The broadband transfer to Plusnet has happened!
Hands free experience. Perhaps not so surprising as they were already providing the service on behalf of John Lewis.
Question for the geeks. The service has continued using the existing router as I haven't got around to installing the new one provided.
Any gotchas or likely improvements by way of speed or wifi range? (plusnet 3X5R)
That doesn't sound much like the name of a plusnet router, the recent ones have been "hub zero", hub one" or "hub two"
Oops. This is hub one:-)
Did they send you a Hub Two?
AIUI the Hub One is the same as a BT Homehub 5a and the Hub Two is a BT Smart Hub 2. The wifi on the HH5a is OK but not brilliant, and that on the SH2 is decent.
So it would probably improve the wifi to switch to the Hub Two.
Speed-wise, unless you're on FTTP I don't think it'll make a difference. The DSL side of things (Lantiq VRX200 on the HH5a, Broadcom BCM63168 on the SH2) is fine if you have the right modem firmware. Some versions of firmware don't support VDSL2 vectoring so you only get ~55 not ~75Mbps, but that's not a problem unless you have reflashed its OS - BT will have chosen theirs carefully.
Theo (who has a Hub One reflashed with OpenWRT)
Sorry Theo. I have misled you again.
The original, still working router, is a SAGECOM 2704N
I'm just trying to avoid crawling about in a dark loft:-)
Hub one is what they sent for the transfer.
You didn't say what router you already have, so:
Suck it and see?
I chucked the Plusnet router (back then, they supplied a separate modem and basic wifi router) and use my own device (TP-link Archer AC2800).
Re WiFi: It also depends on how large the building is - and what the walls/floors are made of.
And what devices you use. My netbook when at home sees at least a dozen access points, sometimes up to sixteen, all of which look to have enough signal strength to work reasonably. My Samsung phone sees about four, two of which are mine, about three metres away.
That's otherwise known as the Plusnet Hub Zero.
Since it's an 802.11N (aka Wifi 4) device, your Hub One should get better wifi reception/speed since it's 802.11AC (aka Wifi 5). CPU should be a bit faster too.
Are you on ADSL then? The Zero won't do VDSL, while the One will. If VDSL is available it should offer a decent speed improvement (but it's something Plusnet would have to arrange).
...although you'll be losing some wifi signal since the 5GHz may not make it very far (probably to the floor below, but not to a floor below that).
Theo
Oh! Technology! Current speeds are 14Mb down and 1.2Mb up. Copper? wire to the cabinet.
Chalet bungalow. Wifi is fine directly below the router but poor once you go beyond an internal brick wall.
What we have is fine for current needs and avoids having to re-set the codes on all the visiting mobile devices.
Thanks.
I have but three, and they are all mine, and at any given point only one will be adequate.
Foil backed plasterboard....My house has its own tinfoil hat...
FTTC copper to cabinet, then fibre. 40Mb/10Mb
Move the router to the loft, maybe add an extra old router/ access point, linked to the first with a LAN cable. One router at each end of the bungalow. Use the same SSID and password for both.
Nope, Tim's on ADSL - copper all the way to the exchange. The old router doesn't support FTTC (VDSL).
If FTTC is available it's a useful upgrade, and the 40/10 tier is often the same or cheaper than ADSL.
I might think of moving the router down from the loft, but if that's not possible another option is a mesh system of some kind.
Two routers in the loft linked by cable is also possible, although there may be issues 'roaming' between the two (I did that with a BT Smart Hub 1 and it didn't like clients swapping from the SH1 wifi to another access point attached to the SH1 ethernet)
Theo
FTTH Fibre to the cabinet, then fibre to the home... 900 Mb/s
Buy additional AP's One on ground floor in centre of house. 2nd in centre of 1st floor. 3rd in centre of loft...
Often the wifi is a suck it and see thing in any case. Comparing them is a nightmare, there could be very small dead spots in either direction in different places with any router. I still hard wire as many things as I can. Brian
Stretching my capabilities! The router is wired with outlets scattered round the house.
Hmm. That is getting on for 1 mile. Perhaps I should be grateful for what we get currently. Searches for fibre connections never offer anything for this rural lane.
We get adequate wifi in the *visitor* areas and the family know the limitations.
IMO, a mesh system will give far better roaming between nodes. When we had multiple access points our devices would hang on with grim determination to one access point or another, irrespective of which had the better signal strength (unless it lost signal altogether). Pain in the bum having to manually switch connections to improve data speeds.
Problems all went away with our mesh system.
Tim
I'm inclined to switch to Plusnet but your description of their Hub One router (BT Homehub 5a) doesn't inspire confidence.
I'm currently using Talktalk with a Huawei 633 router, which has quite a poor range and seems to drop out at times. However if the BT Homehub
5a is even worse, then what would a better router to buy for use with Plusnet?
I have one that's about two years old, no idea which model. Having backed the car up to our front door and turned off the engine, my wife's phone goes mad with Whats App messages over wifi. We're still in a partial Faraday cage, and about ten metres away from the router, which is not in line-of-sight of the front door.
OK, the status message on the router's home page is: Plusnet Hub One | Software version 4.7.5.1.83.8.289.1.3 | Last updated
07/12/21 It's on FTTC.HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.