Mesh system?

chrisw

I'm on the 250mbs Virgin broadband with the Superhub 3 and Wi-Fi is absolutely terrible. My son's Xbox is connected via Ethernet cable which is 'mostly' fine but drops out quite a bit. The Wi-Fi is for tablets, phones, Ring doorbell, Sky Q, Firestick, etc. and I get about 5mbps downstairs.

This seems to be a common issue with this hub and the solution seems to be a Mesh system so I thought I'd take a look around during this Black Friday.

However, it appears to be a bit of a minefield. Do I need 'fast ports' or 'giga ports'? Wi-Fi 5, 6 or 6E? 

Can anyone recommend a reasonably priced system that will meet my needs? At the moment I've sort of narrowed it down to the Tplink X20.

Thanks.

tetrarch

Installing a TP-Link Deco fixed all my WiFi problems - very satisfied customer and happy to recommend. They have moved on from the Deco 4 that I bought in 2020, but they all come up on offer frequently at Amazon - maybe look out for a Black Friday deal?

Edited to add: The mesh is so good that my line-of-sight works down the bottom of my gaden nearly 40m away

 The ethernet cable doesn't make any sense, though. Maybe a new cable would be the cheapest way fix that problem

Good luck

Tet 

GDB2222

I too don’t see how an Ethernet cable drops out. Something is seriously wrong there. How long is the cable?  

As to meshes, we installed quite a slow cheap BT one, and it transformed the reception throughout the house. A purist would say it is far too slow, but it’s absolutely fine for web browsing, watching films etc. 

chrisw

GDB2222 said:

I too don’t see how an Ethernet cable drops out. Something is seriously wrong there. How long is the cable?  

The cable goes up through the loft, I think it's a 10m Cat 6 cable. I don't know if putting the router into modem mode might improve it.

The Tenda MW6 seems to be on offer at the moment at about £52 for two, would this be sufficient for 250mbps fibre?

GDB2222

Define ‘sufficient'. How much bandwidth does your router actually get, and how much do you need at the devices?

Our slow mesh gives me 36mbps on this ipad. That’s plenty for me.

If I stand next to the router and connect direct by Wi-Fi I still get 36 mbps, so our mesh is keeping up with the connection. 

So, do you actually get 250mbps?

chrisw

I get 250 stood next to the router but downstairs it drops to about 5 or less. This causes buffering on my firestick and issues with the Ring doorbell which says poor Wi-Fi connection.

I've got a Wi-Fi extender downstairs but there's nowhere to plug it in 'half way', so it's trying to boost an already poor signal. 

36mbps would be a big improvement and probably sufficient but I was hoping a mesh system would get downstairs closer to the 250.

GDB2222

We only have a 36mbps connection to the house. So, I don’t know what you would need to get the full 250 in your house, sorry. I think that you probably need quite an expensive tri band system.

Theoretically, the MW6 can manage 1200 mbps, but that’s split between duplexing and communication between the units, so you don’t get anything like that 1200. 

On the other hand you may well find that it does all that you need. The difference between a flaky Wi-Fi and even just a slow mesh is like night and day.

Hopefully an expert will be along shortly.

benson1980

We have 250mbps virgin and google nest WiFi. Three points in an approx 1900 sq ft house and lowest it drops anywhere is 80mbps. 

facade

My superhub 3 works fine with wired ethernet. I have a cable that goes from the hub to the loft, then to a gigabit switch, and I get reliable 100MB file transfers upstairs (which is gigabit)

The wifi is odd, but I have an old TPLink RE450 access point plugged into the ethernet for wifi, I did disable the superhub wifi, but it turned itself back on, so I have 2 wireless networks, my 'phone just picks the strongest and seems to work. (I guess for a "mesh" I just give them both the same name)

I'd look at sorting the cable, check it for damage, like chewing by rodents, sharp kinks etc. Then I'd check if it is the cable losing connection or the superhub losing internet access.

You can call up the superhub logs if you double click on the superhub in the network part of my computer- mine claims it is an Arris TG2492LG-85 router, or by entering its ip address- probably 192.168.0.1 into the address bar of your browser. You need the password, which is a number, probably on the label, or it came as a sticker in the box when you got it.

You can run a network test from the home page, then the logs are under

Advanced settings > tools > network status. 

they will be full of dire warnings, they always are, you need to read up on what the logs tell you, eg. https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Speed/Hub-status-data-understanding-network-log-messages/td-p/4716616

If you want to improve your wifi, that is a separate issue to the xbox connection, a wifi connection will never satisfy a gamer.

I can't help with Wifi, anything that needs fast interweb has a cable plugged in here

mgfvvc

I have a 3 node TP-Link Deco M5 system in a 190 square metre house. Reception is good everywhere. This laptop seems to be getting a little under 50Mbps down and a little under 20Mbps up,which is more than enough for my needs. The connection to the house is 80/20.

victor2

A few years back I bought an Asus Mesh capable router and switched my VM Hub3 into modem only mode. The new router was so much better I am able to get 2.4 and 5GHz WiFi all over the house, didn't even need to go to Mesh.