4g mesh system

[martinF1]

I have a new EE 4g home router as BT line will not support anything above 7mbps. as i have a large house i want to set up a mesh system with BT discs. can this just be plugged into the router ethernet port? some suggest that the wifi part of the router be disconnected..is this required? I have been into the router system and it has separate buttons to disconnect 2.4 and 5GHz. being a bit of a ludite, will this do what I need and still leave ethernet port functional?

[Christopher_B]

Hi @martinF1

I hope you're well and having nice day, are you up to much or is it a chilled one? 

The best thing to do is have a chat with our home broadband team, they be able to look at your package and equipment and advise of the best set up for what you want to do. 

Thanks 

Chris

[martinF1]

Morning. I did call EE, who did a lot of teeth sucking then advised me to visit PC World and ask them. They could see little reason why it wouldn’t work. The opinion at EE was very much ‘we don’t sell the BT discs with the 4g hub therefore it might not work’. Hardly a straight answer. I was also told that a plug in extender was unlikely to work. I can confirm that it does. I look to be reduced to messing about with my router, turn off Wi-fi and hope the Ethernet port still works, at least I know I will be spending £300 at PC World on something that has a chance. 

[camy252]

Not sure if this is much help, but I use a Unifi AP/mesh system with my 4GEE and it works great.  I have a big house with solid walls so I needed something decent and reliable and was never impressed with the BT discs that my parents have.  I also never liked the wifi extenders as they dilute the connections quite a lot.

[martinF1]

Thanks, that does help a lot. At least it appears to be successful elsewhere. I called EE again, and everyone I speak to just does not seem to get what I want to do! The woman I spoke told me she has no idea what a mesh system is, and she could not advise me on a bt product. I understand this, but no one at EE seems to be able to say that you can, or cannot, plug a mesh extender into what is basically a normal router which happens to get its signal initially from 4g. Bloody annoying. Thanks for the Unifi tip, I will look them up.

cheers, progress being made slowly!

[camy252]

No worries bud, good luck with it.  I gave up on EE technical support when they couldn't explain to me what happens when you put a mobile sim into a 4g router.  Got conflicting answers and just went elsewhere for answers.  A bit concerning they didn't know what a mesh network was!

All I can recommend is you try buy the mesh/AP devices on Amazon, then you'll have 21 days to set it all up and run troubleshooting if you need to.  Then just return the items if you dont have any luck.

With my Unifi NanoHDs, the setup wasnt anymore complicated than using a regular landline router.  So from their point of view, I don't think they care where the internet comes from, after it leaves the ethernet/wifi antennas, its just a regular data signal and can be picked up by mesh/APs/Plug extenders etc.  I'm no expert btw, but had a great experience with the Unifi devices.

[martinF1]

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense to be honest and probably my way forward. So much conflicting advice, and no definitive answer from the experts. PC World won’t take these items back once opened, so Amazon is a great option. Cheers!