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Short version: Best way to get full gigabit fast wireless internet all over this three storey house?
Sitting at this machine with a wire to the router, I'm pinging 4ms,and down/upload of 540/72Mb/s. Plenty quick enough for me, even though I'm meant to be getting a bit quicker for my money.
Provider is Sky Broadband Ultrafast Plus, which is done via an Openreach ONT box on the wall, connected to the Sky Router (SR203). There is an additional Sky branded extender node thingy up on 1st floor. However, wifi speed rises and falls and where my son (gamer) is right upstairs he's currently seeing 5Mb/s. (Before we had Sky we had Virgin, and he had a Powerlink setup to keep him happy, and he plugged it in the Sky box too but it seems to have died this weekend, hence me pulling my finger out and getting it sorted.)
So it seems some sort of MESH Wifi 6 system is needed, 3+ modules likely to cope with three floors of solid wall house. I won't say money no object, but I'm not looking for a bargain on last decades model and I don't want to do this again for at least five years. I'm with Sky this year but will likely flip to Virgin or another to keep introductory offer pricing.
Thanks in advance, and what have you got?
I would stick a Uniti managed switch in next or close to the router and then Ethernet to each floor with an access point on it. Use a power over Ethernet switch to remove the need for power at each access point.
I've got a TP-link Deco system (S4 I think) that has made a massive improvement to internet connectivity around our house and it into the garage where I previously had real problems with connectivity when on Zwift.
Given your fast broadband you probably want something a bit faster than the system I got, but we only get 30mb/s download.
But, the TP-Link system seems robust, has been reliable and was easy to set up.
This is in a 4 bed detached with solid internal walls - only 2 floors, not 3 but expect it would still be ok.
I wouldn't get hung up on Gb everywhere (or even WiFi 6) - there's very little use case for that in a home. If it is a requirement for you though I'd look at the NetGear Orbi RBK853 - however it's crazy expensive. The RBK753 is still decent and a more practical choice (though still a lot more expensive than some options).
If you can hard-wire between access points then that's definitely the way to go, if not look for tri-band devices with a dedicated back-haul channel.
Also beware of advertised speeds like AC1800 (1800Mbps) - that's an overall speed (all channels combined not the speed available on a single channel to a device) and it's massively theoretical (if you placed all the access points next to each other you might get reasonably close to those speeds).
TP Deco X20 here - 3 nodes go over 3 floor victorian house (and most of the garden and half the street outside). Each node has a ethernet connection that you can wire something into for better speeds. Much better than the cheap tenda mesh that we had previously
Currently getting 185Mbps down / 13Mbps up - using googles broadband speed test. That's wired into one of the remote nodes.
Mesh thingies connected by ethernet are the way to go (even if you don't like the idea of wiring, get ones that can be connected by wires just in case). I have three TP-link Deco M9+* models and they cover a large (and long, rather than square) house with some solid internal walls nicely.
*Almost certainly overkill, if you have ethernets for the "backhaul" then you probably don't need dual band.
If it's just your son's gaming that you want to sort then I'd be running an external cat6 cable to his room.
I have a TPlink Deco system in my 3 storey Edwardian house and it’s brilliant. I used to have my gaming PC linked up via a Powerline connector as well but that broke last week so just connected to the nearest Deco unit with a wire and it works just fine for online gaming.
I appreciate that wired connections everywhere are the best idea but I can’t see any reason to do that with my Deco system now.
Just turn the Wi-Fi off on the Sky router and connect the master Deco to it with a wire and follow the instructions for the set up. I’ve now hidden my Sky router away so all you can see is the Deco units.
The original reason I got a Deco system was that it handles multiple connections much better than my Sky router did which used to drop out random bits of tech once we got over 7 or 8 devices (it can be surprising how many you have in a house, we have tv/sky q/hive/4 phones/iPad/laptop/2 pcs and there’s only 2 of us!) and now we don’t get any issues. The added advantage now is that we get great Wi-Fi all over the house and in the garden too despite some areas not being very close to a Deco unit.
The Deco app allows you to prioritise certain tech too so my work laptop and my gaming PC have priority over everything else.
I was very sceptical of MESH, but I found a Tenda Nova kit on a deal and thought I'd give it ago. We'd previously tried using those standalone extenders, but they were pants and I was constantly switching networks to keep phones/tablets/laptops happy.
I game online and although my ping is low, when I use the houses wifi packet loss is a bigger issue. I use a TPlink powerline to my gaming PC (which occassionally falls over and I have to reset it). Nice solid connection 99% of the time and fast too.
Anyway back to the MESH thingy. I plugged it all in and set it up after some googling to understand the settings of my virgin router and its awesome. We are in a 3 bed terrace from the early 1900s, so lots of brick/stone. We've got 2x "nodes" and then 2x extendery points, one plugged in by ethernet to the Virgin router/modem, one midway down the ground floor, and then the extendery thingies are on the upstairs landing and in the kitchen (back of the house). We get pretty good wifi everywhere now.
Thanks all, just ordered a TP Link Deco M9+ triple pack. Should be overkill, and hopefully will keep us going a few years. The joy of online shopping is it's easy to send it back if it doesn't live up to the promises.
TP Link Deco M5s here. Had them a few years. We pay for 500mbps, get ~350 next to the router, and at least 150 even at the far reaches of the house/garage now with everyone streaming. Completely revolutionised the network.
Quick update in case it's useful.
Boxes arrived and basic follow the app install done. New wifi network now running alongside the old Sky one, I expect I should turn that off as long as it doesn't break the telly box. Initial results look good, son reports 152Mb/s wifi up in his lair
Turn the Sky Wi-Fi off and just go into the settings on the sky Q TV box and point it to the Nest system. You might have to use the engineer menu (not sure) but just Google how to get to that - it’s pretty easy.
In true STW style of recommending what you've got...
I just orderd the two pack of these TP-Link Deco X20 Voice as they've dropped to half their previous price. Not sure if they'll be the same price on Amazon UK...
Gives the added extra of Amazon Alexa and a smart speaker which I was going to buy anyway.
I would stick a Uniti managed switch in next or close to the router and then Ethernet to each floor with an access point on it. Use a power over Ethernet switch to remove the need for power at each access point.
They don't really advertise it but the Unifi APs can do wireless uplinks too, when I can get my hands on a new wifi6 one I'll move the old to my office and ditch the slow old homeplugs. Hard to recommend for non-techies though, you either need the software running on a computer somewhere or another bit of their hardware to run it.
Some colleagues have the Amazon eero 6 mesh system and rate it.
Weren't there issues with the Amazon system in the UK? I can't remember details but I think there was some sort of problem when they first came out?
I think they didn't support PPPoE which most ISPs use here - so if you wanted to use the Openreach modem (or ONT for fibre) and Eero as the router you couldn't, you'd have to have two routers doing NAT which can cause some issues.
Fixed now though. https://support.eero.com/hc/en-us/articles/207852843-Does-eero-support-PPPoE-