Question about BT Discs (1 or 2)?

JamesUK

JamesUK

JamesUK

Associate
Joined
22 Nov 2002
Posts
464
Location
Liverpool
Hi, I have Full fibre 500, and live in a house thats got 2 floors.

I get normal speed test readings downstairs where the router is, but by the time I am in the top floor, a speed test generally only comes back at about 13mbps. So I thought it might be a good idea to get 1 or 2 discs from Ebay, just someone who's selling theirs.

The main disc would go on the middle landing. I am wondering though, there is the stairs and sometimes living room door being shut that might lessen the signal to the dis on the landing and not sure 100% how it all works, but if I got a second disc and placed it in the downstairs hall, which is then a bit closer to the one on the landing. Would that help boost the signal to the disc on the landing, or would it not really make much odds?

If the living room door is closed, then the disc in the hall would still be hampered by that, but is that how these discs work, if the hall disc was getting a really good signal, would it feed from that to the one on the landing to give a stronger signal than if i didn't have a second disc?

Regards
James
 
I personally havecthe BT discs and find when hard wired with an ethernet link they work great however when connected wirelessly the speed they deliver is quite poor
 
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The problem is what I deem good will have fanboys of other brands knocking it, here is a few brands to look at and most will surpass BT kit, few things to look for;

  • TP-Link, Netgear, Draytek, Synology, Asus, Google Nest, Linksys, Eero
  • Wifi6 (AX) or Wifi6e (not everything is supported client-wise)
  • Dual band (tri-band if you want to waste money)
  • Ethernet ports at 1Gb (or 2.5Gb), needed for FTTP/FTTH.
  • Mu-Mimo and Bandsteering
Most routers support PPPoE so you wont need to worry about using your own router with your ISP (Sky and some others need specific VLANs, again this is normally built into the routers).
 
I have the BT discs with 500 also and they came free with them. I have one that is in a room above the router and is hard wired and gets around 450MB on the PC. Wifi connected to this gets around 150MB even if sat next to the disc and down to 100MB elsewhere.

If you get the discs free then its ok, but if you have to spend money I would go with a seperate mesh system rather than BT, they are OK buto others will be better for the price.
 
russ9898 said:
I personally havecthe BT discs and find when hard wired with an ethernet link they work great however when connected wirelessly the speed they deliver is quite poor
Click to expand...
I've used them in the past like this and can confirm only when wired can you get good speeds. It uses the WiFi as a backhaul otherwise and can be spotty depending on what the signals have to travel through to each other. With wired I could reach 600MBps up/down in the same room as a disc.

Regarding how the discs work, there are some advanced settings in the admin page you can change to choose a different topology depending on your environment. They usually chain together to provide the signal across a larger space (hence the name mesh) so if one connection to a disc is bad it will try and use the other connection to the next nearest disc. When you set it up the app makes you place the discs closer so they all can see/hear each other without too weak a signal.

If you get them cheap it might be good for your use, but it all depends on your house and the density of objects the signal has to go through. If you ever renovate, consider running cable to specific locations and get proper access points to give you access to better WiFi as these discs are just a stop gap and can't beat wired.
 
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