BT Home Hub wifi distance help!

misscairngorm

My parents have just downsized and my father is now 'installed' in an office in the garage. He has his desktop pc out there, meanwhile my mum is in the house with her new laptop. Dad needs to have the hub next to his desktop as he requires the cable connection while mum has wireless and so wants to be in the house. The wireless signal is fine as far as the back door, but no further which means that every time mum wants to use her laptop in the house she has to go and get the hub and move it indoors...

Does anyone know if there's a solution to this problem? I tried BT and although initially saying they could change the settings they now say usage has to be within 8m of the hub...

Is there some kind of router they can plug in to the phone socket in the house so that wifi is enabled indoors?

Any help on this gratefully received!

Thanks

culpepper

did they give them those homeplugs when they first got BT?
You plug the hub into the phone socket and electric and then plug one home plug into the electric and the hub(with ethernet) and another into the electric where you want to plug in your ethernet enabled computer and the signal goes down the electric wiring.
Then mum could have her wifi in the house,the hub could stay in the house and dad could have his ethernet in the garage(assuming the electric to the garage is on the same circuit).
You can also use a signal booster which I believe is a sort of router that you set up to bounce the signal further.
Someone on the techie forum will know how to do that if no one on here does.

macman

I'd suggest using a pair of Homeplugs, assuming that the garage is on the same CU as the house. You can get them either with ethernet or with a wireless repeater on.
Even the dire BT Home Hub should manage more than 8 metres though.
Alternatively, his (presumably non-wireless PC) can simply be fitted with a PCI wireless card or a USB wireless dongle to make it wireless. Not much more than a tenner either way.

misscairngorm

Thanks chaps - they have things that go into the phone jack which takes the phone and the hub, but the ethernet cable woudln't plug into either. They could have been the ones that had when they were with Pipex at the last house though rather than ones that came with the hub. But that doesn't sound like that's what you're meaning! I'll have a look on the BT website and see if I can source a pair of 'homeplugs'.

Just been onto Dabs and found them - why the lady in India coudln't have told me that in the first place is beyond me.....!

thanks!!

macman

They're nothing to do with BT-just get some at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_9?url=search-alias%3Dcomputers&field-keywords=homeplugs&sprefix=homeplugs%2Caps%2C197
They use the mains power circuit to carry the broadband signal around the house.
But is your garage on the same CU as the house?