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The "thing" in the cupboard isn't a router, it's a (sort of) modem - though on fiber it's probably the voice service termination also - essentially for voice it's the digital to analogue converters that would have been "the other end" of your line in the exchange when you had a copper analogue circuit plus the digital (Internet) service presentation. I'll bet there's two wires hanging out of it, one for analogue phones and one for Internet.
So you'll need a separate router wherever you locate said router.
The connection between modem and router will be over ethernet (over UTP cable) and ethernet can be run up to 100m within standards - if your cable is good enough it may go even further. Ethernet does not "degrade" with distance, it's exactly the same (speed) at 1m or 100m so you have lot's of scope to experiment with positioning your router if you install a long enough cable between the service presentation/modem and your router.
Unlike some ISP's, BT used to be cool about whether you used their router or not. Many people report that BT's later routers are actually rather good, hence we suggest you try it for a few weeks and experiment a bit with positioning before deciding whether you need something "better." I'd give it a week or two in each position, not just stick it in for five minutes and walk around with a client "counting bars" unless it's truely dreadful. Wi-Fi is incredible fickle and can vary from minute to minute.
Wi-Fi transmit power is limited by law and most kit is, and always has been, at or close to the permitted max. There's no magic "uber-router" out there with "much better signal" than everyone else's because it simply isn't allowed by law. In any case, Wi-Fi is two-way radio like walkie-talkies not one-way radio like television. If you were to "fix" a poor service by making one transmitter louder, it would make little difference unless you could also make all the clients (phone, tablets, laptops,) louder too. Think of it in terms of sound. If you cannot hear someone in another room and you give them a megaphone, one cannot maintain a conversation unless you get you get a megaphone too. The solution to poor Wi-Fi is to get the communicating peers closer together with unobstructed line of sight (again think of sound - if you can't hear someone, you move closer to them,) which usually means putting up additional Access Points (AP's) closer to where the clients are. On big sites we put up hundreds.
So experiment a bit with router positioning as has we've suggested, but if it doesn't provide a good enough Wi-Fi service, come back a talk to us and it's possible the best solution (including best VFM) would be some additional AP's closer to wherever you do most of your Wi-Fi'ing. |
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2-12-2019 04:55:56
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