DH wfh

[Feellikedancingyeah]

Like many other families it's been hard with DH WFH since March. I am doing my best to occupy DS (14) so DH can concentrate on work. DS occasionally comes into the living room if I am in there, to ask me for help with technical issues with his phone etc. He does get excited on the phone sometimes when playing minecraft.
DH always tuts loudly and says "God why can't he be quiet". Today I reminded DH that I have again taken out DS all morning to am activity and he snapped and said "you can piss off too".
DH can't move his computer upstairs as there is no wired connection and he won't use a wi fi only connection. The hub is in the living room. Sky won't move it as they won't come into the house for that job due to Covid. DS can't use wi-fi in his bedroom as it does not work properly, even with the booster from Sky.
AIBU to think DH is being unreasonable with his attitude?

@EmbarassingAdmissions,

Measure the distance between your router and where you want to work, add 2 or so meters for error, type into amazon ethernet cable x meters. That's gonna be the easiest way if you're not sure how these things work. When your ethernet cable arrives plug one end into your router and the other into computer. You can unplug it and coil it up somewhere safe when you finish work for the day if you don't want the hassle of drilling through walls or cable clipping to skirting boards. Ignore that cat thing. Pretty much all ethernet cables are cat5e or above now which is more than fast enough for pretty much all needs. If you don't want to ignore it the higher number the faster the connection will be.

Google something like “Ex BT engineer near me” and you should find someone local to you who can help you fix up a permanent WiFi solution in your house.

If your house is fairly modern then the insulation will be blocking the signal - we have the same issue.

We’ve got a local company coming out to set up a point to point WiFi bridge from our house to our garage (where DH works) as the WiFi has been unreliable in recent weeks. It’s costing us £250.

He’s entirely unreasonable. And you know it.

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00EOTHCAO/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_vCRoFb8WNHHFQ?tag=mumsnetforu03-21
£12. 20metre ethernet cable. Worth every penny I suspect. DH can piss off upstairs, job done.

Thank you for so much the ex-BT Engineers tip and cable recommendations (I'm even now looking up how to connect ethernet to Macs).

I've been trying to get someone to talk it through with me so we could make an actual decision for months now! I'm about at the end of my tether with all the disagreements but no-one wanting to discuss practical solutions.

The socket in your Mac that looks like a telephone wire would fit in - that's where the ethernet would go.

Ah, I've never had a mac. I assumed they came with rj45 ports like all computers do. I genuinely don't understand Apple's obsession with making their tech incompatible with all other standard tech. You need a usb-c to rj45 adapter.

Our router is in the hall. DH WFH in our bedroom. We bought a 30m cable from amazon to go up the stairs and down the landing to our room. We did try TP link homeplugs as we had these already, but they didn't give DH a stable enough connection to use for his work.

If we'd realised it would be more than a few weeks, we might have got someone in to give us a better solution, but we didn't, so the cable up the stairs is still there.

As others have said, this is so easy to fix. Just get yourself a long ethernet cable.

@Frequency

The socket in your Mac that looks like a telephone wire would fit in - that's where the ethernet would go.

My Macbook doesn't have one - but apparently it's OK if I connect an ethernet adapter to one of the USB ports.

whichadapter.com/data-cables/how-to-connect-macbook-to-ethernet-internet-with-a-cable/

It’s called “working from home” not “living in the office”.
Your dh needs a workspace that isn’t the main room you and ds want to use to live in.

@Frequency

Ah, I've never had a mac. I assumed they came with rj45 ports like all computers do. I genuinely don't understand Apple's obsession with making their tech incompatible with all other standard tech. You need a usb-c to rj45 adapter.

I agree! And that you for the adapter information.

We have a mix of PCs and Macs which is probably one of the reasons why we've not been able to have sensible discussions or agree on anything. As well as flaky stuff like being unable to use the internet while using the microwave (and we tried changing frequencies etc.) and problems in some areas because some walls are concrete.

Yeah, it's Usb-c to rj45 you need. We use the star tech ones at work to connect tablets to a wired connection.

Not RTFT but isn't DS old enough to occupy himself and not get over excited? DH's work I assume is a priority when it's bringing income into the family home.

I genuinely don't understand Apple's obsession with making their tech incompatible with all other standard tech.

Neither do I. We are not Apple fans in our house for that reason.

Perhaps you should have at least read the OP's updates Girlyracer. Her son has mild SEN.

Trailing ethernet cables up the stairs and all around the house is an accident waiting to happen, which is why several of us have recommended the TP link extender that you can plug into a socket. Getting this extender improved my internet speeds significantly.

Not for 8 hours every day while our living room is out of bounds

This site might help you locate someone who can help provide a long term solution to the WiFi black spots in your house.

ex-btengineer.co.uk/

DH is a techie nerd, and I told him about your issue. He plugged his laptop into the router and checked the download and upload speeds, then went upstairs and plugged it into the TP link cable that is plugged into the socket and did the same.

The download and upload speeds were almost identical.

This is what we use, and it works perfectly. He says that running a cable around the house or up the stairs is a bad idea.

Your DH is very rude, he maybe trying to concentrate but it's everyone's home and a communal space so there are bound to be compromises, its hard for everyone, sounds like you are trying to be as accomodating as possible but you and ds cant just disappear!
I would see if you can sort a cable out to upstairs, hopefully DH wont be wfh forever and it will ease when ds goes back to school

We haveTP link plug things too and they work really well.

DP should not be working in the living room. He needs to find somewhere else and his work also need to make allowances for WFH. It really is not the utopia it is set out to be for a lot of people, particularly as children have not been in school.

I get it, I am WFH too as a single parent. Luckily my DC is a teenager so can be left to get on with it but this has gone on for months and DC have been basically neglected for 5+ months. My manager basically said 'you work full time- what choice do you have?' I am a senior CP social worker in a 'child friendly city' and I am also a widow with no family support within 3 hours .

Yes I will work from home but I also have to prioritise my DC and home life. No one else will.

I posted earlier about having either power over Ethernet or mesh network.

We had TP link before and that seems really popular here from the recommendations. They are very good. I don’t need to post more links as it’s already done here. They are simple to set up.

We have moved to wireless mesh network now because there are just so many wireless devices at home. We have tablets, phones, sonos, echo dots, roku streaming sticks, Nintendo etc. The wireless given by the ISP is totally not up for this and the devices are suffering drop outs. So we now have

www.amazon.co.uk/Linksys-WHW0303-UK-Tri-Band-Extender-Whole-Home/dp/B01N5M9NNB?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

This is the new type of wireless network where all the nodes work as a single network and your devices can roam between. We have three nodes for our house. Most modern devices can handle a mesh network. However it is a newer wireless protocol so older devices might struggle when moving around the house. Basically they lose connection when you move from say upstairs to downstairs. We found the kids fire tablets can’t do it. What we did is keep the old wireless network from the ISP running, so we have a mesh and a traditional wifi network in parallel. The kids fire tablet are on the old one while everything else on the mesh. Both DH and I use wifi on our work laptop and we can both have zoom meetings and kids can stream on wifi at the same time. We found it much better than using TP link. But if your use really is just for a laptop extended to a home office, then Ethernet over power is enough. But if you are getting someone in, then ask about mesh wireless as it’s more flexible.

The OP’s DH won’t use wifi; I think this is driving the TP suggestions as it will be wired.