Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To expect my Wi-Fi signal to be strong?

17 replies

CheesePlantMurderer · 21/02/2022 19:21

I live in a bog standard three bedroomed 1930s semidetached house. I have two sitting rooms and a dining kitchen downstairs and three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs.
My house is basically a square.
My broadband router is in the front sitting room because that is what I am currently using as an office... but if I dare to go into my back bedroom or the kitchen, the signal is horrific and I pay extra for good quality fibre broadband so is it wrong that I should expect that to transmit around my small to average sized home?!

As a sidenote is there anything my provider could or should do to enable this to be better quality?

OP posts:
ohhooh · 21/02/2022 19:29

Could you get signal boosters to plug in around the house? If you've got solid walls (or many other things according to the Wi-Fi gods) the signal can be pants. I swear by boosters, our upstairs has much better signal now!

Belledan1 · 21/02/2022 19:38

Are you on 5g. Mine was awful but better now on 5g. I didnt know I had it either until virgin engineer came out

CheesePlantMurderer · 21/02/2022 20:01

@ohhooh we had boosters in last house as its was much bigger but really didn't anticipate needing them here! Will investigate thank you!

@Belledan1 it's all solid walls...and I close doors! Shocking 🤣 however no I bet I'm not on 5g! I'll try virgin tomorrow thank you!

OP posts:
Freddofan · 21/02/2022 20:07

Can you move your router and see if that helps ? .. if for instance its shoved behind a TV or on a cupboard it may affect the signal. Ideally you should put it on a shelf, higher up, not tucked away. Signal could could also improve if you put the router in the middle of the house rather than on the front wall. Wifi boosters will help as well.

CheesePlantMurderer · 21/02/2022 20:15

@Freddofan
It can't be in the middle really but it's very open altho on the floor.... but surely 6' higher wouldn't make a huge difference?

Honestly didn't anticipate boosters in a very average semi 😁

OP posts:
NorthernWanker · 21/02/2022 20:26

It's probably the router it terrible. The ones you get free with sky are really low quality. If it bothers you the much I would spend the money and upgrade. A mesh router system are meant to be the best.

nannynick · 21/02/2022 20:28

I expect it is the solid walls. If you go to the room above the router, does it work well there?
Going to the back rooms, the signal has to travel through walls and ceiling, so it be getting weakened by that.
2.4g is slower than 5g but should go through walls better. So router settings may need some tweaking. There may also be interference from other systems, so changing the WiFi Channel can sometimes help.

rwalker · 21/02/2022 20:33

You pay for extra quality b/band and thats what you'll get from a wired connection .

This list is endless what can cause poor wi fi electrical appliances can interfere with it .
Neighbours could have hub on similar fequancy .

Alexandra2001 · 21/02/2022 20:42

I ve BT fibre, their smart router wifi is brilliant, i get it in every room in the house and outside.

Try getting it up higher and more central, atm a lot of your signal is going into the ground.
2.4ghz actually has a longer range than 5ghz (these are settings within the router) not 5g mobile signal.

Belledan1 · 21/02/2022 20:49

Search on when you connect to your wifi 5g might automatically come up and you connect with same password. As I said I felt a bit silly when virgin came out as I complained the man just connected me to 5g.

Belledan1 · 21/02/2022 20:51

Sorry pressed to soon. All my teams meetings were awful on 2g. Great on 5g.

MadeForThis · 21/02/2022 21:14

Could you move the router into the hallway downstairs. Place it on top of a table with nothing blocking it. You could also try changing your router channel.

jessieminto · 21/02/2022 21:23

You need a mesh WiFi booster, Eero are best. Your service provider are not responsible for the WiFi in you home, only getting the speed package your purchase to the router itself.

Older houses are really tough to get good WiFi in. Solid walls lots of metal pipes. Radiator down the full length of your hallway probably. All absorb or block WiFi. These problems are yours to solve.

DetailMouse · 21/02/2022 21:52

Apparently Virgin routers are known for being a bit rubbish. I have very fast and reliable broadband but the WiFi doesn't get round half the house. I have some boosters which help, but I think a better router is really the answer. I will get round to it one day

TinySaltLick · 21/02/2022 23:34

Some slightly dodgy advice on here. First thing to do is actually identify what the source of the issue is. Download a WiFi analyser app which will show you what other devices are broadcasting on a particular channel - you may find that there is significant interference which is causing the issue. First step would be to stand in each room and see which channel is most suitable - then force your router to use that and see if it helps. (there are typically 14 channels numbered 1-14 available to use)

Modern routers can operate over two frequency bands - 5ghz and 2.4ghz. 5ghz will give you faster speeds, 2.4 will give better range. Althiugh it should auto switch, you might find better results forcing it to use 2.4ghz only.

Using the analyzer app, you should be able to see the strength of signal as you walk around. Are there specific areas with bad signal due to things mentioned above such as metal in the walls?

Are you able to move the router to a more central location?

If none of the above fix it - and it genuinely is because you house is built like a bunker, then you need to find a different way to get signal into the other rooms. The best result is always wired - can you run an ethernet cable direct to the device you want to use?

If the router WiFi you have is crappy, you don't need a whole new router - you can just buy a WiFi access point from netgear, tplink etc for about £20 which is a dedicated device for the WiFi - which ethernet cables into your existing router /modem. You could therefore have it either in a different room, or perhaps a different area of the current room if it will help give better signal coverage across the house. These devices typically do a better job at WiFi coverage than the WiFi built into a router. (even the better ones which some isps like virgin or bt provide)

Only of there don't work, would I suggest going with WiFi extenders - they rarely provide good results and always take a hit on speed / stability.

Lastly - if you are paying for a big package like virgin media 600mbit fibre, you will never get this over WiFi anyway - you'll be limited to the speed you can actually connect on over WiFi which is likely to be a fraction of this. Mega fibre packages are more suitable to running many devices at once or using ethernet cabling to get the max speed.

CheesePlantMurderer · 22/02/2022 03:43

Thanks so much for your responses, I'm aware it's my problem to fix, the speed is great - I WFH full time and no issue ever.

I can't move it far as I'm limited to where the cable enters the house but I'll look into having it towards the middle more.

Thanks @TinySaltLick I'll try all of the above!

OP posts:
Frannibananni · 22/02/2022 04:21

We had to upgrade our router, wouldn’t work in 2 rooms of our smallish house. Now we can sit in our back garden.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page