WIFI booster needed - no idea where to start

woolythoughts

Hi

We have sky broadband and get about 35MBS at the computers wired in.

I'm reasonably tech savvy and we do have a lot of wifi load.

1. Sky Q with 4 mini boxes
2. Six alexa pods
3. Three TV's linked
4. mihome hub with about 20 switches
5. 30+ smart sockets
6. Smart phones and tablets

I know when I do a net work analyser the list is endless.

The point is, we only get at most 2MPS over wifi - downloading something from catch up or a box set used to take seconds and now takes hours. Its not the main broad band load as whilst it is slow downloading, the speed at the cabled PC's is high.

Is there anything we can do to get more WIF bandwidth?

bengalknights

Get a wifi power plug that links over the electric power to create a hotspot in the areas that arent getting signal

Also check that you dont have one device hogging the bandwidth

[Deleted User]

woolythoughts wrote: »

The point is, we only get at most 2MPS over wifi - downloading something from catch up or a box set used to take seconds and now takes hours. Its not the main broad band load as whilst it is slow downloading, the speed at the cabled PC's is high.

Is that 2Mbps in the same room as the router or elsewhere?

woolythoughts

Anywhere! Same room as router or down stairs.

grumpycrab

I don't have Sky Q but have seen a number of posts mentioning poor wifi. As an experiment may be worth disabling 2.4GHz networking (hoping none of your clients rely on it!)
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/tvs-entertainment/pvrs/1404726/how-to-fix-sky-q-connectivity-problems/page/0/3

CardinalWolsey

Try downloading a wifi analyser on to your phone, and seeing how congested you are - then look to swap your wifi on to a less congested channel.

Also, not sure regarding the Sky hub, but I have a third party router (Synology) and that shows me in real-time what bandwidth each client is consuming. If you don't have that ability, think about what the different devices are being used for - is there someone in the family that is streaming "not quite live" TV, and just leaves it playing, or some other activity that is continuously using bandwidth?

Another option if you cannot see realtime analytics is to perhaps swap your DNS to OpenDNS - whilst used mainly for securing your DNS lookups and being able to lock down security via this, it does also offer the side benefit of reporting the top sites being requested by you - so again trying to understand what is consuming your bandwidth.

And of course, finally, the option to go back to basics. Turn everything other than the hub off, and slowly start turning devices back on. Try and ascertain which one is hitting your wifi.

As someone else said above though, your best option is to go powerline (if you can't run CAT5/CAT6) - multiple devices hitting wifi concurrently is never going to end well.