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Switching broadband provider, any thoughts?

Well I promised the kids better speeds for their PS4's and now they're moaning at me that the ping is worse :confused:.

The Vhub is in the same place as the BT Homehub 6 was, so can't really blame the walls.

I could put ethernet cables all round the house, easiest and neatest way would be on the outside of the house, but can I really be bothered jist to please 11 year olds? I get my kicks from playing pinball so it doesn't bother me that much :D.

For the sake of £30 might as well try the powerlink option, not expecting miracles from reading the previous posts.
 
Just watch out on ubiquiti if you use sonos or sky - ubiquiti have an asshat RSTP default cost - this can mean even if you have a wired connection it will route your traffic thought the Sky mesh or sonos mesh. Also be careful of the cloud controller doing stupid things on the wan side IP if you use the security gateways as a router.

Cheers.
Neil.


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Are you still using Sonos on mesh??? It's all WiFi now, isn't it? I got rid of my bridge ages ago....
 
Well I promised the kids better speeds for their PS4's and now they're moaning at me that the ping is worse :confused:.

The Vhub is in the same place as the BT Homehub 6 was, so can't really blame the walls.

I could put ethernet cables all round the house, easiest and neatest way would be on the outside of the house, but can I really be bothered jist to please 11 year olds? I get my kicks from playing pinball so it doesn't bother me that much :D.

For the sake of £30 might as well try the powerlink option, not expecting miracles from reading the previous posts.

Thats the Virgin media peak time advantage ;)

I did warn you ;)


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Are you still using Sonos on mesh??? It's all WiFi now, isn't it? I got rid of my bridge ages ago....

Sonos works on mesh whether you use the sonos bridge or not- the bridge was designed so you can get the best connectivity to the first sonos device between the rest of your network and sonos and sonos came out before we decided soending proper money on wifi was the right thing to do

http://192.168.XX.xxx:1400/support/review

Replace the XX with an IP of one of you sonos boxes then click the network matrix link - you’ll get a picture similar to this.

c2a963f3cce971a54debc0c7f568ba35.jpg

If you are using high bit rate music or multichannel the connectivity matters, seen few cases where a wifi only install can’t do lag free multi-room multichannel.

The issue I mention above arrises when you have more than one sonos box directly connected to ethernet, the spanning tree costs sonos’ use are way lower than ubiquiti’s default so traffic trombones sonos or as in my case sky to a box that was only connected via sky’s Q mesh from my pinball room to my garden lounge at 8Mb/sec. Given I have a 40Gb/sec link from the Internet to my house that made it go a bit slow.

The other advantage of the sonos bridge is keeping the sonos stuff in a secure partition.... (go on i dare you to google sonos security vulns ;))

Cheers,
Neil



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Sonos works on mesh whether you use the sonos bridge or not- the bridge was designed so you can get the best connectivity to the first sonos device between the rest of your network and sonos and sonos came out before we decided soending proper money on wifi was the right thing to do

http://192.168.XX.xxx:1400/support/review

Replace the XX with an IP of one of you sonos boxes then click the network matrix link - you’ll get a picture similar to this.

c2a963f3cce971a54debc0c7f568ba35.jpg

If you are using high bit rate music or multichannel the connectivity matters, seen few cases where a wifi only install can’t do lag free multi-room multichannel.

The issue I mention above arrises when you have more than one sonos box directly connected to ethernet, the spanning tree costs sonos’ use are way lower than ubiquiti’s default so traffic trombones sonos or as in my case sky to a box that was only connected via sky’s Q mesh from my pinball room to my garden lounge at 8Mb/sec. Given I have a 40Gb/sec link from the Internet to my house that made it go a bit slow.

The other advantage of the sonos bridge is keeping the sonos stuff in a secure partition.... (go on i dare you to google sonos security vulns ;))

Cheers,
Neil



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Every day is a school day!
 
Intresting…. Thinking about it with it being a mesh it's a fair use of STP, the problem being its good to know its switched on (to be fair this may be documented somewhere)!

You could put the Sonos equipment in a separate VLAN and then have a L3 switch which would mean no traffic bound for anywhere else than the Sonos network would end up on that segment.

Personally I have a real issue with manufactures making things too easy to configure and glossing over the details as it makes introducing potential risks without realising very easy - things like Smart thermostats which I've seen some friends get and rave about how easy they are and how you can control your heating from the bus with no idea how it works, but all this stuff has potential holes and you are at the manufactures mercy as to if they are fixed or not and yet these devices are sitting on a network with all your other devices, accessible directly from the internet, so there is a path into your network that you don't fully control...…
 
Well I promised the kids better speeds for their PS4's and now they're moaning at me that the ping is worse :confused:.

The Vhub is in the same place as the BT Homehub 6 was, so can't really blame the walls.

I could put ethernet cables all round the house, easiest and neatest way would be on the outside of the house, but can I really be bothered jist to please 11 year olds? I get my kicks from playing pinball so it doesn't bother me that much :D.

For the sake of £30 might as well try the powerlink option, not expecting miracles from reading the previous posts.
Powerline will beat the vhub's wifi for ping no problem - in my experience. In theory powerline should be worse but the vhub's built-in wifi is pretty darned rotten. I have few issues with my vhub using the wifi as absolutely sparingly as possible and using it as much for cabled ethernet only.
 
Intresting…. Thinking about it with it being a mesh it's a fair use of STP, the problem being its good to know its switched on (to be fair this may be documented somewhere)!

You could put the Sonos equipment in a separate VLAN and then have a L3 switch which would mean no traffic bound for anywhere else than the Sonos network would end up on that segment.

STP and VLAN's are for the foolish. The impact (failure) of complexity of both of these things always outweighs the use cases that claim they need it.

Neil.
 
STP and VLAN's are for the foolish. The impact (failure) of complexity of both of these things always outweighs the use cases that claim they need it.
Neil.

In a home environment? Yes, I'd agree 100%.
Hence I quite like the Ubiquit guest network tick box, it allows people to have segregation of devices without needing to worry about any of the complexities, just setup your guest network Essid, join your IoT and any visitors to that and done.

But on a larger scale network then VLANs certainly have their place, even if it is just to segregate walk-up users from the production network.
(Although I'd also generally have one for VoIP devices and another for infrastrucure management interfaces on devices)

STP has its place too, but it isn't something I'd enable unless the network topology was complex enough to warrant it.
I've seen some proper messes caused by people enabling it without fully understanding exactly what would happen.

Also, did you say 40Gbps to the house?! With anyone else I'd assume that was a typo - a perk of the job I assume ;)

This may have drifted from the original topic though!
 
In a home environment? Yes, I'd agree 100%.
Hence I quite like the Ubiquit guest network tick box, it allows people to have segregation of devices without needing to worry about any of the complexities, just setup your guest network Essid, join your IoT and any visitors to that and done.

But on a larger scale network then VLANs certainly have their place, even if it is just to segregate walk-up users from the production network.
(Although I'd also generally have one for VoIP devices and another for infrastrucure management interfaces on devices)

STP has its place too, but it isn't something I'd enable unless the network topology was complex enough to warrant it.
I've seen some proper messes caused by people enabling it without fully understanding exactly what would happen.

Also, did you say 40Gbps to the house?! With anyone else I'd assume that was a typo - a perk of the job I assume ;)

This may have drifted from the original topic though!

No, I have BT FTTP also (1G) but the 40G I built the fibre myself.


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I have Sonos around the whole house. The slowest Virgin media broadband I can get which is 100mb (up to 350 in my street). Tests at well over 100mb every time. Connections around the house being TP Link power line plus WiFi. Kids with phones, tablets, PlayStations, Netflix, Spotify etc etc using the line all the time and no problems at all. No slow speeds, drops or connectity issues.

I know the vhub 3 is not the best and my mate puts it in modem mode and connects via a decent router but I don't have any problems.

Have you downloaded a free WiFi strength meter for your phone and tested cold spots. Not rocket science but it can help.

Power lines do work but it depends on your ring (Ooo er) and they don't work well on spurs.
 
I have Sonos around the whole house. The slowest Virgin media broadband I can get which is 100mb (up to 350 in my street). Tests at well over 100mb every time. Connections around the house being TP Link power line plus WiFi. Kids with phones, tablets, PlayStations, Netflix, Spotify etc etc using the line all the time and no problems at all. No slow speeds, drops or connectity issues.

I know the vhub 3 is not the best and my mate puts it in modem mode and connects via a decent router but I don't have any problems.

Have you downloaded a free WiFi strength meter for your phone and tested cold spots. Not rocket science but it can help.

Power lines do work but it depends on your ring (Ooo er) and they don't work well on spurs.
 
No, I have BT FTTP also (1G) but the 40G I built the fibre myself.


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I'd be very interested in some details on what you've built and how that's put together....
 
Just watch out on ubiquiti if you use sonos or sky - ubiquiti have an asshat RSTP default cost - this can mean even if you have a wired connection it will route your traffic thought the Sky mesh or sonos mesh. Also be careful of the cloud controller doing stupid things on the wan side IP if you use the security gateways as a router.

It's actually OK connecting multiple Sonos but make sure they're all connected to the same network switch. I have five directly connected and hit this issue when I spread them around switches in the rack for resilience (though why I need resilient Spotify, I'm not really sure - force of habit).

UniFi switches are fine, like the Wifi but avoid the USG router as it is really quite poor. Far better routers are available for much lower cost - in fact pretty much any consumer grade Wifi/Router/DSL all in one is a better bet than the USG or USG Pro.
 
Martin Ubiquiti switches? If not you wont have this issue - if so then you are either lucky on topology or traffic is flowing thru sonos and you don’t realise it - it does work for about 100M of bandwidth.


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It's actually OK connecting multiple Sonos but make sure they're all connected to the same network switch. I have five directly connected and hit this issue when I spread them around switches in the rack for resilience (though why I need resilient Spotify, I'm not really sure - force of habit).

UniFi switches are fine, like the Wifi but avoid the USG router as it is really quite poor. Far better routers are available for much lower cost - in fact pretty much any consumer grade Wifi/Router/DSL all in one is a better bet than the USG or USG Pro.

Hmm thats crazy talk ;) they -are- fine but they use an asshat RSTP default fix that in config and its works fine- i have a sonos in my pinball room along with a load of other networking gear and sky q client on one switch the 10G fibre link back to my house connected to another.


Hmm what makes you say that on the USG? Its the only thing that I’ve tested that can take a multiG DDOS and still be able to log into it. I have one on my 1G FTTP running BGP to my 40G line which has a Nokia 7750 on it.

Cheers
Neil.


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Martin Ubiquiti switches? If not you wont have this issue - if so then you are either lucky on topology or traffic is flowing thru sonos and you don’t realise it - it does work for about 100M of bandwidth.


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No, not ubiquiti switches...
 
I deal with 7750’s daily (MSP/PE routers) and they aren’t bad.. quite a nice bit of kit in fact :)
 
An update on this, I tried the powerline adaptors and couldn't see much if any improvement, probably because of the ancient electric cabling in our house.

So I bought a Netgear XR500 Gaming Pro Router, not cheap at £233 on Amazon, but I was sold at "optimised for Fortnite". Kids are now happy so it was worth it for a stress free life.

Would recommend anyone with Virgin Superhub 3 with iffy wifi to get one like this and switch the hub to modem mode.
 
I deal with 7750’s daily (MSP/PE routers) and they aren’t bad.. quite a nice bit of kit in fact :)

They are superb. Wait until you see FP4.


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I guess that's just pretty much cancelled out any saving you made by switching in the first place then!
It will pay for itself before the year contract runs out with the rental I’m saving, and then I’ll still have a much better router than before and will still be paying less.
 
If that netfear is still working in a year I’ll eat a pie, but then again if it isn’t I’ll eat a pie also!


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I've been forced to use BT since FTTP first came available by Open Reach to my rural home (no-one else able to access/offer it) but get shafted for £55 pm for max 80Mb (ethernet speed test direct from hub) when it should be up to 150Mb. Customer service was shocking when first came out, now much better but they couldn't resolve last lot of technical problems (@Arv on here sorted that for me instead) and currently on my fourth hub since I started with them about 18 months ago. Always told something else is interfering with Wifi etc. etc, but soon as hub changed for a new one, back to normal.

Better than the 2MB I used to have..... but wish someone else like Sky could get access, never had a single problem with them for 18 months and still use their email system. Would move from BT as soon as able if I could..... sorry Neil.
 
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