Broadband Services?

[Col2]

Got Sky Broadband and also 2 x Sky boosters however my home office seems to be a dead spot and causing me issues for work teams calls etc

My home office is converted from internal garage.

I have tried products that route signal through plug socket but they just never seem to be any good.

Does anyone know of any Broadband Services where a technician can come out and review and look to improve? Or should I just get another telephone connection in my home office? Most products I see have issues with sky broadband. I have sky glass so not sure I can change provider.

We get about 50mbps when near main router.

[speedy_gonzales]

You can download a WiFi analyser app to check for dark spots in coverage.
Is there any way to run an ethernet cable from your existing router to your garage?
If not, you could upgrade your router to a "gaming router" like a Netgear Nighthawk or a MESH system.

[Col2]

Thanks. Will do that.

It would need to be a very long Ethernet cable.

I got another Wi-Fi booster to attach to laptop but it doesn’t look like it make an any difference.

I think I will need to get a more powerful router - I just don’t want to mess around with settings and screen it all up as everyone else in the house seems happy!!! Cheers

[WeAreHibs]

This should help you.

https://youtu.be/o8pJ5FfLwi0

[Jim44]

I allowed EE to persuade me to go from perfectly satisfactory bog standard broadband to ‘faster’ full fibre broadband. Fine in theory, but I wasn’t prepared for the ensuing farce involving Open Reach. Engineer arrives to lead the cable from the pole into my house but tells me that the pole is ‘B’ type, ie. condemned and unable for him to go up. Followed by a 90 minute wait for a ‘hoist’ vehicle, which couldn’t get close enough to the pole. Meanwhile, the engineer tries to drill holes to attach the box to the exterior whinstone wall but wears out two drills plus another of mine. He had to disappear for an hour to purchase another one. He completes half the job but has to report that the job is categorised as ‘incomplete’ awaiting further attention ( he says they’ll have to come with a scaffold to climb the pole). Ten days pass and I hear nothing from EE or Open Reach. I contact EE who tell me the job’s under review and I’ll hear from them in due course. I’m still waiting. Fortunately, my router is still functioning and my wifi is ok, but it hardly fills you with confidence in the ‘best’ broadband provider in the country.

[SaulGoodman]

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I allowed EE to persuade me to go from perfectly satisfactory bog standard broadband to ‘faster’ full fibre broadband. Fine in theory, but I wasn’t prepared for the ensuing farce involving Open Reach. Engineer arrives to lead the cable from the pole into my house but tells me that the pole is ‘B’ type, ie. condemned and unable for him to go up. Followed by a 90 minute wait for a ‘hoist’ vehicle, which couldn’t get close enough to the pole. Meanwhile, the engineer tries to drill holes to attach the box to the exterior whinstone wall but wears out two drills plus another of mine. He had to disappear for an hour to purchase another one. He completes half the job but has to report that the job is categorised as ‘incomplete’ awaiting further attention ( he says they’ll have to come with a scaffold to climb the pole). Ten days pass and I hear nothing from EE or Open Reach. I contact EE who tell me the job’s under review and I’ll hear from them in due course. I’m still waiting. Fortunately, my router is still functioning and my wifi is ok, but it hardly fills you with confidence in the ‘best’ broadband provider in the country.

I ordered full fibre from BT in November.

Got an email through saying that the Openreach workers would be out on Tuesday the whatever of December to dig up the road outside and run a cable to my house, then the Openreach engineer would be out on the Friday to connect the cable to the inside of my house.

Got a text through the day before just saying “sorry we’ve had to cancel your order” so I phone up BT to find out what happened, they don’t know either, they have to contact Openreach.

Guy on the phone puts the order through again and I get another email but this time it only says about the engineer coming to do the internal works. I phone BT again, explain that last time I was told workers would need to come and run a cable from the road to my house and this time it doesn’t say that. She explains that I’ve not to worry and that Openreach have said the engineer will be enough.

So the engineer comes to the door a few weeks after and as everyone has probably guessed says “I can’t do the job, there’s no cables run to the house” he does the internal stuff like putting the box on the wall and running to cable from inside to outside and says the workers just have to connect the outside cable from the road to the house now.

Cue 4 months of chasing up BT who in turn have to chase up Openreach to find out when it’s going to be connected. It finally got connected three weeks ago after being ordered in November.

I did get 500 and odd pound credited to my account tbf.

[Jay]

We've had the same issues with open reach and talk talk at my mums house. We only upgraded because it was cheaper. We started the process in Jan and it was finally completed yesterday. Jobs cancelled, no equipment delivered, Wrong outsode boxes, no outside boxes, digging up her driveway etc. Total pain

[McD]

Open Reach are a joke, they have a virtual monopoly on the network (excluding the likes of Virgin’s network), and they know it doesn’t matter how crap a job they do, how long they drag their feet or how much they screw up, almost every provider still has to use them

[Jim44]

I think Open Reach have bitten off more than they can chew. I’ve got an engineer coming tomorrow to complete my job, but I just know that it won’t happen.

[Just Alf]

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Open Reach are a joke, they have a virtual monopoly on the network (excluding the likes of Virgin’s network), and they know it doesn’t matter how crap a job they do, how long they drag their feet or how much they screw up, almost every provider still has to use them

I think in terms of the fibre network it's city fibre and Virgin ahead of Openreach in terms of their fibre networks.

Openreach have the old wire network but that's only an advantage in places where City Fibre or Virgin don't want to spend their money.

Edit: my Plusnet fibre install went swimmingly with CityFibre. :-)

[Jim44]

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I think Open Reach have bitten off more than they can chew. I’ve got an engineer coming tomorrow to complete my job, but I just know that it won’t happen.

……. and I was correct. 8am the Open Reach engineer arrives and is creeping about my garden. The scaffold erector arrives looking for the pole which is in a neighbour’s garden. He says he can’t enter the property without the householder’s permission. The elderly couple are not answering the door. The erector says he can wait for half an hour to see if there’s any sign of life then he’s off to another job. F***ing circus. Apparently if Open Reach aren’t allowed to access the pole, they have to take the householder to court.

[Colr]

I’m on Virgin and it was garbage until I swapped their router for a mesh router. Now it flies!

[speedy_gonzales]

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I’m on Virgin and it was garbage until I swapped their router for a mesh router. Now it flies!

Been saying this for years to anyone that will listen. It's very rarely the "broadband" but the kit that's to blame.
I've been with "cable" broadband since 2000, one of the first on the 512kbps then the 1Meg. I've definitely had the five nines of availability (99.999%) over that time with download/upload speed that dwarf the ADSL options.
I'm happy with the Virgin offering just now but I am being tempted by the City Fibre options, if I didn't also get my TV through Virgin, I reckon I'd jump over.

[WeAreHibs]

I've had Voda Giga Fibre for a couple of months now and it's been amazing. I get FULL speed up & down when wired and 850/800 WiFi when in same room. I bought an Asus router. 2yr contract for £32pm.

Couldn't believe how easy it was to cancel Virgin.

[speedy_gonzales]

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I've had Voda Giga Fibre for a couple of months now and it's been amazing. I get FULL speed up & down when wired and 850/800 WiFi when in same room. I bought an Asus router. 2yr contract for £32pm.

Couldn't believe how easy it was to cancel Virgin.

That sounds very tempting. To be honest, on the TV front, I reckon I stream about 50% of the time, 25% live sports, 25% free to air so I might look in to a UHD FTA Freeview box(or similar) and look out for a reliable IPTV subscription for my love sports fix.

[Colr]

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Been saying this for years to anyone that will listen. It's very rarely the "broadband" but the kit that's to blame.
I've been with "cable" broadband since 2000, one of the first on the 512kbps then the 1Meg. I've definitely had the five nines of availability (99.999%) over that time with download/upload speed that dwarf the ADSL options.
I'm happy with the Virgin offering just now but I am being tempted by the City Fibre options, if I didn't also get my TV through Virgin, I reckon I'd jump over.

Just an additional point. I had a Netgear Orbi mesh router which worked fine for 2 and a half years then the main unit bricked. It runs of a master and satellite so that made the whole system dead.

Seems to be a problem with Orbi.

I’ve changed to an Eero which is from Amazon. Fine so far. If one unit dies the other still works and you can upgrade indivdual units and they will still work as a system.

My other option was the Google mesh system which also looked good.

Virgin has been quite good but its expensive. I only get broadband through them since I got a smart TV - and the utter crapness of SmartTV apps is another thread.

[Wembley67]

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Been saying this for years to anyone that will listen. It's very rarely the "broadband" but the kit that's to blame.
I've been with "cable" broadband since 2000, one of the first on the 512kbps then the 1Meg. I've definitely had the five nines of availability (99.999%) over that time with download/upload speed that dwarf the ADSL options.
I'm happy with the Virgin offering just now but I am being tempted by the City Fibre options, if I didn't also get my TV through Virgin, I reckon I'd jump over.

I agree but unfortunately you have to be pretty tech savvy to know how all the gear works. It shouldn't be like that. Joe Bloggs should be able to plug in and get the connectivity and speed they were promised.

[EskbankHibby]

I'm coming to the end of a fibre/phone line agreement with Plusnet.

They have been terrible for customer service and I would be leaving them anyway but Virgin now available in my area.

My agreement ends with Plusnet at the start of September and i'm keen to avoid any down time. Can I just sign up and set up with Virgin anytime before then, make sure it works (as it's not using phone line) then end my contract with Plusnet?

I'm aware that it would mean that i'm paying for two separate providers for one month but would rather that than the potential of significant hassle/down time.

[McD]

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I'm coming to the end of a fibre/phone line agreement with Plusnet.

They have been terrible for customer service and I would be leaving them anyway but Virgin now available in my area.

My agreement ends with Plusnet at the start of September and i'm keen to avoid any down time. Can I just sign up and set up with Virgin anytime before then, make sure it works (as it's not using phone line) then end my contract with Plusnet?

I'm aware that it would mean that i'm paying for two separate providers for one month but would rather that than the potential of significant hassle/down time.

yeah you can, as virgin runs on a different infrastructure to open reach based providers. As you said, you’ll probably end up paying for 2 providers, but it will guarantee no down time, or at least shorten any down time if there’s delays with virgin going active

[EskbankHibby]

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yeah you can, as virgin runs on a different infrastructure to open reach based providers. As you said, you’ll probably end up paying for 2 providers, but it will guarantee no down time, or at least shorten any down time if there’s delays with virgin going active

Cheers👍