Sky Broadband for a garden office

[Lilyarchie1981]

Hi,

We have just moved over from BT broadband to Sky, I have a garden office which I work in daily so when it was built we had a cable run from the main openreach box in the house to the garden office, we then had a BT router plugged in for wireless and I although I didn't need to as the wifi signal was good I could plug my laptop into the internet connection at the wall via a cable if needed. When purchasing Sky the sales guy said that the BT router would still work with the Sky main hub, however, now it has been activated, I can get only internet by plugging in but the router isn't working (I have tried pairing it with the hub) meaning my mobiles are just running off 4G. Should I be able to pair the BT hub or is it because I do need to buy a specific Sky one (was willing to but the Sales guy talked me out of it!!??)

[TimmyBGood]

@Lilyarchie1981 

You definitely don't want to be using a BT router once Sky is the ISP: by default that will be handing out IP configuration which isn't compatible with Sky Broadband.

In general, having a second router is usually inadvisable on a domestic network anyway.  The appropriate hardware for such a location is an ethernet switch and, if you want WiFi, a wireless access point (not a router)

A Sky wireless booster will act as an access point on the end of an ethernet link, but Sky won't supply one for that location even if you have a relevant subscription supplement.

[Lilyarchie1981]

Thank you for coming back to me, I was looking at Wireless Access points on Amazon, is there any particular one you would recommend?

[jamesn123]

@Lilyarchie1981 

Any should work really, it depends on what features you want and how much you want to spend. As long as you get an 'Access Point' and not a router you cant really go wrong.

[TimmyBGood]

@Lilyarchie1981 

Personally I use a TP-Link TL-WA801N as a cheap solution, but that's not a particular recommendation as they can be slightly glitchy to set up (technically TP-Link has decided to start shipping them with DHCP enabled by default, which is rather silly)

[Lilyarchie1981]

@TimmyBGood Thank you for the TP-Link recommendation - ordered yesterday on Amazon, arrived today and so far is working brilliantly!

[Robb0]

Sorry for hijacking this thread. I have a similar setup with an office at the end of my garden which is not in WiFi range of the main house. I have a powerline connecting and my old google router in bridge mode giving me WiFi in the office from the powerline.

Now my question - is it okay for the access point (in my case the google router in bridge mode) to use the same Ssid WiFi name as the house or should it be different.  There is a little overlap and sometimes my phone gets stuck when moving between the house and office when on different ssids. 

[jamesn123]

@Robb0 

Usually its fine to have the same SSID but as you've found some devices will hold on to a weaker signal from the other access point while you are closer to a different one. For this reason you may want to make the SSID different for the garden AP.

[Robb0]

@jamesn123  Many thanks for the response. Since my message I've been doing some experimenting. I found that with my devices that went back and forth from the house to the office (iPhone and iPads mainly) it was better for the access point to have the same SSID as the sky router. They switched over much quicker.  Separate SSIDs resulted in them holding onto the weaker signal for longer (but do eventually switch).