BT Wifi Extender

[Andy46]

Hi

I have my broadband router at the top of my stairs. When connected to Wifi downstairs the signal on my laptop / phone shows two bars at most. I assumed this would mean I have a lower connection speed downstairs. However when running a speed test both upstairs / downstairs my download speed shows as about 16mb for both.

Anywho, perhaps I should have done the above first, but I didn't, so I purchased a wifi extender. Now when i'm downstairs and connected to this hotspot, the signal strength shows full, however my download speed shows about 11mb.

So was this basically a waste of money for me ??

Thanks

[supremetwo]

The extender has to receive the signal and then re-transmit and this accounts for the reduction in speed.

That said, which model is it and which frequency is it set to?

Also which BT hub?

[Infrasonic]

What bandwidth are you getting if you plug the laptop directly into the router via an ethernet socket on the back? (If you've only got USB on the laptop you can buy a USB/Ethernet adaptor for about a tenner).
That will give you close to your maximum, everything WiFi will be less than that.

If you want the maximum possible WiFi bandwidth around the house you'd be better off with some Wireless Access Points (WAP's) or something like the homeplug system where you run the signals over your mains wiring and have a WiFi / ethernet wired outlet homeplug at the destination room(s). WAP's will give you the best bandwidth but it means running ethernet cables around the house (although a run straight down the staircase wouldn't be too bad).

Homeplugs will only get you about 25% of their advertised bandwidth at best, but if it is just for internet access that shouldn't be a problem as that will be the bandwidth bottleneck, not anything else. (Unless you have an uber fast fibre to the premises internet provision...unlikely).

[Breelander]

When connected to Wifi downstairs the signal on my laptop / phone shows two bars at most. I assumed this would mean I have a lower connection speed downstairs. However when running a speed test both upstairs / downstairs my download speed shows as about 16mb for both.

The maximum speed you can get is determined by the copper wire that connects you to the distribution cabinet. I get 16mb too, on WiFi or Ethernet cable. Run the test at http://speedtest.btwholesale.com/ then run the 'further diagnostics'. This will tell you the maximum achievable speed on your phone line. Mine says:

Download speed achieved during the test was - 15.81 Mbps
For your connection, the acceptable range of speeds is 4 Mbps-21 Mbps.

Your 'two bars at most' is showing the WiFi signal strength. Provided there is little or no interference from your neighbours you should get the same speed at a low signal strength as you would sitting next to the Hub. By default a BT hub is set up for 'Automatic (Smart Wireless)'. This should chooses a channel with the least overlap of adjacent signals - sounds like it's working for you.

[Andy46]

Hi

Thanks for the replies. I have a standard sky router and the wifi extender is a BT one. I got it due to having low signal strength downstairs. From the replies / my experience having now tried it, I don't think I really need it lol, oh well, will send it back and spend the money on something else

[dionaeamuscipula]

I find my BT Homehub 5 workes really well with a TP link WiFi extender.

Unless things have changed since I ditched sky, it is effectively impossible to use a router other than the sky one.

[JonE]

Unless things have changed since I ditched sky, it is effectively impossible to use a router other than the sky one.

I have no experience or knowledge of SKY but, although one may have no option but to use the modem part of the Sky device, is it not possible to cascade from their box to one's own router/WAP?

ISPs where I live (outwith UK) totally control their modem/router so I cascaded to my own device to be able to manage all local router/WAP functions. I phoned the ISP to get them to turn off the wireless on their device (any desired - and permitted - change to the configuration has to be requested by phone) so as to clear whatever channel they might choose to use. They push configuration changes to their box and, whenever it powers up, it phones home for its specific configuration file as part of the boot process [1]. All ports are forwarded but I haven't investigated the effect on DNS settings of their box being in the chain. I use TP-Links with remote WAPs/ports rather than use range extenders at intermediate locations.

Cheers!
[1] Just as an aside, Hauppauge MVPs do/did a similar sort of thing. They have just enough smarts to look for a binary file of a specific name at a specific place on one's network and use that to complete booting - which means that one can provide them with a customised binary.