[Closed] Home LAN Wi-Fi upgrade - WWSTWD?

I have Ubiquiti Unifi stuff at home, it's a good compromise between consumer rubbish and expensive enterprise stuff. A single UAP-AC-LR was actually enough to cover the house, but if you need more access points you just add them and stuff properly roams and hands off between them. PoE and they're discreet enough to just mount on the ceiling or on top of cupboards. Software can be run on a PC, only needs to be running if changes are made. Can do multiple SSIDs including timed ones if you wanted kids' devices to be off the internet after a certain time.

I would go full mesh. No point having a router that can reach space it the device at the other end (mobile phone for example) has an antenna that would struggle to reach the edge of the room.

I have no experience of it, but keep glancing over at mesh systems. My latest 'discovery' is mesh systems with powerline backbones. Not a cheap option but shirely better than the mesh signal tailing off, the further it get from the hub unit?

Couple of the system that use it:
https://www.tp-link.com/uk/home-networking/deco/deco-p9/
https://www.devolo.co.uk/magic-2-wifi-next

We have the BT Whole home discs, Three in a large stone house with too many screens running all the time, they are great. Added bonus you can turn off petulant teenage devices till they've done their chores!

Been doing some home network stuff myself lately so have been doing a bit of research, now know slightly more than nothing although it's a pretty broad subject!

I've gone for the Unifi stuff. Fairly spendy, but not HUGELY more than no-brand switches, etc. One reason for going for it is that it then made it fairly cheap/simple to hardwire an outbuilding via a fibre cable. If you literally just want decent WiFi then probably any mesh system would do the job (although the Unifi stuff not much more money really than a crappier consumer grade solution).

The really cool thing about Unifi is it offers a single admin page where you can see everything on/about your system at once which makes administering everything a joy compared to clicking through pages of badly laid out menus like as with most ISP supplied routers. You either need to run this software yourself, or mine came with a free 3-year cloud hosted package. I probably will move it all over to my own server at some stage, the big advantage of the cloud option was that the company I bought it from set everything up for me before sending it out, I literally just had to plug it in at home and everything worked straight away with zero config required from me! Plus the Access Points look like flying saucers 👽 oh and I don't know whether this is common or not but the APs need to be hardwired but use PoE so don't tie up a plug socket!

t’interwebs installed courtesy of Virgin

My condolences.

But yes, mesh is worth it IMHO. I thought my previous set up was good enough (multiple access points connected by powerlines), but going to a decent mesh system has made everything just a little bit better. A little bit better on something as crucial as decent wifi is a significant thing. I thought we had a few devices but when I look at my mesh app I can see currently there are 26 devices connected (and it has seen 39 in the last 30 days) - most peoples wifi is probably working a lot harder than they realise!

For what it's worth my mesh is from Plume and I think it's bloody lovely.

Virgin wi fi routers are terrible. I swapped mine into modem mode and connect a Netgear Orbi system to it. It is superb if a litle bit pricey. My mac is now connected via an ethernet cable into an Orbi satellite. As a result I get near 400mbps internet.

Cheers all.

I don't have children and that's highly unlikely to change so that's not an issue. No outbuildings to worry about. I want intelligent 2.4/5GHz switching rather then separate SSIDs and don't want to faff about changing between 'local' APs (which is what pointed me to mesh in the first place). I think I'd rather go over-specced than invest in something that I'll have to fully replace in a couple of years' time. I don't really want to be running cables if I can help it, so an initial cabled access point or replacement router is going to be in a corner of the room farthest away from the rest of the house.

There are many computers / phones / tablets here plus I have Alexa and Hue devices so that's only ever going to increase. Being able to VLAN off the IoT stuff might be a nice-to-have (side question: do they require access to anything other than themselves and the Internet or will this break things like Spotify? Probably a question for a separate thread) and the Virgin has a guest Wi-Fi option which I'd quite like to keep but isn't a deal-breaker (I suppose this is broadly the same requirement).

I'd go with a decent mesh system and the router in modem only mode. Be wary of powerline networking - you're probably OK with Virgin but it often causes interference on VDSL (ie Openreach fibre to the cabinet).

Is wi-fi latency better than it used to be for fast online gaming compared to cables, or is that not a factor because fast paced games such as Rocket League aren't played?

WWSTWD?

I'd ask Cougar. How our heroes fall...

I don't think latency is going to be an issue. Up in my office I'm seeing Internet speeds at around 100Mbps - ie, half of the supplied speed - but ping times of around 9ms and that's via the Virgin router ("Super Hub 3").

I’d ask Cougar. How our heroes fall…

🤣

Technology moves on, I've had no reason to deal with this stuff before so it's all new to me.

I don’t have children

I do.....and thanks to my el-cheapo mesh system they can all quite happily stream and game simultaneously without moaning the arse off me about the state of the wi-fi every two minutes.

It never used to be like that. Get meshed up.

Technology moves on, I’ve had no reason to deal with this stuff before so it’s all new to me.

It's like I don't even know you anymore...

I've just been through similar - long narrow house with (Virgin) router at one end and my main work room at the other.
I tried a Tenda Mesh system, but speed drops with the additional hops and I needed a couple of hops to get to the work room.
Powerline wasn't great due to the heath robinson approach to electrics in 1980s extensions.
I still have Tenda Mesh in most of the house, but I ran a cable outside and back in the house for the work room. The XBox, PS4 and TV (in the work room by day, teenage hovel by night) are hard wired and I run another Tenda unit with a different SSD and on different channels to provide wifi.

tldr: Mesh is great but has limits if you need multiple hops. Don't be afraid to break out the SDS Drill and punch down tool to throw a cable at the problem.

Same as oldtennisshoes for me. I could never get it good enough so a weekend of swearing/floor board lifting and poking down holes with a coat hanger saw the whole house etherneted and joyous abandon thenceforth.

Painey nails it.

Virgin box in modem mode. Cable to a separate router - put in middle of property for best location and experiment with that - then mesh, etc if you need it

Another vote for mesh access points connected by ethernet if your house is problematical (brick walls, long or L-shaped, extensions the other side of external walls etc.)

Another vote for an Orbi system - we also have Virgin and since moving all the devices to the new network, it has been a dream. The only hassle was my son trying to switch off the network because his PC was not working! We got teh expensive one (two sons at home both steaming, plus two of us doing Zoom calls) but my brother has just bought the slighter cheaper version for a router and two satellites for about £120. He said it was easy to set up and worked like a dream.

I'm seeing routers now that have mesh support, ASUS in particular. Is that actually going to gain me anything over just a dedicated mesh node or two?

I got Google Mesh sometime around the start of lockdown, and I'm very happy with it. The modules are also speakers so you can play Spotify etc over them. According to reviews its ease of use is also potentially a weak point as it's less user-configurable, but I really CBA to waste time configuring routers, and in my case it's worked fine out of the box.

If you've already got Amazon/Alexa spying on you, perhaps the new Amazon mesh (eero) would be worth a look?

You have to buy one fewer mesh access points if your routers wifi is mesh. No point in getting a mesh capable wifi router unless you might want to extend your wireless network with more APs.

Have you used the Virgin Connect App to tune your wifi in the remote rooms? Worth trying before you go down the mesh/new router route.

If you’ve already got Amazon/Alexa spying on you, perhaps the new Amazon mesh (eero) would be worth a look?

Ooh, I'd forgotten about those!

That's spendy though, and the non-Pro version isn't shipping until February. Mixed reviews too, not quite ready for the UK market it seems.

Have you used the Virgin Connect App to tune your wifi in the remote rooms?

I was not aware that such a thing existed. I'll have a look, ta.

There's some info about it in the help section of the App - "Get more from your Wifi". Virgin Tech support told me about it when I was having similar issues.

Reviews on the Play store do not instil confidence...!

That’s spendy though, and the non-Pro version isn’t shipping until February. Mixed reviews too, not quite ready for the UK market it seems.

I've not used it, as I said I've got Google Mesh and it works well - I assumed (perhaps incorrectly!) that Amazon would be similar.

Yeah, tempting though it is I'm not sure that I need Amazon and Google home assistants. (-:

Based on what I remember from previous threads, I think I'm going to pull the trigger on the Tenda units. £120 for three MW6 units is tough to beat. There's the tri-band MW12 units but they're double the price.

Apparently they "work with Alexa" too, whatever that's supposed to do I've no idea. One way to find out I guess.

I have just installed 3 x TP-Link Deco M4’s, sub £100 from the local Curry’s and it’s made a massive difference in sorting the areas that had lower signal and no get consistent download and upload speeds everywhere, haven’t needed power link backhaul and it was up and running in minutes, and auto switches between 2.4 and 5 too.

Oh, bugger it.

3x Tenda MW12s bought. The dedicated backhaul swung it for me and I'm not seeing many other tri-band offerings in that price bracket.

I'd have just bribed next door's son for the password.

I've got 2x Tenda Nova MW3 units. Thick stone walled house, upstairs the wifi signal was spotty at best (BT home hub).
Installed the Tenda, which was nice and simple and everything is rosy.

2 of us WFH over VPN and it's been pretty good - today I had to reboot it as it lost internet connectivity. Think I've had to do that maybe twice in the year I've had it.
No complaints at all from me.

Si

I’d have just bribed next door’s son for the password.

If I wanted access to his Wi-Fi that badly I'd have just taken it. (-:

Another vote for mesh access points connected by ethernet if your house is problematical (brick walls, long or L-shaped, extensions the other side of external walls etc.)

This. I've done two properties with cabled backhaul because of 1m thick walls in one and long/narrow layout for the other.

IME, BT WholeHome is OK when on a cable backhaul. It was pish without it (IME).

My preferred fancypants solution these days is TP-Link Omada EAP-225/EAP-245/Controller. It's a TP-Link version of Unifi at TP-Link prices and with fewer hinky POE hurdles. Not one you can just take out of a box and expect a setup wizard to sort for you though.

This is all slightly over my head but I think I have the same problem. Do you just plug one of these tenda units into your router and then position the other two units on different floors and you magically have good WiFi throughout the house - sorry for the hijack but I have a household of unhappy people! Do I need to configure anything and have a degree of competence in networking...

Ahh, late to the party. One of the challenges of these home mesh systems is that most of them cannot have the channel changed. So if you’ve got signal bleed in from a neighbour or have sky q, then you can have some tuning problems. Let me know how you get on, I’ve been put off mesh for this reason and have a Meraki on “home test”, but it will need to go back and earn its keep for real soon

Oh, bugger it.

3x Tenda MW12s bought. The dedicated backhaul swung it for me and I’m not seeing many other tri-band offerings in that price bracket.

Good call - definitely the best place to start!

Another vote for Google mesh/nest/whatever they call it. I had years of messing with 2nd routers, powerline adaptors, you name it I tried it. Bought the Goog and everything has been rosie since they were powered up.

Can anyone with any of these google or tenda systems let me know if you can select channels? I don’t fancy spending a bolt load of dosh to replace this enterprise grade AP when a mesh on the surface would be better if I can shape it around sky’s fixed channels

I'll let you know in a day or two.

If Gamer Boi next door is conflicting channels then I have... means of encouraging him to address his sudden inexplicable networking issues. (-:

Cheers Cougar

Dedicated backhaul makes a huge difference in performance, so good choice. Happy Netgear Orbi 6 user here.

I've a Meraki test network, but the mesh interworking doesn't really work anywhere near as good as they don't use a dedicated backhaul, it's half duplex over the mesh.

Russell Nah, just a single MR32 AP for now. Was handy to run a specific work SSiD and it covers most of the house, but it needs to go into a building that will finally open in Jan, so I’m on the hunt for something. We experimented with mesh for some tricky retrofits in existing buildings but as you said the lack of backhaul trashes performance.

I've had the google/nest mesh system for a week now. Very easy to set up, seems to work well. I believe it automatically swaps channels to keep best performance.

One of the challenges of these home mesh systems is that most of them cannot have the channel changed.

Have a look at the Synology Networking equipment. Lots of wifi adjustments, latest WPA3 (if your computer kit supports it) and a doddle to set up (the only black mark against UniFi stuff for home use). More importantly it's firmware gets regular updates. (The UniFi and TP-Link Omada stuff gets a monthly refresh as business kit).

@claudie The Synology stuff requires you to set up the router then configure the node unit while it's alongside. Then you shut it down and move it to the final position and set it running. Once linked the firmware will update at the same time as the base unit through the browser interface.

I have the same 200 mbps VM service that you do. It all worked as expected apart from a wifi dropout in my son's room. I ended up running an ethernet cable from my switch to his room, into an old router (not routing) so he has 3 or 4 ethernet ports and his own WAP. WAP as in Wireless Access Point, but I now believe it is an acronym for Wireless Application Protocol.
I Googled 'WAP' just to check...

Do not Google 'WAP'!

How reliable have people's mesh systems been once set-up? My dad's been struggling with powerline adapters for years but he just about gets by (he's not a gamer :p ) however he's happy to spend money on a mesh system for something that's a bit faster and more reliable. However every time I look at Amazon reviews there's always loads along the lines of "worked great initially but started getting drop-outs after a few months, wish I'd not bothered" type reviews which really puts me off as I'd be his remote IT support (and neither of us particularly patient :p ).

Our 3 Orbi setup has been flawless. It's not the most intuitive to set up, and getting the Satellites to connect initially can be a bit hit and miss.

Once running tho, absolutely zero issues at all. It doesn't have the coverage of the marketing blurb, but we have a funny shaped house with some very thick walls.  The included gigabit ports on each unit are useful for connecting NAS, SIP phone. Raspberry, etc.

Other than letting it update itself, I've not touched it in a year. It was expensive and the units are pretty large, but it fixed all the issues we'd had with the Tenda system.

Orbi mesh here. Fit and forget.

Good coverage/speed and not touched it in about 18 months which is what I wanted.

I've gone full Google in my house and recently bought/installed the Nest Wifi with additional access point. I was using Virgin router+powerline adapter which just about worked, but my lad constantly complained whilst gaming in his bedroom up a floor and otherside of 3 bed 70s house.
Extremely easy to setup, and the access point is a speaker as well. I can schedule each of the kids devices and restrict websites (although I think that is on or off, not very configurable). My access point is out in the conservatory, which I doubt is actually that necessary as wifi signal without was pretty good. It seems to switch 2.4 -5 automatically as I havent had to configure anything on older devices.
My only issue with it is there is only 1 additional ethernet port on the router, which I have had to use for my Hue hub. I would have liked my PC to use ethernet, but TBF the WiFi has been extremely solid and my cable is old Cat5 100Mb anyway.

Virgin 350mb service (clocks in at 384mb) with a Netgear Orbi router (RBR50) and two satellites here (RBS50). Dedicated 5ghz back-haul for the router to satellite link. Virgin router is in modem mode, Orbi router taking on all routing duties in combination with Pi-Hole on a RasperryPi4 for DNS duties. Works well, no disconnections or restarts, full 384mb available throughout the house. The Orbi's have 4 ethernet ports on the satellites too, very useful for getting an ageing MacPro with a low spec WiFi card to have full internet rate / network throughput available.
The new AC spec Orbi's are a bit steep on price though...

However every time I look at Amazon reviews there’s always loads along the lines of “worked great initially but started getting drop-outs after a few months,

Honestly, I take those with a pinch of salt unless there's loads of them, everything on Amazon has its share. "Worked great for two days then died, one star." Well then, it's broken, shit happens, send it back for a replacement, you're an idiot.

and a doddle to set up (the only black mark against UniFi stuff for home use)

TP Link Deco M5 (no backhaul) here for a few years. Been faultless. Noticed the other day they've added a network optimisation feature that looks for clashing channels and adjusts the config as necessary. Assume others do this too.

fwiw, for a 1930s 3 bed house with internal brick walls:

NowTV hub - rubbish
Tenda powerline adapters - rubbish
TP-link AC1750 router - great

Re: channels - I thought that mesh systems were supposed to be smart and choose the best channel/ interface for doing stuff, and adapt as things change? Or have I over-interpreted what I have read about them?

Anyhow, if it is recommendation time, my set of TP-link Deco M9+ have worked great for about four months. Router functionality is limited, so if you like to tinker with that, keep your old router to do the routing. And for the ethernets I have got a couple of 5-port switches to provide the wired connections (like most such devices, each only has two ethernet sockets). It seems odd to buy things with functionality you don't use (each of them could act as a router), but I guess that the only difference would be in the software. Set up was easy, though you can only do it though the app and bluetooth, the network interface is limited.

I assume that in time the main manufacturers will build mesh into their routers so you could buy a more full-featured tinkerable router plus however many satellites you needed.

I assumed it was channels. What it actually said was network congested, then did something and said it was optimised.

@zilog6128 it depends on how much you wish to tinker and the connection to the outside that you use. From the box setting up is not that intuitive when using a POE controller attached to a switch. If you don't wish to use their cloud based interface it's a little challenging. I set our work network up and getting cloud controller talking to USG took me a couple of goes but I'm a have a go type not a trained networking engineer. (It helps that the distributor is in the same town and support from them is great). Tacking on wireless after the initial set-up was easy and the tweaks for all areas of the network are great.

My preferred fancypants solution these days is TP-Link Omada EAP-225/EAP-245/Controller. It’s a TP-Link version of Unifi at TP-Link prices and with fewer hinky POE hurdles. Not one you can just take out of a box and expect a setup wizard to sort for you though.

That's what was recommended to me recently through another channel.

We've got a steel frame and a basement so have 3x Cisco WAP121 access points and a TP Link router. Small, PoE and were way cheaper than the UniFi at the time. Absolute performance and range dont matter too much if you've got wired connections to router and lots of APs...

So, I'm up and running. It's been a bumpy journey, but that's not entirely Tenda's fault.

Kit arrived mid-morning, I started the install at 1pm as someone else is WFH here today. Had mares getting it to connect to the VM router in "modem mode," the router either doesn't DHCP or does so really, really badly. After 45 minutes of swearing I had it limping along with the 'hub' back in router mode and three mesh boxes connected up but with me connected to the farthest away. I had to abort mission at that point as I was very late for a conference call.

Teams call was incredibly choppy, which I put down to being connected to the wrong unit. Hacking about with it during the call it seems there's a "fast roaming" setting which allows it to hand over between nodes more aggressively. This seemed relevant. Then the entire system went down.

An hour of wailing and gnashing of teeth later, it transpired that completely coincidentally Virgin Media had a service outage in the area. A phone call got me an automated response saying it'd be back up by the rather specific 7:05pm this evening.

Whilst I was a tad sceptical to say the least, at somewhere around 6:45pm the router status light clicked back to white and I got back to work.

Turns out, I cannot get any sense out of the router in modem mode, it just doesn't work (though the LED turns a very pretty colour). Maybe I need to put the primary node into Bridge mode rather than DHCP or some such, but I couldn't get the app to connect to it at all like this. I can't directly disable Wi-Fi on the router - this is supposedly what Modem Mode does - but going into Advanced / Wireless / Signal I can independently shut down the 2.4GHz and 5GHz signals which amounts to the same thing.

Now, suddenly, it seems to be doing what I expected it to do seven hours ago. Testing is ongoing for edge cases but I've doubled the connection speed in the office (whereas on initial connection it halved).

Take-aways:

1) In response to @eatsdirt's query, no, I cannot manually select channels. But this doesn't seem to matter. It rather appears to flood across all of them so manually configuring them would be akin to managing a LAN full of static IP addresses, I think the simple answer here is that it's cleverer than I am.

2) Virgin's "Super Hub 3" is toilet. The UI is slow as arse, you can't do shit with it and it takes upwards of five minutes to boot, which it needs to do often.

3) Modem Mode isn't just toilet, if it sucked any deeper I'd be seeing kangaroos. (Or this could just have been user error, I Am Not A Network Engineer.)

4) Undertaking a LAN upgrade half an hour before your ISP manages to hack through a nearby WAN cable does not do wonders for your geek credibility in the home.

5) The Tenda MW12s are seemingly great so far IF they've got a reliable Internet connection. If not, forget it.

6) Most official Tenda documentation / support is seemingly in Chinese-as-a-first-language English, including the management app. If you're expecting to rely heavily on manufacturer support I'd perhaps suggest a different product.

7) Victory through superior firepower. Gamer Boi next door can suck my Wi-Fi till it Hertz.

Cheers cougar, I tried the docs route for tenda and couldn’t get what I was looking for. I am not a returner by nature, but I’m tempted to just get one and jib it back if it doesn’t work out. My sky Q is a temperamental beast and I’ve found hammer level channel control and a wifi analyser has been the only way to get it all to behave. Frankly I wanted to get the big drill out and wire it all, but the minister of the interior threatened sanctions.if you think the VM router is guff, never go to EE. Shockingly bad

Seems like a Virgin issue rather than a Tenda issue?

FWIW my Tenda setup process was pretty painless. Plug into Sky router, download phone app, set WiFi name and password, plug other boxes in one at a time, scan QR code on box to add them to network and check signal. Done.

6 boxes in about 20 mins. Been reliable ever since and those were the el-cheapo MW3 boxes.

Virgin media hub 3 in modem only mode here.
In this mode, only the bottom network port (or the first one you plug in after putting it into modem only mode according to some reports) works.
So you need
Media hub in modem only mode connected to first Tenda unit directly and then if you have anything else that was connected to the media hub, you need to plug that into the lan socket on the tenda unit. If you have multiple things that were plugged into the media hub, you’ll need a switch, connected to the lan port of the Tenda unit.
It took a bit of trial and error and googling to get my MW6 units playing nicely. But I did get there.

As mentioned above, but worth repeating - only one ethernet port works in modem only mode on the virgin router, port 1. Router then sits at 192.168.100.1 not 192.168.0.1

Installed BT WholeHome a couple of weeks - works brilliantly. 3 disks in the house and one in the garden office 40 meters away. The disk in the office has line of sight to one in the window of a bedroom in the house. Signal in the office is sufficient for Teams/Zoom calls etc. Far, far better and more reliable than the power line adapters being used before.

In this mode, only the bottom network port (or the first one you plug in after putting it into modem only mode according to some reports) works.

As mentioned above, but worth repeating – only one ethernet port works in modem only mode on the virgin router, port 1. Router then sits at 192.168.100.1 not 192.168.0.1

Can we sanity-check this please? Port 1 on the SH(it)3 is the top port, the bottom one is #4.

On my SH3, port 1 is at the top of the yellow block of 4. Mine is currently in modem only mode, with the Orbi router the only device connected. IP address is 192.168.100.1 - self assigned when switching from router to modem mode.

It might be rubbish as a router on its own, but in modem only mode, it doesn't matter. I don't go near it unless the external network is down.

fwiw I spent today setting up bt whole home wifi (the medium range one, not the minis). 3 pack is £100 on their site (refurbished), AC2600 but no dedicated backhaul (I don't need it for our usage). It works slightly differently to how I expected - all of the dhcp and so on is on the modem\router, not on the bt devices, they are *only* working to expand wifi. I think there's pluses and minuses to that approach, but the wifi is working great

FWIW. I have the Virgin SH3 and the BT Premium Whole Home Wifi kit and managed to get them to talk nicely to each other. May be more by luck who knows ?
I left the Hub in Router mode but disabled the Wifi completely. The router provides DHCP. One of the BT disks is connected to the SH3. I have a PC in my office (located in the dormer) that is wired directly to the SH3. I have a TPLINK powerline also wired to the SH3 so that I can have another PC on the ground floor connected to the other end of the Powerline. The other BT discs are on the first floor and the ground floor and give excellent WiFi coverage for the wireless devices.

Can we sanity-check this please? Port 1 on the SH(it)3 is the top port, the bottom one is #4.

Mine is plugged into the bottom most Ethernet port. As per my previous post, it may be the physical location that is important or it maybe that that is the first (and only) port that I’ve used after putting it in modem only mode.

There’s a sequence in this post on the virgin media forums that is effectively what I did, though I didn’t use this particular post: Virgin Forums

The relevant bit is: “Put the VM hub into modem mode (see VM website for details) and wait for the base light to turn magenta. Once it’s in modem mode, the VM hub must then be powered off. Then, set up your own router with the WAN port set to be in DHCP mode. Make sure it’s fully initialised (leave 5 min) and then put in the WAN cable into the VM hub. Now power up the VM hub and leave a few minutes and you should get a connection. This order only needs to be done the first time you connect your own router to the VM hub.”

HTH

it maybe that that is the first (and only) port that I’ve used after putting it in modem only mode.

If that's true it'd go a long way to explaining the weirdness I was seeing.

There’s a sequence in this post on the virgin media forums that is effectively what I did

Honestly, if it's that arsey then it's more trouble than it's worth to fiddle with any further now that it's working. But thank you (both) for the info, appreciated.

I left the Hub in Router mode but disabled the Wifi completely.

Exactly how I ended up also.

Just as a coda to this,

I'm now in Modem mode and I think I know what the problem was.

I tried to set up Plex tonight and it was having none of it, long story short I think the reason was that it was double-NATting. After a wedge of time attempting to configure things like port-forwarding I almost threw the Tenda into Bridge mode (binning half of its features) before suddenly going "wait a cotton-picking minute..."

In Modem mode the VR router disables all bar one of the Ethernet ports. There seems to be some confusion over whether it's Port 1 or the 'bottom port' which is Port 4 and if you look at many support forums they talk about it being pernickety over device boot orders but then thought: what if it's nothing to do with any of that and the activated switchport is simply the first one to respond?

All along I've variously had connected the Virgin TV box, the Xbox, a laptop being used for testing... I ripped it all out bar the primary node, slung the VM box into Modem mode with nary a care for boot order and boom, five minutes later it's all working perfectly and faster than greased squirrel shit.