OV9

Generally any of the newer fibre broadband companies provide better value and service than Virgin. I switched from Virgin to Community Fibre and never looked back. Cheaper, faster, and better customer service too.

Yeah, I'm just trying to figure out the suppliers. The only one I recognise is TalkTalk and that's not for good reasons

Cityfibre provide backhaul for idnet, and after a couple of months of bedding in it's been perfectly reliable

One issue I've found with my full fibre is they use CGNAT meaning you need to pay additional if you need to remote back home via VPN, or if you host anything - they need to issue you a public IP (typically a fixed).

Won't affect most....but....just in case you do utilise that, worth checking.

Hmmm.. as this popped up again, I thought I’d look at my options. Seems like I can only have VM if I want more than 75Mb; I currently have 1Gb and tend to get between 800-1000Mbps.

Am I doing something wrong or does VM have its own fibre and no other provider can use it?

IanF wrote: Tue Aug 27, 2024 6:22 pm Hmmm.. as this popped up again, I thought I’d look at my options. Seems like I can only have VM if I want more than 75Mb; I currently have 1Gb and tend to get between 800-1000Mbps.

Am I doing something wrong or does VM have its own fibre and no other provider can use it?

Yeah VM have their own network. Nearly everyone else uses BT Openreach's infrastructure....but in the smaller villages some companies are doing their own infrastructure (like Voneus, who I'm with)

Matty wrote: Tue Aug 27, 2024 6:32 pm

IanF wrote: Tue Aug 27, 2024 6:22 pm Hmmm.. as this popped up again, I thought I’d look at my options. Seems like I can only have VM if I want more than 75Mb; I currently have 1Gb and tend to get between 800-1000Mbps.

Am I doing something wrong or does VM have its own fibre and no other provider can use it?

Yeah VM have their own network. Nearly everyone else uses BT Openreach's infrastructure....but in the smaller villages some companies are doing their own infrastructure (like Voneus, who I'm with)

Thanks Matty

Telltale for Openreach FTTP is that they don't yet (planned mid 2025) provide symmetrical connections (where up and down speeds are the same), whilst the smaller companies that are laying their own FTTP infra are usually symmetrical.

Holy moly.... the future has arrived in the Highlands.

Nest step is sorting out wifi coverage in the house.

We've got decent fibre from Virgin, my issue is getting decent speeds throughout the house WiFi

We have the original Google Nest mesh system with a few access points spread throughout the house

I never get close to my broadband speeds though

I've tried several different mesh systems and none of them has worked well

I'm guessing it just comes with the territory when you have an older house with 2 course, brick internal walls

The direction of travel to every higher frequencies for WiFi seems to just make this worse as higher frequencies are less effective at getting through things than lower frequencies

Anyone else in a similar situation with a decent mesh network (I'm not going install Cat5/6 etc btw

We’ve got four Netgear Orbis - they were on offer at Costco and they’re supposed to be the Rolls Royce of domestic kit. Still doesn’t mean you get full speed throughout the house; these are in the hall and living room, separated by one doorway, on a 500mpbs connection:



I can’t be arsed to do anything to improve it. The secondary node gives more than adequate speed even if it’s not the full speed. It’ll do.

We’ve had fttp for about 5 years here, yet last week we had a lovely trench dug all the way down the middle of the pavement on our road, plus a couple of days noise and disruption for ‘high speed broadband’ I don’t know what advantage it’s supposed to give? Whether it opens up other providers? If all properties are being swapped will they take the extra cables off the pole? (Very much doubt it)

We didn’t get a leaflet saying who they were or what they were doing until 4 days after they had finished.

The estate next to ours had FTTP installed when it was built in 2008, yet 17 years later they've only just laid the fibre around the rest of our estate and town. Still a little while off from being able to order it, but at least we are one step closer I suppose.

Interestingly the max we'll get will be 1.6Gbps down/115Mbps up based on what they're installing, yet a friend over in Crawley is able to get a fully synchronous 2.3Gbps. Shame, as it's the upload I really need to benefit from.

When we renewed with Vodaphone, we got new router and booster hardware which has almost doubled our speeds. Living room and my office, where the booster sits, get a solid 775 to 800 Mbps and the other rooms in the house get 400 to 450. This from an "up to 900 Mbps" service.

Can't fault it really

I have my own wifi woes. Main provider router is in the front of the hallway. I have a second router at the opposite end of my flat in the living room. As I enter my flat my phone connects to the hallway router and doesn't automatically switch over when I'm in the living room. It will stay on the hallway router despite being on 1 bar of wifi and struggling. Is there an automatic solution that a neanderthal such as myself can implement?

Mito Man wrote: Fri Aug 01, 2025 12:37 pm I have my own wifi woes. Main provider router is in the front of the hallway. I have a second router at the opposite end of my flat in the living room. As I enter my flat my phone connects to the hallway router and doesn't automatically switch over when I'm in the living room. It will stay on the hallway router despite being on 1 bar of wifi and struggling. Is there an automatic solution that a neanderthal such as myself can implement?

Yes, that's what Mesh setups are for - they have a subsystem that handles all the device handoffs (which generally work pretty well, certainly better than multiple different network names etc), and just presents One Big Network for you, from multiple wireless access points.

It's generally fast enough, but it's primarily the convenience of not having what's happening to you happen, that you're paying for.

Beany wrote: Fri Aug 01, 2025 12:50 pm
Yes, that's what Mesh setups are for - they have a subsystem that handles all the device handoffs (which generally work pretty well, certainly better than multiple different network names etc), and just presents One Big Network for you, from multiple wireless access points.

It's generally fast enough, but it's primarily the convenience of not having what's happening to you happen, that you're paying for.

Do I bin the ISP router with a mesh network or just turn its wifi off?

Mito Man wrote: Fri Aug 01, 2025 12:59 pm

Beany wrote: Fri Aug 01, 2025 12:50 pm
Yes, that's what Mesh setups are for - they have a subsystem that handles all the device handoffs (which generally work pretty well, certainly better than multiple different network names etc), and just presents One Big Network for you, from multiple wireless access points.

It's generally fast enough, but it's primarily the convenience of not having what's happening to you happen, that you're paying for.

Do I bin the ISP router with a mesh network or just turn its wifi off?

You'll probably need to keep it and plug your mesh main node into it with an ethernet cable. I haven't even bothered to turn off the wifi on my Plusnet router; must get round to that. I need to look up how to log in to it.

It'd be worth doing - the mesh system will be doing all kinds of automagixing to maintain it's own Wifi, and the old router still pumping out radio might be interfering.