Please be gentle with me here, I’m no IT/networking geek so all explanations need to be in everyday language. I am capable of going into the modem settings and changing things but need it explained simply!
I have V High Speed and great quality BB coming into the house and at the moment I have detached my Google Mesh Wifi. Currently my EE8 is hard linked direct to the Virgin Modem/router. I would like to set up some form of mesh though, AND have my EE8 linked direct to the modem as the sound is amazing like this.
My questions:
It seems that Google Mesh needs to be connected to the first LAN socket on the modem/router and then kills all the other LAN sockets. Is there any way of preventing this?
If Google Mesh doesn’t work, is there an alternative?
All the advice on here seems to be that letting the source signal go through the mesh first before reaching the switch will degrade the signal (Seems to make sense to me?) What are the thoughts on this?
Is there an obvious solution that I’m missing here? I do need to spread the wifi signal and the Netgear extender I’ve currently put in place feels clumsy and not a great signal.
Thoughts and advice welcome…
And I hope everybody is staying safe and keeping well. these are strange and tough times…
If you’re in the UK look at the BT Whole Home Wi-Fi mesh system. It works off one of the Ethernet ports on the router without interfering with any of the others and comes with a great control app.
Ideally you configure your Virgin router to modem mode, then anything you add to this can be setup as a router. You connect all your Ethernet devices to this router, as the Virgin hub is now just a modem. This may enable your Google MESH system to work correctly and provide the coverage you need.
Another good MESH system is the Netgear Orbi, providing it is the TRI-Band version, so the backhaul between nodes has its own dedicated channel.
The problem with the mesh box seems to be that it only has two ethernet ports. So if you put the Virgin hub into modem mode you then have one spare socket. The way round this is to get a good switch such as the Cisco 2960. Take a wire from that to the EE and use the EE just for the hifi, with everything else that needs a hardwired connection being plugged into the Cisco. The Cisco will cover the IGMP snooping and let the simple EE do its thing, isolated from stuff it doesn’t need.
The Virgin hub is a bit crap and really best as a modem. We have an AirPort Extreme as our router. There are three wires coming out - one to an EE for the hifi, one that goes to a cheap netgear for the computer and printer, and one that feeds the Virgin TV box. The Extreme goes all the routing stuff and because it does IGMP the simple EE works well. I’m not technical but understand that the IGMP is important. Mr Google can tell you more.
Why would the number of boxes the streaming signal goes through have any effect? Your broadband connection will already have passed over hundreds of boxes! Placing the Virgin hub in modem mode means the broadband data is passed directly to the connected router, which will be the main device now dealing with the signal.
The Netgear Orbi have 4 ports, so allow more flexibility than other solutions. They may also be placed in access point (AP) mode, if you decided to keep the Virgin hub in router mode.
Note: The BT MESh system will create a new network that may then give issues when trying to access devices connected to the other Virgin Hub Ethernet ports!
Simply switch the Wi-Fi functionality on the existing router off and rename the network in the BT mesh to have the same name and password as the router Wi-Fi network. That way no devices need to be reconfigured and should prevent any problems.
Why should it cause problems with the Ethernet ports on the Virgin router? On my router I have 4 ports: one to the BT mesh system, one to my NAS, one to the Sky+ box and one to the TV. no problems at all
BT Whole home installed and working brilliantly. Running In parallel out of Virgin BB router with EE8 and and other netgear switch for all the other stuff as I wanted.
