. which has performance constraints.

Posted on: 16 October 2018 by Boris786

blythe posted:

For around £170 the BT system sounds like an ideal solution.
We have a hard wired ethernet network in our large stone built house, so haven't experienced any such issues or the need to try the BT mesh system.
Particularly if the user is a BT subscriber, I'd have thought BT would be the sensible choice.
If it doesn't work in their particular situation, I'd re-box it and send it back.

Yes that is what I thought but I had problems with mine and, perhaps worse, spent about a month going back and forth between BT mesh support and BT BB support.

At one time I was told you could not expect 8 devices to work on the network using it with BT Smarthub (including the three mesh points)!

My feeling is that the BT solution could be fine but BT's support at user (consumer) level needs working on. You could try it but any issues return it straight off.

I now have a Google Wi Fi - was not keen as ties you in to google eco system (you must have a google account). But support top notch and responses very quick to date. Pretty solid coverage - my house is not that challenging but one wall is a bit of a blocker.

Posted on: 16 October 2018 by garyi

I have BT whole home and have put it in for two friends as well, great system, but in all cases I had ethernet up to each disk