New router - wifi pickup distance shorter!

[Anonymous User]

Hi.

Happy NOWTV customer for 5 years.

We originally had the upright nowtv box which worked fine. I could get wifi throughout the house and the limit seemed to be the back of the garden when  my phone wifi bar would be 1/5.

Since upgrading to fibre, they sent me the new style router with more of a flat design, and dual band. I guess that is better although only has two ethernet ports. The new router is giving notably shorter range, now 1/5 at the patio rather than the back of the garden. Also the distance in house is noticeably shorter. Devices struggle to communicate and it's a little frustrating.. is 5GHz faster but has a shorter range? Is this a typical new router performance?   I'm considering swapping back but that will be a bit of a pain.  Any advice gratefully received. I'm also considering phoning nowtv but with COVID, I dont think this issue is of any priority and would rather not clog up their phone line, and leave it for higher issues. 

[schnapps]

Hi @Anonymous User 

I have never used the Mark 1 Hub Router, but a couple of people reckon the wifi performance is better on the older Hub.

Personally i never had any Wi-Fi problems with my NowTV Hub 2 Router, where i have split the two Wi-Fi frequency bands by using these instructions below.

Your Hub Two is dual-band (2.4GHz and 5 GHz). Splitting these bands to create 2 different Wi-Fi networks can help to improve the speed to your devices. Here’s how to do it:

1. Open your web browser and enter "192.168.0.1” in the address bar.
2. Select Maintenance and enter “admin” and “nowtv” as the username and password.
3. Select Wireless and then 2.4 GHz Wireless Settings. 
4. Scroll down to “Wireless Access Point” and uncheck Synchronise 2.4GHz and 5GHz Settings.
5. In the ‘Name (SSID)’ box, Change the network name to distinguish it from the current network (e.g. add “_2.4G” to the current name). Select Apply.
6. Check the network name has been updated, and then select 5GHz Wireless Settings.
7. To be able to see easily which network is which on your devices, change the ‘Name (SSID)’ here too (e.g. add “_5G” to the current name). Select Apply.
8. That’s it. Select Logout at the top of the screen to exit.

In my setup i use the 2.4ghz band, though i live in a small village where the 2.4ghz band is not heavily clogged up.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for the advice. That's useful.

Just to say though, that speed is good - ethernet at least 32Mbps and wifi is similar. 

I do have the odd occasion when  a device has  no wifi access at all even at close distance but when turning wifi off:on seems to sort it.

It's more the distance that annoys me. In the garden in particular when the old router would reach fine, now the new router definitely struggles to reach that far. 

[schnapps]

Hi @Anonymous User 

Can't see no reason why you can't use the old NowTV Router if you wish.

My Mate was using the old Sky Router (clone of the NowTV Hub mark 1) on Sky Fab Fibre and it worked for him.

[Anonymous User]

Just to note, these new routers seem to get warmer than the old