Associate
- Joined
- 28 Sep 2021
- Posts
- 8
- Location
- UK
Hiya
In need of some help to maximise the range and speed of my WiFi to my garage conversion / office and also to the far reaches of my house. The decision is between a mesh system, probably two Asus XT8 or a wireless bridge system.
This is the layout of the house and office. Router is the purple dot, living room is green, far bedroom is orange and the office red.
The current setup is UK based, Sky Ultrafast Plus (500Mbps) FTTP to the ONT modem under the stairs. Cat5 cabling in the walls to a socket in the far corner of the living room, with the Sky SR203 router connected via the WAN port (purple dot on the diagram above). All green lights are on and speedtest in the same room is between 480Mbps - 510Mbps which is great. There are around 25 devices attached to the WiFi, from TV and Sky Q (no mini's) to Echo View and laptops in the office and some Ring devices scattered around the house.
The issue is as soon as you start roaming the house, the speed declines dramatically; in the far bedroom (orange area) you get around about 50Mbps and in the office (red area) you get between 10Mbps and 30Mbps. I work in IT and do a lot of data transfer, so ideally I need a much stronger signal in the office. The kids also ideally need stronger in their bedrooms.
Soooo to the crux of the problem; I recently bought a TP Link VR2800 in the hope that it would strengthen the signal being a stronger modem. After much hair pulling I got it working (dynamic IP, DHCP etc) but it actually gave a weaker signal in the same room at only ever 250Mbps and the even worse in the office, so scrapping that off and back currently with the SR203.
After reading a lot of good reviews about the Asus XT8's I was going to pull the trigger on that; I think it will give a better signal in the house in general and if I put the second node in the office, I'm hoping it would boost that significantly. I also like the fact of parental controls, signal beaming and QoS etc. However would the distance between the house and office still interfere? The signal needs to go through two fully insulated brick walls and over a 10 metre stretch of open space?
The alternative is, I had a guy round who recommended I get a wireless bridge installed, using two Ubiquity nanostations. One would be connected to the SR203 via a wire through the wall and mounted on the back of the house. The second would be mounted on the back of the office with direct line of sight. Then cabled into the office to go to a 4 port switch, so I can either hard wire everything directly into that or set the TP Link as a WAP and run everything off that, in theory giving a max of 450Mbps. I'm just not sure having issues with the Sky MER authentication if that would all work? I don't full know how the nanostations work or if they need to have a separate authentication? I think this would work and if it does, would solve the issue in the office but then doesn't solve the issue upstairs in the bedrooms and doesn't allow the same control of the network as the XT8's. The WAP in the office might reach upstairs potentially but is a fair distance again.
They are both the same price, so really it's what people think may fix the issue more. Would the XT8 give a similar signal strength in people's opinions or would it degrade more because of the open spaces / walls?
Any help would be brilliant as I know there are a lot of people way more knowledgeable than me on here.
Thanks in advance
In need of some help to maximise the range and speed of my WiFi to my garage conversion / office and also to the far reaches of my house. The decision is between a mesh system, probably two Asus XT8 or a wireless bridge system.
This is the layout of the house and office. Router is the purple dot, living room is green, far bedroom is orange and the office red.

The current setup is UK based, Sky Ultrafast Plus (500Mbps) FTTP to the ONT modem under the stairs. Cat5 cabling in the walls to a socket in the far corner of the living room, with the Sky SR203 router connected via the WAN port (purple dot on the diagram above). All green lights are on and speedtest in the same room is between 480Mbps - 510Mbps which is great. There are around 25 devices attached to the WiFi, from TV and Sky Q (no mini's) to Echo View and laptops in the office and some Ring devices scattered around the house.
The issue is as soon as you start roaming the house, the speed declines dramatically; in the far bedroom (orange area) you get around about 50Mbps and in the office (red area) you get between 10Mbps and 30Mbps. I work in IT and do a lot of data transfer, so ideally I need a much stronger signal in the office. The kids also ideally need stronger in their bedrooms.
Soooo to the crux of the problem; I recently bought a TP Link VR2800 in the hope that it would strengthen the signal being a stronger modem. After much hair pulling I got it working (dynamic IP, DHCP etc) but it actually gave a weaker signal in the same room at only ever 250Mbps and the even worse in the office, so scrapping that off and back currently with the SR203.
After reading a lot of good reviews about the Asus XT8's I was going to pull the trigger on that; I think it will give a better signal in the house in general and if I put the second node in the office, I'm hoping it would boost that significantly. I also like the fact of parental controls, signal beaming and QoS etc. However would the distance between the house and office still interfere? The signal needs to go through two fully insulated brick walls and over a 10 metre stretch of open space?
The alternative is, I had a guy round who recommended I get a wireless bridge installed, using two Ubiquity nanostations. One would be connected to the SR203 via a wire through the wall and mounted on the back of the house. The second would be mounted on the back of the office with direct line of sight. Then cabled into the office to go to a 4 port switch, so I can either hard wire everything directly into that or set the TP Link as a WAP and run everything off that, in theory giving a max of 450Mbps. I'm just not sure having issues with the Sky MER authentication if that would all work? I don't full know how the nanostations work or if they need to have a separate authentication? I think this would work and if it does, would solve the issue in the office but then doesn't solve the issue upstairs in the bedrooms and doesn't allow the same control of the network as the XT8's. The WAP in the office might reach upstairs potentially but is a fair distance again.
They are both the same price, so really it's what people think may fix the issue more. Would the XT8 give a similar signal strength in people's opinions or would it degrade more because of the open spaces / walls?
Any help would be brilliant as I know there are a lot of people way more knowledgeable than me on here.
Thanks in advance