Poor quality Internet Virgins in my house

Gwadien

Uneducated Northern Cretin
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So because my house is ancient, the internet quality is poor.

I've had a 9 month contract with Virgin so far because of students and stuff but my housemate is staying in the house over the summer, so we realistically want to renew a 12 month contract with them.

Issue is, we need a new router (or an alternative way to get around the shit quality)

What's the best way to go about this? Buy a new router and say to Virgin look, it's shit, give us a discount, or ask virgin to give us a discount on a new router?

Or does anyone have any alternative temporary fixes? (We won't be here for ever, so no point doing attic stuffs.)
 

caLLous

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Why is the internet "quality" poor because of the age of the house? If it's a wiring issue won't they send people out to fix it?
 

Moriath

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Virgin wont discount or anything cause your house is old and has walls the wireless signal cant get through.

I have a netgear router attached to my virgin one that does all the wifi and everything with the virgin one acting just as the modem.

Could try that but their routers arnt that great but they only have the one. Not like they have different models.
 

Moriath

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If its not the wifi thats crap. And its the external signal then they need an engi to the box.
 

Gwadien

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Don't think it's a wiring fault, I have mine on a mains adapter, and it's fine, but my housemates upstairs have wireless laptops (obviously.) and they get bad signal at times.
 

Moriath

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Don't think it's a wiring fault, I have mine on a mains adapter, and it's fine, but my housemates upstairs have wireless laptops (obviously.) and they get bad signal at times.
Get mains adapters for them and a cable. Cheapest way.
 

Gwadien

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So has anyone got a good wireless booster thingy idea?
 

Moriath

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So has anyone got a good wireless booster thingy idea?
Used to have one a range extender from net gear. Put it half way up the stairs. Was hit and miss when it worked. Donno if i got it setup properly
 

Tom

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Where in your house is the router positioned? Radio signals aren't rocket science. Poor reception can often be solved by raising the height of the transceiver.
 

Gwadien

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Where in your house is the router positioned? Radio signals aren't rocket science. Poor reception can often be solved by raising the height of the transceiver.
Behind the TV, could probably get it onto the window, but surely that wouldn't make loads of difference?

Basically a standard terrace house with an kitchen-extension and a window next to the door going into the extension if that makes sense.
 

Gwadien

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lopen-rd--downstairs.gif


Literally that apart from front parlour is mah room, Kitchen is living room and scullery is the kitchen - above the kitchen is one of the bedrooms which as issues and above front parlour.

router is at the bottom dresser in the kitchen, but its literally directly underneath one of the laptops.
 

Tom

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Behind the TV, could probably get it onto the window, but surely that wouldn't make loads of difference?

Basically a standard terrace house with an kitchen-extension and a window next to the door going into the extension if that makes sense.

Get a co-axial extension and move it somewhere else. I would lift it right up to the ceiling (you can test reception by hanging it temporarily from a nail or something) and move it over to the wall where the staircase is. Chances are the staircase wall is a partition only, perhaps hollow or single brick. The signal will propagate much more easily there than it will where you have it currently.

Think of your router as a lightbulb - where can you position it so it illuminates as much of the front room as possible? Right now half the signal from the router is going straight into a wall, beyond which no reception is required. You want it to be able to radiate equally, in all directions.
 

Moriath

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lopen-rd--downstairs.gif


Literally that apart from front parlour is mah room, Kitchen is living room and scullery is the kitchen - above the kitchen is one of the bedrooms which as issues and above front parlour.

router is at the bottom dresser in the kitchen, but its literally directly underneath one of the laptops.
Tried rotating the router? Putting it on its side etc. might not be a great router that only puts put signal in one direction.

Could put foil etc under it to rebound waves upwards and not through a usless wall. Might help. Sounds like an old house with solid walls. Donno if toms seen what i said cause he prob still has me on ignore
 

leggy

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have you actually tried the power line adapter upstairs? All mine work on the 3rd floor of my house with the router on the ground floor.
 

Gwadien

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have you actually tried the power line adapter upstairs? All mine work on the 3rd floor of my house with the router on the ground floor.
I've not tried it, no.

I know that if you're running your electrics on two separate circuits then it's impossible, I asked the landlord and he said it's on two seperate circuits (then we had a 2 hour conversation about powerline adapters.)
 

Raven

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So because my house is ancient, the internet quality is poor.

I've had a 9 month contract with Virgin so far because of students and stuff but my housemate is staying in the house over the summer, so we realistically want to renew a 12 month contract with them.

Issue is, we need a new router (or an alternative way to get around the shit quality)

What's the best way to go about this? Buy a new router and say to Virgin look, it's shit, give us a discount, or ask virgin to give us a discount on a new router?

Or does anyone have any alternative temporary fixes? (We won't be here for ever, so no point doing attic stuffs.)

My house is 400 years old

I get 80mps

ner
 

smurkin

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Its not impossible, its just the performance will suffer. My house has two separate consumer units and I was able to share a powerline connection across them. The connection was just a few Mbps but enough to stream sd TV. Best thing would be to borrow a pair and give it a go - see if you get a usable speed.
 

Tom

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I've not tried it, no.

I know that if you're running your electrics on two separate circuits then it's impossible, I asked the landlord and he said it's on two seperate circuits (then we had a 2 hour conversation about powerline adapters.)

Those two circuits are connected to the same power line that enters your property.
 

Gwadien

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Those two circuits are connected to the same power line that enters your property.

I call bullshit.

There are clearly separate powerstations for different floors in your house too.

You know nothing Mr Snow.
 

Gwadien

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Hang on, has someone been editting stuffs?

I wasn't that stoned.
 

Insane

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I call bullshit.

There are clearly separate powerstations for different floors in your house too.

You know nothing Mr Snow.

I can confirm that the powerline adapters will work across the two separate circuits.

How do I know? I tested it using two separate physical apartments courtesy of my neighbours help. We were able to verify that the powerline adapters were able to communicate across separate metered boxes as long as they had been previously paired up on the same circuit.

Some seriously scary shit indeed when you realise that fact...
 

Embattle

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Working across circuits/phases can be a bit hit and miss, even if it does it normally take a knock in performance and quality.

Most the routers provided by the ISPs aren't that good, so a new one may help but quite a bit may well be the wireless environment in your local area.
 

Moriath

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Why not make sure your not clashing woth other channels in use. Then try your plugs over the down stairs to upstairs before you make the investment to see if it works
 

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