"Fire3500, post: 1503351, member: 27950"]It's Openreach now, not BT. Yeah - they are a different company now - “honest - it’s not us - it’s openreach, our hands are tied” We have hundreds of circuits and I have learned to hate them whatever they are called!
Hah, in fairness to them they give BT retail as hard a time as they give any other operator. What you want, if you want to really get your dander up is to order leased circuits from Vodafone or Virgin Media... you've more chance of getting a Norton on time! ;p
We have the from everyone! And they are all shit - we have even tried to contract the whole thing out so we don’t have to deal with any of them - and the Third Party is shit too! Sigh
The reason why I stuck with BT is because the all plant in this area is all so old and crap (except the FTTP stuff to that business I mentioned) that whenever there was a problem with my service, I could get BT here pretty quickly to sort it out (that might because many years ago we had a terrible service for at leas three years.....having made enough noise I eventually got someone in the Chairman's Office to step in.....he got it rectified and refunded all our BT bills for those three years). Even Open Reach appear to attend to problems very quickly around this area......I recently saw them messing about on a long section of overhead which I suspect serves the FTTP to the business. They spent two days on it, replacing cables etc. But neither mine or my neighbours service went down. If I log a complaint, I usually have Open Reach overhead or underground teams here the next day. I learned a long time ago that 'split responsibility' doesn't pay off, so if I had say a TalkTalk package and a fault developed you can imagine the bollox that would get spouted by both TalkTalk and Open Reach..... 'Nothing to do with us try ********* instead'........ Part of my background was to produce road designs to include statutory authority (ancient ain't I?) / services providers distribution layouts for developments regardless of size. So I know what the ducts and boxes etc were for and partly what went inside them....but that is where my knowledge ends with regards to how the phone side worked.....electricity, gas and water is/was much simpler.
TrialNick has kindly sent me another piece of equipment, so once I have got my head around all the gubbins of what I can and can't use, I will hopefully be able to get wifi into the dead area and outside. It isn't so much as getting all the settings sorted but where to situate things and what plugs into what.......
Hi lads, Sorry to be away for a while......got myself a nasty bug simply visiting a relative in hospital. Nearly ended up in there myself. Anyway, here is an update. Got it all working for two days...great improvement to the wifi range where I needed it, although it can be a bit slow which I suspect may be because the powerline adapters are on different ring mains. However, it may also be the BT Hub, so I am going to try the TP Link router instead becase I have managed to resite the router location. Unfortunately something cropped up on Christmas Eve.......the wired house alarm system threw a wobbly, probably because it is 20 years old and the only time any servicing got carried out was when the backup battery failed. Either that or a rodent has had a go at the wires. Inside the alarm panel there are signs of overheating so I think it is time a new system was installed. This is why the improved wifi has only been used for two days, because a complete rethink on how to do the alarm is necessary and I reckon wireless might be the way and I will have to move bits and pieces around to accommodate a new system. After 20 years I have only just come to the conclusion that an alarm with a sensor in every room (meaning quite a few) only works when an intruder is already in. Pretty pointless now IMO. So I am considering cctv as I will only need 3 to tell me if there is a snooper about and the wifi will all depend on what system I go for. The daft thing is that I have a brand new Ring Doorbell but after 30 times of trying to get it set up, I'm almost ready to chuck it in the bin. It simply will not pair with my phone despite altering all necessary settings on the phone. But it is another reason why I will try the TP Link router instead of the BT Hub. Back later. AL
Do you have VPN software on your phone, Al? I had to jump through burning hoops of fire to get a similar system paired with my phones.
No, don't have it. Reminds me of Norton on PCs. I actually got it working today. I think the problem may have been to do with piss poor Ring wifi network, seemed to last as long as the digital Freeview tv signal drop out over the whole of East Anglia for three days.
Think I could draw with both of you for rural area - but we can’t get a decent internet connection and have moved to EE 4G router - works a treat more expensive but works
Chopping and changing routers around.....the TP Link one is a bit better now I have raised it up. Might put it on a high level shelf which would be OK apart from the damn wires hanging down. I have worked out that I can protect the house with two security cameras (three max) and not even use the Ring Doorbell at all. All should be within range of the router. Want to avoid any subscriptions if I can help it, though. It would also be nice to find out if or how a camera used internally can detect external movement.....a low cost camera that is.
EE4G is a subsidiary of BT......the router's guts will probably be the same as wot is in the BT Smart Hub.
They should be fine indoor to outdoor during daylight but once the ir switches on after dark they reflect back off the glass internally and all you can see is glare , can be minimised by placing the cam at an angle to the window but not completely eliminated
Hi AL A few comments on recent posts: “although it can be a bit slow which I suspect may be because the powerline adapters are on different ring mains” Test your internet speed from a laptop directly plugged into the powerline adaptor and compare with the same test on WiFi to isolate which is the bottleneck. If it’s the powerline adaptor then a more modern version may cope better with your wiring - if you order from Amazon you can always send them back if they don’t work. You can also improve connectivity by ensuring all of the wiring terminals are nice and tight - then can work loose over time in older houses. “...the router's guts will probably be the same as wot is in the BT Smart Hub.” No - while the standard broadband Router from EE is just a rebranded BT Smart Hub, the 4G router is completely different. The Smart Hub has greater range and functionality, but in lots or rural areas the 4G option offers much faster speeds than a landline so it’s a better option if internet speed is of primary concern. @LordLoL is right about the IR problem with cameras - you need to site cameras outdoors if you want them to cover and detect motion properly. There’s a huge choice of options for CCTV - it all depends on what you are trying to achieve. You are going to need to get power to a camera whatever you choose, unless you want the hassle of changing batteries on a regular basis. So don’t rule out cheaper COAX based systems just because they aren’t the latest tech - in many cases they offer better results than IP based cameras. Lots of recent consumer cameras offer storage onboard using a memory card but additionally offer a cloud storage option. Alternatively you can get a full system that records video to an NVR or DVR locally, or a combination of any of the above. It’s all down to how much video you want to be able to store and whether you want to protect against that video being lost by uploading it to the internet. it’s pointless skimping in low resolution cameras if you want the chance of being able to recognise someone or read a car number plate so make sure you go for something that’s at least 5mp or 4K. Have you been looking at any camera’s in particular?
