topic Re: Devices connected to booster in Broadband

Devices connected to booster

Twbr96 — Sun, 11 Aug 2024 19:26:27 GMT

I have sky giga fibre that works great, though when both me and my girlfriend are working from home my office in the furthest end of the house suffers a bit.

ive got a booster to assist with this but once its on every device in the house connects through the booster rather than router, ultimately slowing everything down as it'll only allow up to 250mbps.

is there a way to choose which devices connect via the booster? I thought it was automatically off of the best signal, but when my mobile/games console and sky glass are connecting to the booster when I'm in the same room as the router it doesn't make sense.

Re: Devices connected to booster

Chrisee — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 06:34:57 GMT

@Twbr96 Devices will always connect to the strongest wifi signal which if they are physically closer to the booster will be that unit which will often be slower if its a "booster". A booster operates as a relay which can only deliver 50% of its connection bandwidth to the router - the other half is used for the backhaul traffic between the booster and the router.

If you really require higher speeds than 250Mb/s, which in practice is highly unlikely for 95% of business and leisure apps, then you need to change the booster for a mesh network solution ideally a triband system thst uses a third signal for backhaul activity. Sky's WiFi Max bundle is a triband system when the extenders Sky provide are in use but the extenders themselves are WiFi 5 devices so top out around 600Mb/s. You can buy multiple thitd party whole home wifi mesh systems if you prefer.

As pointed out above before spending money consider what if any apps beyond speedtests are impacted by your current speeds as few apps can use 100Mb/s let alone need higher speeds.

Re: Devices connected to booster

Twbr96 — Mon, 12 Aug 2024 06:42:27 GMT

Appreciate the response Chrisee,

that's exactly how I thought it worked, which is why I'm confused by the devices close to the booster running at around 480-550 mbps are then choosing to connect to the booster that's at the other end of the house when it's turned on.

the moment it is on every device in the house switches to it that brings the speed up for those in close proximity but slows everything else down like the sky glass and mobile devices.

Re: Devices connected to booster

Jamie77777777 — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 16:49:42 GMT

Did you ever get a fix for this? I'm having the same issue

Re: Devices connected to booster

Twbr96 — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 17:04:40 GMT

Sadly not, an engineer visited and stated that all devices will continue to connect to the booster so my speeds are better by just not having it on at all!

so the solution was to just not have a booster.

Re: Devices connected to booster

Twbr96 — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 17:05:49 GMT

Sadly not, an engineer visited and stated that all devices will continue to connect to the booster so my speeds are better by just not having it on at all!

so the solution was to just not have a booster plugged in at all.