Do WiFi Extenders have a deterimental effect on the performance of a Smart Hub?

[FlyingWolf]

Hi everyone, we moved our home broadband from Zen Internet to EE last September to take advantage of a bundle offer which significantly reduced the cost of our two mobile phone contracts. Hindsight is a wonderful thing! Since moving, we've experienced intermittent service levels and dropouts that in a nutshell have resulted in added WiFi Extenders, two home visits (one BT Open reach engineer looking at service to the house and an EE engineer looking at internal connections), a replaced Smart Hub 6 router, two partial ex-gratia refunds to reflect the poor service and umpteen calls to 150 and resultant chatbot conversations as a result. It's been a trying experience and we're at the point of cancelling our contract with EE and returning to Zen with whom we had a broadband superb service. 

The main point of posting was to ask if anyone knows whether EE WiFi Extenders have any negative effect on the performance of the Hub 6 router. We have the maximum three installed in what is not a particularly large two-storey house. As our router is located in an upstairs room, I've set-up a daisy-chain network of Extenders to reach a downstairs extension, to service PCs and laptops upstairs, a downstairs TV and ground floor based Sonos music system. The hub and extenders drop out several times an hour, usually for no more than a few minutes a time but enough to interrupt a video call, music stream or online game. Would I be better off reducing the number of extenders to just one downstairs? Is there any evidence to suggest that using the maximum number of extenders (three) for the £7 monthly cost actually makes things worse? 

Any thoughts appreciated.

[JimM11]

@FlyingWolf What did the EE Engineer say on the visit to check out your operation, personally would not daisy chain the Mesh Extenders but what method are you using to define that the daisy chain is effective in anyway?

The Extenders when you say they drop out what observation are you making that it is them actually doing so and not the device with the issue!

[Chris_B]

@FlyingWolf  the extenders can cause problems if they are too close to the router and then subsequently too close to each other.       You shouldn’t need to be using 3 maybe 1 at most in a 2 story house.  I’m not using any in my home and it’s just the router in possibly one of the worst locations you can have it below a fish tank.  No issues at all with drop outs.     also having a router close to an electrical appliance like a TV can also cause problems with Wi-Fi signals.  

[FlyingWolf]

Hi Jim, 'daisy-chain' is probably no more than a figure of speech tbh, referencing a virtual chain of three extenders from the router upstairs. I can see looking at the EE app that they are effectively independent of each other, with a 'family tree' effectively reporting to the parent hub. I was advised to use Extenders by various EE Guides I've spoken about the connection toon issues to since and I opted for the three units as it didn't involve any additional cost. The engineer who came to my house last Saturday (a contractor) immediately identified a problem with the main hub which has now been replaced, albeit as if this evening we still have problems. The hub flashes orange several times during the day - sometimes for a few seconds, other times for several minutes. The extenders generally flash blue when the hub flashes orange - possibly a delay in the disconnection. Having again spoke to a (very good) EE Guide this evening, we're being sent a back-up mobile hotspot hub although I don't really need it as I can use the data-eating hotspot on my smartphone within my Unlimited allowance. If the situation still hasn't improved by early next week, then we're going back to Zen Internet. EE CS are aware of that. 

[FlyingWolf]

Hi Chris - interesting. I've already removed one Extender having spoken to an EE Guide this evening. Based on what you've said (and yes we have a box-like 2-storey house), think we'll remove a second one, leaving just the one. Thank-you.

[JimM11]

@FlyingWolf There is not any tools in the EE Smart wireless for the Mesh setup on a system, you said daisy chain which implies that Router to extender to extender and onwards as a chained link, with node to node hoping, if that is not what you meant then ok.

Real mesh an real control via mesh!

[FlyingWolf]

So you're with Zen Internet Jim?

[JimM11]

@FlyingWolf No was with EE 11 months on a 24 month contract had enough and quit went back to sky Mar 2025!

[FlyingWolf]

Ah, ok.

[XRaySpeX]

"Zen" is part of the name of an Asus router, not the ISP.