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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To have normal home WiFi for working at home?

25 replies

Coffeetree · 27/01/2022 16:20

I've recently started an at-home job. Obviously it requires being online all day.

In the past couple of days my internet service has has dropped out occasionally. Like 5-10 min at a time but super inconvenient. I rang and they said there was a fault in their server, which they've now fixed and it's okay, touch wood.

Just wondering, for those of you working from home, do you find that your average at-home wifi package service is reliable enough? Or do you invest in a backup service or LAN cable?

If you use a normal at home service, if it's reliable, could you recommend the service?

OP posts:

murasaki · 27/01/2022 16:23

Yes it's nomrmally fine (touch wood, Virgin Media) - it did drop out 15 minutes before an external meeting and I nearly had a breakdown, but that was once in nearly two years...

IzzyD0ra · 27/01/2022 16:23

I use an Ethernet cable.

CheshireDing · 27/01/2022 16:24

Mine is reliable but I have been working from
Home for years so also have a booster for it and if it goes down, well it goes down. It’s out of my control.

I think the provider and reliability will depend where in the country you are really, we had Sky for a bit, it was awful. Most others have been fine though

RampantIvy · 27/01/2022 16:31

Our broadband provider has been pretty good. I use a Powerline adapter so that I can plug my ethernet cable into the mains as I have to upload and download huge files.

I have found that among my workmates, and in the area I live in the worst provider for outages has been Sky.

PlinkPlankPlunk · 27/01/2022 16:32

I use BT with soon google boosters to get it from one end of the house to the other, which all works fine and makes it quite quick. I do have MS Teams and Zoom on my phone, as well as access to my work emails, which I can use in emergencies

gobbledygoook · 27/01/2022 16:34

Mine drops out occasionally, but I tend to tether to my phone immediately to get through the outages! Works well for the occasional 15 minute issue.

BiddyPop · 27/01/2022 16:36

We have 2 people WFH here (and had a teen schooling FH for a few periods also), and had upgraded from 50 MB to fibre (ostensibly 300MB) wifi when it became available last year. As both the WFH people require lots of bandwidth for lots of VC meetings and often have 2 meetings running at once....so if the teen turned on a movie on her ipad, we were both kicked out on occasion.

But we were contemplating that upgrade anyway even before Covid hit, and just waiting for the cables to be laid and connected.

A4513 · 27/01/2022 16:38

work supply a work phone which i can tether to for work purposes.

i couldn't do my job without it - my domestic internet connection isn't good enough to host a work call , audio crackles, never mind video - it just wouldn't work.

so work pay for the phone/the bill (which is 100% work activity).

(before people shout at me to upgrade, if you have a spare few hundred grand, openreach might come down from their lofty position to talk to a peon like me, but until then, people like me that are on the edge of a town and don't have a proper broadband connection OR the cash to pay for digging road myself.. well they essentially told me to fuck off by pricing the broadband connection so high it might as well have been not sent.)

Xmasbaby11 · 27/01/2022 16:41

We have Sky and my computer is on the wifi. No problems in 2 years wfh, fantastic connection even with both of us online and sometimes the kids on their devices at the same time. DH has a lot of Teams meetings and I teach online, and it has been seamless, no blips and always a really clear image of me.

I don't know how much is the provider and how much your area. It is expensive but just the standard one Sky provides, no idea the power.

Snowiscold · 27/01/2022 16:41

It’s normally fine, but we have Ethernet cables - both DH and I work from home, and we use and download a lot of video. We are with Virgin Media.

purpleme12 · 27/01/2022 16:42

I've got one of those fast internet packages
But it is absolutely useless for work if I don't use the Ethernet cable
Always plug that in for work

DGRossetti · 27/01/2022 16:42

If you use a normal at home service, if it's reliable, could you recommend the service?

I've got VM full fat fibre to the door. Only had a couple of outages (one a blown router) in nearly 20 years.

However it's worth being aware that if you are paying for a domestic connection, you are going to get a domestic connection level of service and zero sympathy if you bang on about "needing it for work" from the ISP. That said in recent discussions (on this very site) it's been suggested that some ISPs are improving their SLA to take WFH into account. As they say, Your Mileage May Vary.

Depending what you are doing (and your setup), a cable connection may be better than WiFi anyway.

Going back to 2012, I had 2 broadband connections into home - our regular VM one, and a BT (later VM) one that was dedicated to work. These days I'd probably look to fall back on tethering if the worst came to the worst.

DS used to be with EE, and had a 4 day outage in 2019 that they (EE) weren't that bothered about. Never forget the capacity of things to go wrong just before a bank holiday.

Avidreader12 · 27/01/2022 16:43

For my work pc I use Ethernet cable into my spare bedroom now my office. My broadband is super fast but I haven’t noticed any difference in speed to previous basic package.

Im2022 · 27/01/2022 16:43

I had to change to Virgin Media at the end of 2020, as I just couldn’t work with my “normal” internet. It was shit and unreliable. I was with Sky initially and had just switched to Shell when the pandemic hit. I couldn’t zoom, kids couldn’t zoom, it would cut off for 15/20 mins randomly and wifi was poor around the house.

We pay about £20 for virgin now and it’s their fastest speed. I can work, kids can game and it rarely ever cuts off (touch wood!). The wifi is good around the house too.

MissConductUS · 27/01/2022 16:44

@RampantIvy

Our broadband provider has been pretty good. I use a Powerline adapter so that I can plug my ethernet cable into the mains as I have to upload and download huge files.

I have found that among my workmates, and in the area I live in the worst provider for outages has been Sky.

The powerline adapters are great, but when we had them we found that they occasionally had to be rebooted to work properly. When lockdown started in 2019 and we were all working from home or schooling from home, DH (who works in IT) decided to have an electrician come to the house and install real CAT6 network cabling from the router to the wireless access points in the house, and it's been heavenly and much faster than the powerline adapters.

We're lucky to be in an area with a really good provider who installed fiber optic cable to the house and we have one-gigabit service, so never any problem with bandwidth.

gwenneh · 27/01/2022 16:45

Normally it's fine. We've had an extended outage before actually it tends to impact the office more than our homes and our office provides backup wireless access points.

NightmareSlashDelightful · 27/01/2022 16:45

DH and I both work from home. (Both self-employed.) We have Virgin Media cable, the top package, and it seems OK although it does slow down sometimes. Usually a router reboot sorts that out.

In our previous place, we had a package with Hyperoptic. That was also vg. (And probably a more stable connection than Virgin, all in all.)

We both have 5G mobiles so if the home internet does go down, we can jump onto 5G and use the phone as a hotspot for a bit.

QuestionsorComments · 27/01/2022 16:45

I find mine is usually OK l, but if it's going to fail it will be mid morning. Why is that?

When it doesn't work I tether to my work phone.

mdh2020 · 27/01/2022 16:47

We have fibre and boosters in a couple of rooms. The engineer laughed at us (three of us with laptops, phones and iPads)when we complained the WiFi wasn’t good enough.

JurgensCakeBabyJesus · 27/01/2022 16:47

We have Virgin highest speed broadband (DH games) it's really stable, to be honest it's better than the Gov WiFi we have to use at work

Socialcarenope · 27/01/2022 16:55

If it's a server issue then using a cable won't help, though would help if your router is a bit iffy. Normal WiFi should be sufficient for most people. DH is a developer and we only have standard WiFi and have no issues. If it keeps happening though you may want to consider switching provider though or getting sufficient data on your phone to tether as a back up.

PattyPan · 27/01/2022 17:08

I’ve been totally fine with a normal connection. First with John Lewis, then Now TV and now we’re with Vodafone. We don’t have the fastest one either, have typically paid £20-30 a month which has usually included some calls.

JuergenSchwarzwald · 27/01/2022 17:13

Mine is usually fine (Virgin Media). However, at the end of the first lockdown I had a second line installed with Plusnet so that I had back-up especially as DH was also WFH and son was doing online college.

I pay £27 a month for the extra Plusnet line, it might be worth considering.

Having data on your phone is another option.

Dearblossom · 27/01/2022 17:17

Home service fine though I can also tether with work mobile if I need. Openreach were a pain when I moved but always stable otherwise.

PurpleCarpets · 27/01/2022 17:30

@PlinkPlankPlunk

Yes, having a fallback of using your phone is a good idea. I've chaired an important meeting from my phone before when I had trouble with my computer. Not ideal, and a bit fiddly, but it works fine if you have decent 4g. But do make sure that you've got what you need installed on your phone installed, and test it out sometime when it's not an emergency.

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