Wifi Hub

sbk1972 · 28 Mar 2017 at 10:57

Hi all,

I need advice on a good wifi hub to use at home. My BT / broadband connection comes into my 3rd floor office, where I have a wifi router that pushes out to the house. This means on the ground floor, interference / floors, the signal isnt too good. i dont want to run Cat5 around.

since I now have numerous tablets / phones / minix devices running on it and video streaming is awful. I am looking at 1Gbp homeplugs but really need a big boy wifi hub.

So, I need a powerful wifi hub, doesnt have to be a ADSL modem, just pure wifi, to satisfy my ever growing needs i.e. I plan to set the unit up and connect it to my Billion router / adsl modem.

Been looking at the Asus rt-ac32000 or the next unit up ? Any good ?

Obviously my wifi demands will increase so need something that will last.

Simon

Avenged7Fold · 28 Mar 2017 at 11:17

Rather than replace your main router, i would probably either use another router as a booster or look into powerline adaptors.

If you get a considerable loss of signal due to walls and floors, you may find a power line adaptor and a router may work considerably better than just a plain router used as a booster in solving your issue.

You can get powerline adaptors with wifi built in but i dont know how good they are compared to a separate router, i imagine you lose some functionality at the very least.

Gibbs · 28 Mar 2017 at 15:16

i picked up a draytek 910 access point, made a huge difference for the better to the wifi across the property (stone walls)

pcfarrar · 28 Mar 2017 at 15:35

I'd try a UniFi AP AC LR, if the coverage wasn't good enough then you could just use a homeplug to supply a second UniFi AP downstairs.

BigT · 28 Mar 2017 at 16:29

pcfarrar said:
I'd try a UniFi AP AC LR, if the coverage wasn't good enough then you could just use a homeplug to supply a second UniFi AP downstairs.

This is a good shout. If you manage to even get any signal with a BT HH across four floors then the UAP stands a better chance of giving a decent signal and saving you money.

And is there really no way you can run just one cat5 cable from the third floor down to another floor, say the 1st, and hang another UAP off that as well? This should give you awesome high speed coverage across the whole house.

DIABLO · 28 Mar 2017 at 17:07

sbk1972 said:
Hi all,

I need advice on a good wifi hub to use at home. My BT / broadband connection comes into my 3rd floor office, where I have a wifi router that pushes out to the house. This means on the ground floor, interference / floors, the signal isnt too good. i dont want to run Cat5 around.

since I now have numerous tablets / phones / minix devices running on it and video streaming is awful. I am looking at 1Gbp homeplugs but really need a big boy wifi hub.

So, I need a powerful wifi hub, doesnt have to be a ADSL modem, just pure wifi, to satisfy my ever growing needs i.e. I plan to set the unit up and connect it to my Billion router / adsl modem.

Been looking at the Asus rt-ac32000 or the next unit up ? Any good ?

Obviously my wifi demands will increase so need something that will last.

Simon

Keep in mind any power line adaptor is only going to provide around 100Mbit performance max regardless of its rated performance. BigT has the best solution to ensure decent performance.