Best Router for Extending BT-Wifi hotspot

jean17

In the past I have used an AC router to extend BT Hotspot and it worked pretty well, certainly well enough to keep me going until I found a deal.

Now I am looking for a more powerful router to do the same but having a few problems.

The problem is when I look at these they all seem to be reviewing based on how far it can push the connection around the far corners of your home, but what I am looking for is one that can pick up a network that is not so close and hold it steady. for one or two rooms.  I am doing this for a friend too who has a home office shed thing at the bottom of their garden.

There seem to be three problems.
1. BTWifi
2. Signal drops
3. TP-Link

So with BT-Wifi I can get it to connect and replicate but it drops the connection every 30s requiring a new login which is a nightmare, usually it would be 2 hours before a new login was required. I get this problem even if I connect to BT-Wifi directly, it makes it unusable which is why I looked for devices to boost it.

I have tried several routers, they do a survey and you choose the wifi you want to connect to and boost,

One seems to choose BT-Wifi and only shows one instance of it despite their being several it allows me to specify preferred or only 2.4 or 5.0, but will not hold steady,  I think it might be that it keeps seeing other BTwifi's and so tries to get a better connection.

The other (A TPLink D7) shows all the BT-Wifi's along with the Mac Address, so you choose the most powerful, sounds great but it does not work, it fails to prompt for the BT Login page. I have successfully used these to extend my own wifi, but they require you disable dhcp which cannot work with a BTWifi because BT-wifi is not offering DHCP, just wifi hotspot.

So I thought maybe it is time to invest in a decent repeater/router but they all seem to be about boosting around your home, e.g. Mesh,  but these are no good because I cannot change the origin of the signal.  Many are suggesting they are super powerful and can reach every part of your home but what I need here is the ability to pick up and hold a wifi that may be in a building opposite.

Any recommendation / help from people who have actually done this would be appreciated.

Rodders53

No wifi repeater is more powerful than any other - Ofcom/International licence-exempt radio power limits see to that - no matter what the makers might claim.

Piggy-backing on free WiFi hotspots on other peoples' routers is clearly not ideal, nor secure.

I'd suggest a Powerline AP type solution for the garden shed office assuming it has mains power to connect to the router in the main house... but have a feeling you want to leech off someone else's internet connection rather than pay?

Mobile data solutions could be another option.

jean17

Rodders53 said:

No wifi repeater is more powerful than any other - Ofcom/International licence-exempt radio power limits see to that - no matter what the makers might claim.

Piggy-backing on free WiFi hotspots on other peoples' routers is clearly not ideal, nor secure.

I'd suggest a Powerline AP type solution for the garden shed office assuming it has mains power to connect to the router in the main house... but have a feeling you want to leech off someone else's internet connection rather than pay?

Mobile data solutions could be another option.

Sorry but that is nonsense, of course one repeater can be better than another, just compare the reviews.
My own experience of them show routers vary considerably.
A specification is a specification, but I doubt that any of them are exceeding that, it is more like some have a better CPU, others have better coding or network implementation.
Today I was able to get a signal at 9mb for a while by rotating the router, what I need is a router that will lock on to a signal by the mac address and that has quite good capability to hold onto it.
I am not that technical about networking, I was wondering if there is some timeout threshold that could be adjusted.
What I was looking for was a response with someone who has actual experience of what I am trying to do, i.e. to reliably pick up BTWifi and deliver it within normal wifi distance. 
Powerline was tried on shed and found to be rubbish, but thanks for that suggestion.
Nice that you have nasty feelings about people and immediately jump to the wrong conclusion.  BTWifi is a paid solution in case you are not aware, it is a hotspot, that is its purpose!
Also, it is BT that takes 10 to 20 percent of people's wifi and sells it on, not me.
I have used BTWifi in the past when between suppliers, but this time it is extremely unreliable, they seem to have dropped the FON bit of it so maybe it is that.
I would have thought that many have tried to boost BTWifi or been able to resolve issues for TP link.
So here is a weird thing, the BTWifi signal will not drop if I use it for netflix at least not for 2 hours which I think is the normal cut off time.  So maybe it has some sort of traffic priority, but on every other use, radio, web, gaming it drops the connection within around 30s.

[Deleted User]

Your looking for something with WISP capability - TP Link have a few products with this capability.
I'd suggest using a VPN one logged in.

jean17

Thanks for reply, WISP seems to be overkill
In the past I have used WDS on TP-Link to extend networks but this does not seem to work.
tp-link.com/uk/support/faq/440/
I am interested in the idea of using a VPN, I was using one on an old iPad and it did seem to keep the connection open, but when I installed the same VPN on a mobile and Laptop the connection was still dropped.
It seems that BT-Wifi has a requirement to re-login every 2 hours which I can live with but it is dropping the connection so often it is a nightmare sometimes within 15 seconds.
I think the issue is that the signal drops momentarily or becomes so weak that it is dropped.
I have exhausted all permutations on the TP-Link, my feeling is that they do not implement WDS properly, requiring one to disable DHCP was never going to work on a hotspot that requires you to at least be able to find the BT Login URL.
My other router has been incredibly successful in the past, taking a signal from right across a yard.
I have established that it needs to point in a specific direction to get  a decent signal (it has only internal antenna) and when it connects I can get a decent speed, but for less than a minute. 
I disabled 2.4ghz and it did appear to be more stable but it seems to have slipped back.
I was wondering if there are network settings in the router that make it less sensitive to signal strength variation, I have options like Key Renewal Interval & DTM Period but I have no idea what would help in this situation.

jonmurf

What is the default IP Address for Login Router Admin?

Default Router Username and Password List need?

jean17

jonmurf said:

What is the default IP Address for Login Router Admin?

Default Router Username and Password List need?

How on earth would that be relevant?  It might be 192.168.x.x it will depend on router.
If I was extending a router in my home with a wireless bridge I would use it to configure the router, it has no bearing on BTWifi.

With a wireless bridge some router manufacturers just ask the SSID, others have a survey button and use the SSID and the Mac Address, I was hoping the latter would allow me to find the most reliable router and only try to connect to that.

Since my last post I have discovered a few things, first of all regardless of router BTWIFI is total rubbish, the video below described numerous problems
1. Inactivity timer (seconds) forces re-login (for me this is up to 240 times per hour!)
2. Dropped connection (this is double trouble, first you have to find connection again which can take 30 minutes then you have the re-login problem)
3. Speed of connection (this is varies all the time even if you do not move, it can be 200k one minute and 6mb another)
4. Poor Weather causes very limited connection and speed. (when I saw this I had opportunity to test as we have had a load of rain and it is true)

In my opinion BTWifi is not fit for purpose, at £39 a month it is a complete rip off, if you are buying broadband and considering BTWifi as a factor in your decision making, DON'T !!

BTWifi was always going to be a service that would be really needed on the rare times you would use it, well it has failed in that.  In fact I am so peeved by BT who are totally useless, that this BTwifi failure has caused me to decide to leave BT for Broadband, TV and Mobile for the whole family.

There is clearly a fault in the inactivity timer and I think the dropped connections may be caused if the subscriber BT is putting my connection through having a peak jump.

However, I think it may also be that it is constantly looking at other BTwifi's in the area.

The solution to this is to not only allow but encourage BTwifi users to boost the signal by using a router with WDS to capture and repeat the signal, this would protect the reputation of BT and the product. 

BT could even offer to sell you the repeater, I might have bought it as a one off purchase,

For others interested in overcoming the technical issues, well you can't overcome 1, 2, & 4 above, the video below suggests playing a video, well I tried that and it did not help. 

The incompatibly between routers and BTWifi is mostly based on the provision of IP address, WDS requires you disable DHCP rather than choose your own segment outside a DCHP range. BT does not provide an industry standard Lan IP, what it provides will not work with a router seeking a request nor does it work with BootP. 

BTWifi does allocate some sort of session IP but it is not compatible, although not relevant, I noticed it uses a class B allocation of IP addresses in the 100.x.x.x range with 100.93.x.x  and 100.97.x.x being the most popular I have seen, it uses 100.97.0.1 as the gateway for 100.97.x.x and 100.93.0.1 for 100.93.x.x.

There is one more technical solution I can try; WDS appeared between the Wireless N and Wireless AC period in Wifi standards evolution, there are some old Wireless N devices that use a so called "client mode".  Many newer firmware updates replaced client mode with WDS so you can't just go buy an old router, it would have to have the oldest firmware and once a router has been upgraded, many do not roll back.

However, if you do not mind rolling up your sleeves you can try client mode (not client bridge) by installing DD-WRT or Open-WRT but these may well not be compatible with your router or firmware version. 

I bought a router on eBay, it had level 6 of it's specific firmware, this did not support client mode, annoyingly DD-WRT supported levels 1-5 but not 6 for some reason.  I could try 5 but I would probably brick the router, easier to sell it and try and find another.  

There are some client devices that do NAT to a wired connection, so by plugging in a second router by cable I may be able to add several devices but I do not think I will get over the dropped connections or the inactivity timeout (which can be as little as 15 seconds).
Even if it works it would be 2 hour max

BT needs to
1. Disable inactivity timer
2. Change code that is causing dropped connections, whether it be peaks by the BT router they are sharing or it looking for a better connection.
3. Allow, support (WDS) and encourage people to connect their own router and or sell them a compatible repeater.
4. Set the session to 6 hours rather than 2 hours

It used to work very well as a technology, it was not superfast but it was adequate, that was all I was hoping for.  BTRouters have become more powerful yet BTWIFI has been consigned to the trash can, it is not fit for purpose and has annoyed me so much that I am no longer a loyal customer but a hater.  This is because I was given expectation that this would work and it certainly used to years ago but BT have screwed it up.

If mobile sims would have worked I would have used one just because of the price, but I must be in a dead zone, to test I bought £10 data sims for all major networks from CPW and elsewhere but speed is dire.

It is so annoying that I can get a 6mb and 8mb connection at times, but only for a few minutes if that. This tells me that the fault is all with BT, if it had got it's act together BTwifi might be worthy.  I have been lazy in switching but I an looking around now.

Review of BTWifi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HEX_CM4Xbg