Question BT Infinity vs Virgin Media

WazKayani

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Guys
Difficult one but I'm stuck between a rock and hard place. Currently with BT Infinity 2 (70Mb+) and service has not been great esp on wireless. I put it down to the HH3 and now HH5 hubs. Have just signed up with Virgin for 100Mb and rang BT to cancel (and after 3rd time of asking), they have now pretty much matched the price.

I have an old house and signals are never great so have some powerlines in place, however I plan to install my own wireless/router to improve WiFi.

Question - is it worth the hassle of moving to Virgin? is the BT Superhub super? Any pro/cons which you can help me with? I have about 10 days in which I cancel my Virgin contract if required.

Thanks in advance.
 
Re-signing with BT should get you the new Smart Hub (HH6).
It's supposed to have improved wireless, I've had one for a few months now but as I've never had a problem with the Wi-Fi on any of the Home Hubs it's hard to tell.
Most reviews say it is better.
 
1 thing that could swing towards BT, upload speeds. infinity 2 has up to 20mb/s, Virgin is around 12Mb/s
 
Be sure to understand that the quality of your Wi-Fi links is nothing to do with your Internet service - they are entirely separate distinct "things" - the two aren't dependent on each other, although your experienceoo of using Wi-Fi to access the Internet is of of course affected by both.

Wi-Fi transmit power is limited by law and most things are, and always have been, at or close to the permitted max. - it's about 1/10th of a watt, hardly a difficult thing to achieve.

Different routers tend to be "different" rather than intrinsically "better" - notice how they vendors never define what "better" means in any objective or measurable way. Though of course, latter kit is more likely to have the latest versions of the protocols (AC for example) or maybe more antenna, (faster) "dual band" etc. etc. You really need to delve into the detail of the specs to see what the differences are (and whether your clients can take advantage for them.)

By definition, how can every vendor's router be "better" than everyone else's. It's a logical fallacy.

If you have Wi-Fi coverage issues, by far the best and most VFM way to "fix" them is to put up multiple hotspots and create a "cellular" coverage pattern rather than do a "forklift" change of your existing router with some (mythical) "uber-router" that has so much "stronger" signal than all the rest. "Stronger" routers/AP's simply don't exist for reasons discussed.

The "trick" is how you establish the "backhaul" link from the outpost hotspots to your router. "Proper" ethernet connections are best, HomePlugs are (usually) next best, Wi-Fi backhaul is possible, but it's least preferable as it can clobber the throughput (speed.)

Since you are familiar with HomePlugs, you might care to consider either replacing you existing HP's with HomePlugs/Wi-Fi combo devices or adding such things to the existing fleet.
 
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