new router required

Hi All,

I have BT infinity 2, and BT vision, using the home hub 3, but its wireless performance is very poor.

My house has thick walls (built in 1950).

I tried using other options to get a good wireless signal upstairs to my sons xbox and other sons PC, but none work very well, these include inline power adaptors, including one that was a wireless output from the upstairs powerline, but using these means I have to use one of the four ethernet sockets on the homehub 3 to get a signal into it, meaning I loose an ethernet connections downstairs ( I have an xbox 360, PS3, BT vision youview box, and PC connected to the homehub 3, which means to connect wireless upstairs via the inline power adaptos, I must disconnect one of the ethernet cables from another device, not a good option.

This is why I thought I'd ask here, to see if anyone had ideas to get a good wireless signal upstairs (the BT homehub 3 is so poor, downstairs in sight of it, my son can't get a wireless signal to his laptop and this is a few feet from the homehub 3) and I'm on my 7th homehub 3, same for the wireless printer, it see's a signal, but very weak, changed wireless settings and channels in the hub, but no real differance).

Perhaps a new wireless broadband router that works with infinity 2 and BT vision is the way forward, but which one?

Thanks in advance.

If the powerline works, why not just buy a cheap gigabit ethernet or even cheaper 100 Meg Ethernet switch and add this to the HomeHub

Wireless signal strengths dont really vary much, just the antenna design, and if a solid object like concrete floor is the issue mimo and other options unlikely to help

The HomeHub is actually one of the good ones in terms of wireless signal. You should easily get signal in line of sight though, that's very odd.

I wouldn't bother buying other routers as you're likely to just waste money. What I'd do is install a switch into the HH to get more ethernet ports & then use powerline 500 adapters. Get 3 of these in total and install a wireless Access Point into each one. So that's 2 more AP's

This is assuming the wireless worked well with the homeplugs before?

Edited by ukhardy07 (Fri 09-Nov-12 14:03:05)

In reply to a post by zrerz:

Perhaps a new wireless broadband router that works with infinity 2 and BT vision is the way forward, but which one?

I assume you've already used inSSIDer on a laptop (Windows or Mac) or Android tablet or phone to check you have the best channel ? don't trust the advertising that says the HomeHub 3 does this for you. Use inSSIDer and set your own channel.

http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider/

Homeplug is the best for your sort of building, such as these:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-PA411KIT-AV500-Power...
or these:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Zyxel-500Mbps-Slimline-Power...

and a cheap 8 port switch such as this:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-Unmanaged-Desktop-TL...

That would give you many more ports downstairs too

Thanks for that, got one of the cheap 8 port switches you mention on order from amazon, hope to get it saturday 10th, so post back with results.

I would have got one of these www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-Gigabit-Unmanaged-Desktop-TL-SG1005D/dp/B000N99BBC

Was just in time to get amazon to change it to the one you recommended, so it's on order for Monday delivery.

Hope it goes well

I'm currently using one of these - the dogs proverbials!!!!!

http://www.netgear.com/R6300#

Very strong signal throughout the house using channels 8+4 on the 2.4Ghz range and strong throughout the 5Ghz range. Just waiting for a laptop with ac that I can afford!!!!!!.

liked the look of these, after I read review of it in PC Advisors November issue, but not in my price range yet (hopefully, after christmas, might treat myself).

Thanks for your comments, so you get a strong wireless signal upstairs without having bought the matching USB adaptors for 802.ac?

I was looking at these in amazon, but price was near £70 each, so not for me just yet.

Honestly you have the HomeHub 3. I know you believe you can get better with some expensive hardware. Take it from me I've used a Netgear WNDR4500 & 3700. Also used a belkin n750. The range worse in some cases than the Homehub and Sky router.

By using 2 channels on 2.4Ghz it gives you better wireless speeds but reduces the range. Expensive hardware generally does this.

5Ghz barely travels far at all.

The BEST solution is multiple APs around the property. Don't waste the money on hardware that may or may not work.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Sat 10-Nov-12 00:01:39)

From what your saying homeplugs may be an idea.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/hardware/reviews.html

Also have another review going up in a day or so.
Yes to 5GHz range, which makes sense in terms of physics too.

People moan about broadband speed sales, but the inflation is even worse for wireless kit

In reply to a post by zrerz:

liked the look of these, after I read review of it in PC Advisors November issue, but not in my price range yet (hopefully, after christmas, might treat myself).

Thanks for your comments, so you get a strong wireless signal upstairs without having bought the matching USB adaptors for 802.ac?

I was looking at these in amazon, but price was near £70 each, so not for me just yet.

The router is placed in the hall. I get a strong (5 bar) signal in all rooms downstairs except the conservarory where it's 4 bars. I get 4 bars in the garden and 4 in all rooms updatairs. I get the same speeds wirelessly (typically 73Mbps peak) that I get on my wired desktop due to the double channel feature (I'm on BT Infinity 2 with a line rate of 78 and am 350 metres from the DSLAM).

The 5 Ghz signal tends to be one bar weaker upstairs and in the garden and conservatory, but 5 in other rooms downstairs. I haven't bothered with an ac adapter yet - too expensive in my view and I hate dongles anyway as they just get in the way!

It cost me not very much as I sold my previous router (Netgear WNDR4500) which made up for most of the cost - making a low cost future proofing (and gave me another toy to play with of course!)

Thanks for your further comments, looks like this is the one to buy then.

As you say you too are on BT infinity 2, am I right in saying you simply disconnect the home hub 3 and connect the white BT openreach box into the new netgear ADSL socket?

Essentially yes. just plug the router into the BT modem. You can then let the Netgear genie configure it for you or do it yourself. Just go into the internet page (log in using http://192.168.1.1) and set it to PPPoE, login name [email protected], leave password blank).

Couldn't be simpler.........

That said, make sure you update to the latest firmware, then go to Advanced/Advanced Setup/Wireless Settings and make sure the box next to 'Enable 20/40Hz box is unchecked. That ensures you get the double channel on all the time rather than the box measuring potential interference and resetting it to single channel...........

many thanks

what ever you do dont buy a dgnd3700v2 as i have just bought it and it has a hugh bug or design flaw which i am trying to sort.

basicly you ca not access any device on your home network by using a device on wifi. I have a ipad and i can not access anything on my network at all from it i had to put my older dg834gt netgear back in and it all works.

I contacted netgear but i found out in forums that this has been going on for 3 months and when i contacted them they are getting me to try different things. I mean come on it was posted 3 months ago and they still have no cule or what is happening and i might or prob will have to send this back.

I might go for a different router i dont know

Disconnect the router from the net. Disable all firewalls - in the router, and Windows, and any IS security package you have. See if you can connect then.

If it works, you start adding them back one at a time, or possible separately one at a time first, until you find the awkward one. Which in this case is likely to be the router, but may not be. It could be one of the others doesn't like it. Or a combination oof it and the others.

If it doesn't work, just set things back to how they were and reconnect. Lost nothing, and eliminated firewalls as the cause. I've had similar issues in the past.

Edited by RobertoS (Mon 12-Nov-12 22:40:45)

not that

its a bad firmware problem this as it just does not work with any device that is connected to wifi.

talking to support but this is a seroius problem and i dont even need the computer on as i use my ipad to control my amp and it does not work but it does on my old dg834gt stright away

Many fail to understand that their router broadcasts more than adequately but it is competition with neighbour�s wifi that plays havoc with their wifi connections?

Wifi Analyzer is a free app for android phones, which shows you who/what, is using which wifi channel.

My setup does not disconnect because my router has 14 channels, where most have 12 at most, so on channel 13 my kit is not fighting with the neighbours... (D-Link DIR-655)

Makes me laugh when I see from my house (via Wifi Analyzer) 6 local wifi set ups all broadcasting on the same channel

In reply to a post by ANZAC:

Makes me laugh when I see from my house (via Wifi Analyzer) 6 local wifi set ups all broadcasting on the same channel

The Virgin SuperDud's that my neighbours have seem to FOLLOW my channel setting. So I choose channel 6 which is empty - and then two days later I find the two VM SSIDs are now also on Ch 6. They were on channel 2 and 8. so I move, and they move again!

I use inSSIDer and I know the homes with the superhubs and they're not technical so it will be on factory defaults - "auto channel".

Grr, more rubbish VM software. (or is it Netgear to blame, again!).

Maybe as a special Christmas treat for them, turn their wireless off if they don't use it, or see if you can switch it to a manual channel and arrange them accordingly.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

The Virgin SuperDud's that my neighbours have seem to FOLLOW my channel setting. So I choose channel 6 which is empty - and then two days later I find the two VM SSIDs are now also on Ch 6. They were on channel 2 and 8. so I move, and they move again!

I use inSSIDer and I know the homes with the superhubs and they're not technical so it will be on factory defaults - "auto channel".

Grr, more rubbish VM software. (or is it Netgear to blame, again!).

Or - you chose 6 because there was nothing else there, and so did the auto choice system in VM hubs. If you choose a heavily used channel as an experiment, I'd be very surprised if they follow you to that .

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Maybe as a special Christmas treat for them, turn their wireless off if they don't use it, or see if you can switch it to a manual channel and arrange them accordingly.

Sadly I'm not that good a neighbour to go in and start changing their IT setup.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Or - you chose 6 because there was nothing else there, and so did the auto choice system in VM hubs. If you choose a heavily used channel as an experiment, I'd be very surprised if they follow you to that .

I chose that channel about 6 months before these pesky hubs arrived (older SSIDs were from retail router brands) - but I could set up about 50 SSIDs on the same channel and see if that makes them stay away

My two neighbours left theirs insecure - so I just access their routers and changed channels ... simple.



Then, a local garden centre started broadcasting at whet seemed to be way above maximum acceptable power so on a visit we managed to access their WAPs which were transmitting at 36dBm or 4 Watts. We soon sorted that too!

On the garden centre, was that after taking into effect any pigtails to antenna etc, so AP's that are running external antenna can up the power to compensate for long leads to antenna.

It certainly was ...

In reply to a post by MHC:

My two neighbours left theirs insecure - so I just access their routers and changed channels ... simple.

Then, a local garden centre started broadcasting at whet seemed to be way above maximum acceptable power so on a visit we managed to access their WAPs which were transmitting at 36dBm or 4 Watts. We soon sorted that too!

Not sure admitting to any of that on an open forum is a good idea - make sure you aren't traceable or Big Brother may be after you............. The mods seem OK with it though!

Neighbours were fine with it as I told them about the insecurity and got them to put encryption and passwords on.

The Virgin SuperDud's that my neighbours have seem to FOLLOW my channel setting. So I choose channel 6 which is empty - and then two days later I find the two VM SSIDs are now also on Ch 6. They were on channel 2 and 8. so I move, and they move again!

Same I've given up with it...

Many fail to understand that their router broadcasts more than adequately but it is competition with neighbour�s wifi that plays havoc with their wifi connections?

Very often it can be the 'free' channel that causes problems.

Here's a typical scenario. There's 3 routers using channel 6 and 3 routers on channel 11. No routers on channel 1.

You scan the wireless channels and see channel 1 as empty. You then use this channel.

Chances are this channel has at least one the following, wireless doorbells, wireless telephones, bluetooth devices, wireless baby monitors, AV transmitters etc. WHY? These devices avoid populated channels too. So they wont choose 11 or 6 usually as they're already in use.

1 of these devices is much more likely to wreak havoc on your WiFi. This is because many of these devices aren't regulated in the same way that wifi routers are. A WiFi router will work quite well on the same channel as another WiFi router.

A wifi router and several cordless phones on same channel = a nightmare.
several wifi routers on same channel = some performance loss but not too bad

Of course on inssider you never know if the channel you are choosing is populated by these devices. You only see wifi routers which are a very small part of the true picture.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Mon 03-Dec-12 10:05:44)

My setup does not disconnect because my router has 14 channels, where most have 12 at most, so on channel 13 my kit is not fighting with the neighbours... (D-Link DIR-655)

Due to overlapping channels when using channel 13 you will still interfere slightly with channels 12, 11 and 10. So if any router is using 11 (which they probably are) then your AP and theirs is still probably competing.

Also most routers sold in the UK do channels 1 - 13. Channel 14 shouldn't be used.

The ideal recommendation is to use 1, 5, 9 and 13. This avoids any overlapping...

However in the UK we use 1, 6 and 11 by default. This is because many manufacturers default to channel 6 so the 1st setup wouldn't work too well... As 6 would overlap with 5 and 9.

Makes me laugh when I see from my house (via Wifi Analyzer) 6 local wifi set ups all broadcasting on the same channel

Probably isn't too bad. Routers can co-exist quite well. The issues occur when there are other devices such as cordless phones, microwaves etc also on that channel. OR if somebodies router is outputting higher than it should be.

If anything having this many routers on 1 channel would discourage the bad devices (such as the cordless phone) from using the channel. So it can end up better.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Mon 03-Dec-12 10:14:42)

Then of course it's possible to do the job properly.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Then of course it's possible to do the job properly.

And 5GHz is often useful for many.

That's a very neat tool!!! Shame it's not free but that would come in handy!

Very true however the range isn't very good...
In experience beyond one wall 2.4ghz performs better. This is my property and obviously different properties have different building materials. So there's scope for differences there.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Mon 03-Dec-12 16:00:55)

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Very true however the range isn't very good...
In experience beyond one wall 2.4ghz performs better. This is my property and obviously different properties have different building materials. So there's scope for differences there.

I think it also depends on the router. I've got a 5GHz airport express which is about 3 years old, and it has almost no range, but lets me use my laptop in the front room when the neighbours have saturated the 2.4GHz - but I can't get its signal anywhere else.

My parents have an Airport Extreme as their only router (which is a lot more money), and I can pick up their 5GHz signal the other side of the house upstairs. (4 bedroom family house).

Draytek don't do a simultaneous dual band yet, and their software doesn't play nicely with OS X annoyingly. (802.1d frames set to wrong country).