Question How to extend home coverage of my new Virgin Fibre Broadband 1130 Mbps ?

[rozel]

Hi

At long last I have had Fibre Broadband installed and ethernet-wise speeds are phenominal compared to the paltry 55Mbps I was getting with Sky.

However in a quite large house, coverage is not all it could be. I have split the 2.4 and 5gHz bands as I have some devices that will only work on a dedicated 2.4 band. So depending on the room, we have been selecting the appropriate band for normal WiFi re mobile Phones and Tablets - rooms very close to the Router 5gHz band and ones further away the 2.4 band. There are a few rooms though which struggle to connect at all - these are rooms furthest away from the Router. The router cannot be moved and with Sky, I deployed 2 Boosters - one downstairs in the Hall-way and another upstairs on the Landing.

My new Virgin Router is the 5x model but trying to get hold of boosters from Virgin has been a nightmare and for me impossible! So I'm asking for help as to what would be the best extenders/boosters I should acquire externally so that they can maintain the dual-band capability and will work with my Router.

I've looked at several TP-Link ones but before splashing out the dosh, maybe I could ask for a recommendation or 2 please with specific model no.s?

Many thanks indeed

 

[bill001g]

I would recommend none of the above if there is any way possible to not use so called "boosters".

The best option is to have ethernet cable to the remote room where if you need wifi you can use a AP or cheap router running as a AP.

I suspect though you would not be here if you have ethernet in your remote rooms. The second option is MoCA but you need coax cables in the remote room for that. The third option is to use powerline networks. You will only get maybe 100 or so mbps but it still might be faster than wifi repeaters. Powerline will be much more stable that wifi if you are attempting to run online games.

So called booster/repeater/mesh is a very messy thing. None of this is actually part of the wifi specs. This means you have all kinds of issues with compatibility. In general most devices now use the hack called WDS. This has been around long enough now that most devices work together even though there is no official standard on this is done.

Most but not all devices have WDS support because it is considered a security exposure....it is actually violating part of the encryption security. You need to check your virgin router to see if it supports WDS. Many device have it disabled by default and other try to reduce the security issue by making you put in the mac addresses of your repeaters.

These tend to be very tricky to work correctly. The fancy mesh systems have a third radio chip to run between the router and the remote units. Unfortunately "mesh" systems are all proprietary, because the vendor want you to replace all your networking gear with their brand.

You are going to have to read the fine print to see if a repeater will connect on a say 5g to the main router but still provide signals on the 2.4 and 5g to the end units. Placement is going to be very tricky you need very strong signal where you place the units but still be able to send signals to the remote location. You need to use the 5g radio to talk to the main router or you will be limited to the speed of 2.4g. As you know though this will limit your placement choices even more.

Again try any other solution before you go the booster/repeater solution.

 

[rozel]

Thank you so much @bill001g this is very useful information. I understand what you are saying but the rooms in my house that need a decent WiFi signal are not ethernet connected nor will they be or with any other coax cabling etc. either. As I said I had two Sky Boosters with my previous broadband supplier, Sky. They worked but at the obvious non-fibre speeds. I really wanted to go to Virgin for two of their so called "Pods", on a package like mine they are free but getting one, never mind 2, seems impossible.

So I have come on here, not for a recommendation as to alternative(s) method of wiring, just a recommendation for a suitable Extender/Booster/Repeater that will work with my Virgin 5x Router. I've tried googling but not getting far regarding whether it supports WDS. I'll keep trying.

Can anyone help me please?