What is a Wi-Fi Mesh Booster?

What is Wi-Fi mesh?  

Wi-Fi mesh, sometimes called repeaters or range extenders, are small electronic devices that capture, amplify and extend the signal coming from your router. Think of them as a bridge between your router and the devices in your home. Mesh extenders give you stable and seamless connectivity, ensuring you get the speed you’re paying for. They’re especially great add-ons for family Wi-Fi, that gets used across all rooms of the house.

One thing that’s important to note though is that while mesh boosters can carry your router’s signal much further, what they can’t do is speed your internet up. To increase your internet speed you’ll need to upgrade your broadband package to something faster. For example, one of LightSpeed’s ultra-fast 5Gbps broadband packages designed to keep your home connected no matter how busy it gets.

What’s the difference between Wi-Fi mesh and a range extender?  

At this point, you might be thinking why can’t I just get a range extender and what’s actually the difference between Wi-Fi extenders and mesh?

Unlike mesh systems, Wi-Fi extenders typically work by creating a new network, that daisy-chains the signal from your main router to the specific part of the house that you need better signal. As this stretches the signal, speeds can reduce and performance can drop. So, while signal extenders can be helpful for specific dead spots in your home – mesh is far more effective at delivering reliable whole-home coverage with just a single network.  

Why might my router’s Wi-Fi signal not be able to cover every room?

If you’re struggling with coverage in certain parts of your home, it could be down to a number of reasons. If you’ve done everything you can and you're still finding it difficult to get Wi-Fi signal across your home, it may be time to think about Wi-Fi mesh. Here are some of the most common reasons your broadband service might be holding you back:

• Your home may be larger than average or spread out over several floors making it difficult for the router to send Wi-Fi signal across the entire home. This can be easily resolved with a Wi-Fi mesh booster!

• Your home has thick walls or older brick construction that may make it tricky for the signal to travel through them. Mesh Wi-Fi or range extenders could help signal travel easier from room to room if you’re experiencing this problem.

• You’re still using an older, copper connection to power your Wi-Fi as opposed to ultra-fast full fibre delivered directly to your door.

Will my current Wi-Fi set-up work with Wi-Fi mesh?

Whether you’re in a 4 bed family home, a smaller 1 bed apartment or anything above and in between, most of the mesh systems that are available today are compatible with any standard Wi-Fi router. They also use the same Wi-Fi frequency band as the router, 5 GHz, and can feed a range of devices at the same time.

Will mesh Wi-Fi work with my older devices?

Yes, again! Mesh is designed to work with most older, Wi-Fi compatible technologies. So any of your older desktops, laptops, gadgets and smartphones should be fine to connect with your new mesh system without any creating issues.

How do I get Wi-Fi mesh? 

As a LightSpeed customer, your engineer can advise you if you’d benefit from mesh Wi-Fi as part of your Home Setup Appointment and can even carry out the installation for you. If you’re setting up your own system, getting it up and running is usually quick and easy, and won’t need any drilling or installation of cabling. The real art of getting the right coverage is picking the right part of your home to place the mesh, which an experienced engineer can easily advise you on. Your mesh boosters will need to be close enough to the router to get its signal, but also near enough to the place where you’re trying to extend the coverage. Plus, they need a power supply, so they’ll need to be near to a socket. The router app will help you find the best location for your Wi-Fi mesh. It’s worth a bit of ‘trial and error’ to find the optimal place, and to make sure that the mesh booster isn’t being obstructed by things like large metal objects or cabinets that might block its signal.

 
The great thing about mesh systems is that once they’re installed and you’ve found the best place for them, you can leave them to run quietly and discreetly in the background and forget they’re even there.

Get your very own mesh Wi-Fi system  

At LightSpeed, we’re constantly thinking of new and creative ways to utilise the capabilities of our full fibre network to bring exciting and useful services to our customers. And you could be one of them. By popping your address into our availability checker, you can find out if we’re in your area yet.

Even if we’re not in your area yet, you can register your interest with us, and we’ll be in touch as soon as we’re on your street and tell you about our best broadband deals.