New Fibre Connection - advice required

kayone

kayone

kayone

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Hello folks,

So recently I've upgraded my FTTC 80mbps to Virgin FTTP M350 (380mbps). Now my Hub 3.0 has been installed in a place which is 2 floors from my office where my main PC is kept which I use for gaming mostly. My challenge is to get he best connection to the PC as possible. I have tried so far:

  • 5Ghz Wifi - Great connection speeds 250-330mbps which surprised me actually, but the latency in game doesn't seem great (c 15ms greater than that previously of 80mb) which would indicate the quality and consistency of the connection just isn't stable enough.
  • Powerline adaptors; because this is venturing some distance and I guess on different rings to that of the main circuit my connection max is 40mbps - not ideal.

Options to try:
  • The clear one is running a lengthy ethernet cable down 2 floors but is an incredibly painful task.
  • New Router & Extender potentially - was looking at the XR500 Nighthawk which comes with an extender packaged also c£250.
Thoughts, views and opinions are welcomed :)

Thanks in advance.
 
Speaking from experience, do it right the first time and run an Ethernet cable to each floor and use an AP from Ubiquiti or similar to achieve 250Mb+ on each floor.

That way you’ll also be able to go straight into your PC via cable.
 
MrRockliffe said:
Speaking from experience, do it right the first time and run an Ethernet cable to each floor and use an AP from Ubiquiti or similar to achieve 250Mb+ on each floor.

That way you’ll also be able to go straight into your PC via cable.
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Agreed. First loss, least loss. Running a cable usually isn’t very difficult. Contact a local TV aerial installer and explain what you want. A wall socket with 2 RJ45 sockets going through the external wall to a similar socket in another room. You’re looking at £20 in cable and keystones and boxes are another £30 tops. Given that a TV antenna (including the antenna) is usually well under £200 installed I bet it’s about the same for two network sockets in Chesterfield.
 
Have a look at where your bathrooms are sited - chances are they are above each other to get access to the soil stack, often you can get into the loft and look down and see a route all the way down to the ground floor, so it's fairly easy to cable up.
 
Unfortunately Virgin aren't great for games. Their network plus their hub typically means you get higher ping than any Openreach connection. It's why I left Virgin last year.
 
spoffle said:
Unfortunately Virgin aren't great for games. Their network plus their hub typically means you get higher ping than any Openreach connection. It's why I left Virgin last year.
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Hub seems OK (thus far) just lacks QoS functionality - so I am tempted to buy a separate router.
 
Don't try achieve FTTC pings, Openreach's network seems to have less hops (or a better backbone overall) than Virgin's backhaul. I've always achieved 8-15ms pings to most UK servers on Openreach ISPs (i.e. Sky, Plusnet, BT etc) - my friend on VM at 3 homes he's moved to now has only ever got 15-30ms.

Also speaking from experience - do it right the first time. I tried a better router 6 years ago when I moved in, then tried powerlines for a year. In the end it just wasn't as good as a straight cable, so I bit the bullet me and a mate ran 2 Cat6 cables externally from my stairs cupboard where BT socket/router was, up into my man cave and been perfect since the last 4+ years.

Then I had a taste for it, a year later I got 2 PoE cameras and we re-routed the cupboard cables to my loft where I situated a patch panel and switch. Then brought 4 cables back out the loft eaves for the 2 PoE cameras and the 2 back into my man cave, so it's centralised now. Then last month I went Ubiquiti and got all UniFi gear; USG, PoE switch and an AP. Now I have that working beautifully and the AP ceiling mounted on my landing - works great all wired. ;)
 
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Sparx said:
Don't try achieve FTTC pings, Openreach's network seems to have less hops (or a better backbone overall) than Virgin's backhaul. I've always achieved 8-15ms pings to most UK servers on Openreach ISPs (i.e. Sky, Plusnet, BT etc) - my friend on VM at 3 homes he's moved to now has only ever got 15-30ms.

Also speaking from experience - do it right the first time. I tried a better router 6 years ago when I moved in, then tried powerlines for a year. In the end it just wasn't as good as a straight cable, so I bit the bullet me and a mate ran 2 Cat6 cables externally from my stairs cupboard where BT socket/router was, up into my man cave and been perfect since the last 4+ years.

Then I had a taste for it, a year later I got 2 PoE cameras and we re-routed the cupboard cables to my loft where I situated a patch panel and switch. Then brought 4 cables back out the loft eaves for the 2 PoE cameras and the 2 back into my man cave, so it's centralised now. Then last month I went Ubiquiti and got all UniFi gear; USG, PoE switch and an AP. Now I have that working beautifully and the AP ceiling mounted on my landing - works great all wired. ;)
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My ping is great actually, 10ms on London servers - it's just when playing CSGO Matchmaking you never know where you may end up so ping isn't guaranteed!
 
Yeah, Virgin Media's backbone is terrible in comparison to BT.
Just offer nice speeds which is the only appealing thing about it if you don't have other offering.

As far as getting internet to your PC goes, always go with Ethernet, beats anything else
 
I know powerlines are the least favoured option but I picked up some devolos at the weekend and i'm getting around 950Mb throughput.

My last pair of Netgear Av500's were only getting 80Mb.
 
SixTwoSix said:
I know powerlines are the least favoured option but I picked up some devolos at the weekend and i'm getting around 950Mb throughput.
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Really? How are you measuring that? That's VERY fast. As fast as a straight ethernet cable. I'm not saying it's impossible but it's unlikely.
 
WJA96 said:
Really? How are you measuring that? That's VERY fast. As fast as a straight ethernet cable. I'm not saying it's impossible but it's unlikely.
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Well, i'll be honest, that's whats reported in their own Cockpit software but apparently Devolo software is fairly accurate to throughput ;)

I don't really have a way to absolutely verify atm until later tonight at midnight if/when my Ultrafast 900Mb BT install gets activated.
 
iperf is the generally recognised way to measure throughput.

Run iPerf server on one machine and iPerf client on the other (including handheld devices) and it will pretty much instantly show you the true throughput.
 
WJA96 said:
iperf is the generally recognised way to measure throughput.

Run iPerf server on one machine and iPerf client on the other (including handheld devices) and it will pretty much instantly show you the true throughput.
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I'll check that out when I get back home tonight, ta.
 
WJA96 said:
Really? How are you measuring that? That's VERY fast. As fast as a straight ethernet cable. I'm not saying it's impossible but it's unlikely.
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Hands up, the devolo software reported speed is junk and the throughput maxed out at 200Mb after my activation last night, they're going back to Amazon today :)
 
Just as a thought have you tried running a programme called acrylic to check your wifi channels and those nearby?

I had a similar issues, scanned for those nearby and saw I was on the channel as other routers and changed the channel to one outside of any other nearby wifi connections.

This has to be installed on a pc that has a wifi card but you could see if there are any wifi points conflicting with yours?

Agree with all the previous points about using ethernet where possible.
 
Run a cable on the outside of the house up to the loft, hook up a switch and drop it down into all the locations you need it on the upper floor. Job jobbed. Make sure it’s UV rated.

If you want to go all in then mount access points in the landing ceilings.
 
Caged said:
Have a look at where your bathrooms are sited - chances are they are above each other to get access to the soil stack, often you can get into the loft and look down and see a route all the way down to the ground floor, so it's fairly easy to cable up.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a great idea if the SVP is internal - potentially a ready made route if your layout works.
 
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