Sagem router wifi performance

I have recently had fibre installed, and the wired speed and reliability are good. 38Mbps downstream and 18Mbps upstream.

The wifi perfornance is variable and often very slow. I am familiar with networking, having been a radio ham for many years. Previous performance with the ADSL2+ Thompson router was good. The wifi was very solid and reliable, matching the 8Mbps download wired.

Nothing has changed here. I live in a rural area overlooking miles of countryside. I have only one neighbour, whose BT wifi is on channel 11 and I have set my wifi on channel 1. The performance in my house (very old, thin walls, no metal) is poor even from only one room away.

The only use for the wifi is Chromecast occasionally, my wife's notebook, and a couple of mobiles and a tablet. No kids or any real demands on the wifi.

My conclusion so far is that the supplied Sagem modem is hopelessly inadequate and cheap, OR there is a fault (which given the wired performance is less likely)

Any advice from anyone on what I could try?

I might go and buy a TP'link 1750AC for £89 if I have to, but I am not sure whether this just plugs into the BT modem in place of the Sagem, or whether it replaces the BT modem as well.

Robert
(ignore previous location below)

If you still have the Thompson router you can disable its DHCP, give it a fixed IP address on the same subnet as the Sagecom but outside the allocatable range, connect it by Ethernet to a Sagecom Ethernet port, and use its wifi as well as or instead of the Sagecom wifi.

There are choices to make regarding the SSIDs and channels, depending on a bit more detail of the location and mobility of the various devices.

I've had similar problems. The 2704N is, to put it politely, not the finest wifi router in the world. On advice from this forum (probably also from Roberto) I disabled wifi on my 2704N. Then used my old Plusnet TG585v7 router downstream of the 2704N. I gave it a different IP address and disabled its DHCP so there's there's no conflict between the 2 routers. It's a clumsy 3 box solution but it works.

I will probably get a combined VDSL modem/router at some point. This will be a one box solution. I don't want to spend a lot of money so these are the 2 contenders at under £70.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00K6D2ESM/ref=wl_it_dp_o...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00NEQZ12Y/ref=wl_it_dp_o...

I have wifi sniffer programs on both my Samsung phone and HP laptop. I can recommend this for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fa... I found it via this page: http://www.howtogeek.com/197268/how-to-find-the-best... I've used Wifi Analyser to troubleshoot several people's wifi. In a suburban area it's amazing how wifi routers seem to cluster on certain channels leaving plenty free.

Edited by ppppenguin99 (Thu 07-May-15 18:58:42)