Vodafone with wifi 6E worth upgrading to fix my home network?

Maxson

I'm currently on Vodafone fibre 2 and getting about 76meg which is enough for our needs.

What's no so good is my powerline network is failing at times I have a 1200 powerline pair from the router to my PC which is in the room above the router. This gives a real speed of about 200 (measured using iperf between 2 PCs) which is also fine for my needs but it occasionally was losing connection for a minute or so and yesterday I lost connection to downstairs and the internet for at least 15minutes which I don't want to live with.

I've also put a slower powerline wifi extender to provide for the rest of the house including the kitchen where my wife works from home. This one was good enough for a few years providing a real speed of about 18 but that runs much slower sometimes and needs turning off and on at the wall sometimes to get full speed or it will just stop working for random periods before it's wifi will come back up.

Our 4 bed house is semi detached and about 10mtrs from front to back, brick and block construction. We have three floors including a loft extension.

I'm not sure how to diagnose and fix my powerline issue. It could be the house wiring and spending out on new adapters will fix nothing. Getting an electrician to look at the wall sockets may fix nothing either.

Recently Vodafone started offering Pro II Fibre 2 plan for just £32 a month which has wifi6E apparently. So I can maybe get a 6E dongle or card for my PC and get similar or better connection speed to the router and importantly more reliable. Plus the Super WiFi 6E booster(s) should fix wifi for the rest of the house or I can leave for free.

So does anyone here have Vodafone 6E and is it good? Does this deal seem worth the cost?

Neil_Jones

Personally I'd just get some ethernet cable and run it from point to point which would solve the whole wireless problem.  If that's an option.  It'll be far cheaper (and reliable), but of course may require liftting floorboards up or drilling holes and/or skirting board tacking.

That would then free up the wireless for devices that can only work on wireless.

If the make up of the house is such that wireless is always going to be a pain in the behind then replacing the router probably won't fix anything.

matelodave

I wonder with powerline stuff dropping connection whether it's interference from outside sources, possibly appliances in your house, in other houses or even radio waves from summat completely unrelated which causes the problem.

We've been using powerline adapters  for the past ten years, but there are times when the powerline connections just stop and restart again sometimes for a minute or so and sometimes for a lot longer.

The normal wifi & and stuff  cabled to the router (Vodafone 100mbit/s FTTP) is rock solid and there's no obvious reason why the power-line connections drop but they do.

The only thing that's a bit iffy on wifi is the SKY Q box so I've cabled it directly to the router.

onomatopoeia99

Ethernet cable is the answer, cat5e is adequate in domestic settings but you might want cat6 for future proofing.  Powerline is a dreadful bodge, only suitable for people that don't care about network stability. 

400ixl

Wifi 6E uses 6Ghz range and is capable of faster speeds, but drops off over a shorter distance and is not as good as penetrating walls as 5Ghz or 2.3Ghz.

6E is not going to be the solution if you are struggling to get coverage now.

You should be looking at mesh networks which will replace the need for powerline adapters. 

Neil49

Ethernet cabling is the ideal solution (but possibly not a practical one over 3 floors). 

The easier (but more expensive solution) is a mesh network. I've got one in place and it instantly resolved problems with black spots and other areas with slow connectivity. 

My personal experience with powerline adapters is that they just aren't up to the job. 

A mesh network is your best bet. 

Maxson

matelodave said:

I wonder with powerline stuff dropping connection whether it's interference from outside sources, possibly appliances in your house, in other houses or even radio waves from summat completely unrelated which causes the problem.

We've been using powerline adapters  for the past ten years, but there are times when the powerline connections just stop and restart again sometimes for a minute or so and sometimes for a lot longer.

The normal wifi & and stuff  cabled to the router (Vodafone 100mbit/s FTTP) is rock solid and there's no obvious reason why the power-line connections drop but they do.

The only thing that's a bit iffy on wifi is the SKY Q box so I've cabled it directly to the router.

Thanks. It's interesting to hear you have what sounds like a very similar issue with powerline dropouts. Are you using Vodafone equipment for your wifi?

Maxson

Neil49 said:

Ethernet cabling is the ideal solution (but possibly not a practical one over 3 floors). 

The easier (but more expensive solution) is a mesh network. I've got one in place and it instantly resolved problems with black spots and other areas with slow connectivity. 

My personal experience with powerline adapters is that they just aren't up to the job. 

A mesh network is your best bet. 

I think what Vodafone are offering is a mesh network. It seems like a good idea.

Maxson

onomatopoeia99 said:

Ethernet cable is the answer, cat5e is adequate in domestic settings but you might want cat6 for future proofing.  Powerline is a dreadful bodge, only suitable for people that don't care about network stability. 

I did think about drilling though walls and floors to put in ethernet when we had carpets up and mess everywhere years ago but with lots of other more pressing jobs to do at the time, powerline seemed like a better solution. Now wifi seems to be good enough that I might not need either any more.

matelodave

Maxson said:

matelodave said:

I wonder with powerline stuff dropping connection whether it's interference from outside sources, possibly appliances in your house, in other houses or even radio waves from summat completely unrelated which causes the problem.

We've been using powerline adapters  for the past ten years, but there are times when the powerline connections just stop and restart again sometimes for a minute or so and sometimes for a lot longer.

The normal wifi & and stuff  cabled to the router (Vodafone 100mbit/s FTTP) is rock solid and there's no obvious reason why the power-line connections drop but they do.

The only thing that's a bit iffy on wifi is the SKY Q box so I've cabled it directly to the router.

Thanks. It's interesting to hear you have what sounds like a very similar issue with powerline dropouts. Are you using Vodafone equipment for your wifi?

this is my Vodafone router which sits in the hall of of our 140m2 bungalow, so its pretty central and we dont have multiple floors. We've been with VF for a year.

Previously we were with BT and TBH this router seems better than the BT Smart Hub that we had (we had three over the four years we were with BT due to problems)

Using something like Ookla I get 92mbits on the 5GHz channel virtually all over but only 45 on the 2.4GHz channel. Laptops, phones and tablets all work on 5GHz as does the TV, cameras, printer, smart plugs and an energy monitor use 2.4GHz. The phone and DECT base station plug into the router for telephone service.

I can even get around 5mbit/s in my caravan which is parked about 10 metres from the the building and probably at least 20 metres and three walls away from the router.

Maxson

matelodave said:

Maxson said:

matelodave said:

I wonder with powerline stuff dropping connection whether it's interference from outside sources, possibly appliances in your house, in other houses or even radio waves from summat completely unrelated which causes the problem.

We've been using powerline adapters  for the past ten years, but there are times when the powerline connections just stop and restart again sometimes for a minute or so and sometimes for a lot longer.

The normal wifi & and stuff  cabled to the router (Vodafone 100mbit/s FTTP) is rock solid and there's no obvious reason why the power-line connections drop but they do.

The only thing that's a bit iffy on wifi is the SKY Q box so I've cabled it directly to the router.

Thanks. It's interesting to hear you have what sounds like a very similar issue with powerline dropouts. Are you using Vodafone equipment for your wifi?

this is my Vodafone router which sits in the hall of of our 140m2 bungalow, so its pretty central and we dont have multiple floors. We've been with VF for a year.

Previously we were with BT and TBH this router seems better than the BT Smart Hub that we had (we had three over the four years we were with BT due to problems)

Using something like Ookla I get 92mbits on the 5GHz channel virtually all over but only 45 on the 2.4GHz channel. Laptops, phones and tablets all work on 5GHz as does the TV, cameras, printer, smart plugs and an energy monitor use 2.4GHz. The phone and DECT base station plug into the router for telephone service.

I can even get around 5mbit/s in my caravan which is parked about 10 metres from the the building and probably at least 20 metres and three walls away from the router.

My router looks the same as that and it is pretty good, better than the plusnet one I had before. I've always felt like mesh sets are a bit expensive for what you get until I heard some hype about wifi6. Now people are saying wifi 6 or 6E won't make anything better, I can't be bothered with any of it!