Wi-Fi is not the line

The most expensive broadband mistake in a British house is not the teaser. It is blaming the retailer for a radio problem. Wi-Fi is a local weather system: walls, neighbours, a hub in a metal cabinet, a child’s bedroom at the far end of a Victorian terrace. The line can be innocent.

A new provider cannot see through brick. They can only send a different bill to the same cupboard.

Wired is the truth

A test on a phone in the garden is a weather report. A test on a laptop next to the hub, with a cable, at 8pm, twice, is evidence. If that evidence matches the contract, switching provider is a very expensive way to buy a longer ethernet cable. If it does not, raise a fault with the evidence, then compare.

Mesh is furniture

Buy it if the house is long or the walls are proud. Do not buy it to fix a 20 Mbps copper pair. Do not let a retailer count mesh as a reason the gigabit was necessary. Radio is a local project. The line is a contract.

The ethernet sentence

One cable, one laptop, one test at the hub. If that number is the tariff and the sofa is not, you have a radio problem — cupboard, coats, 2.4 GHz, a TV. If that number is a third of the tariff, stop shopping mesh. The Hardware and Home pieces in this issue are the rest of the sentence. The line is the WAN. Say WAN when you mean WAN.