I got 99 problems but my WiFi ain't one

I guess there's a future proofing argument but I use it for getting solid wired internet for my office from my router and I really don't even need 1.1Gbps let alone 10x that with 6a etc. Didn't seem much point in going fancier.

Thanks, that's a sound argument. Will probably take the plunge this evening myself.

The only thing to be aware of is the bend radius on this stuff and that it’s covered in horrible Vaseline type goo.

When terminating, wet wipes are your friend. Given the strands a good wipe before crimping.

So it seems Community Fibre uses CGNAT which screws up port forwarding. Plex is the main problem here but I've got a few other things too.

Any suggestions how to get around this (equipment includes, but is not limited to, a Unifi router, an always-on PC, tailscale and a raspberry pi 4)? Looking for a solution that is invisible at the other end.

All stuff I can find online seem to be just a list of solutions but with no detail on how to actually put them into action so if anyone can point me in the right direction that would be great.

Apparently the 3gig service doesn't. Perhaps upgrade to that. An alternative would be to get a VM somewhere on the Internet and tunnel put to that to route incoming connections that way which is a bit of a PITA and also not free.

Ionos have a £1.20 per month VPS (so not free, but is cheap). The only real issue is needing to spin up another instance every now and then, as cloudflare is an arsehole.

Anyone got a cheap / basic plug-in WiFi extender going spare? Would be good to test in our workshop

We have one from mashton that's no longer required. In SE6

The forum provides. Thanks branwen & hoefla

The 3 gig service is almost double the price and I don't have anything that can make use of that speed.

@TW I keep seeing references to setting up a VPS and £1.20 a month is fine but struggling to find a dummies guide for it.

i have a process that I follow each time I set up a new VPS for tunneling that I can share with you - can be windows / linux clients, but needs to be a linux host.

Hyperoptic offer static IPV4 for £5 extra a month, I would assume Community Fibre do the same?

You have to be on a business package with Community Fibre to buy static IPv4

For all our home broadband services below 3000Mbps speed we use Carrier Grade Nat (CGN) technology to make efficient use of IPv4 addresses. Port forwarding is not possible through CGN and there are a tiny number of specialist use cases that might require this, typically to enable a direct connection from outside your home LAN to a service that you are running on it. If you want to make use of port forwarding then you will need to purchase or upgrade to our 3000Mbps home broadband services or any of our business broadband services.

Cheers, that would be useful. I've got a slightly less vague idea about it now than I had before but still having to try and piece it together.

@se1derful I've asked them and waiting for a reply but, as jellybaby says, it doesn't look likely.

Eep! Good to know for the future. I would be interested to know if you find a dummies guide to VPS (I was in the same boat with Hyperoptic a few weeks ago).

Works a treat thanks!

Hurrah!

Done!

On the remote access stuff this looks interesting too
https://tailscale.com/kb/1223/tailscale-funnel/

Inspired by TW's help I had a look at this VPS SSH tunnelling lark to get round round CGNAT blocking Plex (and other stuff).

It wasn't that complicated to set up on a basic level to get Plex going which was the main thing I wanted. Need to spend some time securing it a bit more I think and getting it to work with other stuff (Home Assistant being the main one) but it's doing the job for a quid a month.

Wondering if anyone far more knowledgable than me can help on something that is doing my head in currently.

We have a garden office that has Cat5 cable coming from the router in the house, in the office I'm using one of these: https://www.tp-link.com/us/home-networking/wifi-router/tl-wr802n/

It's set up as an access point, so when working or Zwifting we use the separate wifi connection transmitted from that dongle. Just ran a speed test and it's saying 72mbps D/L, 18.5mbps U/L. This seems like it should be fast enough for everything I need to do.

I have zero issues with this setup except in the last couple of months or so, whenever I am on Zoom I get issues with 'connection unstable' and me lagging/freezing so people often can't hear what I'm saying. Generally I can hear everyone else OK.

I am unsure what exactly could be the problem here, the various settings of this mini router aren't easy for me to make sense of. I'd appreciate any tips or suggestions on what to do in terms of troubleshooting, as I'm pulling my hair out a bit because like most people I spend a [un]fair amount of time on Zoom...

It sounds like it's an upload issue if you can hear other people fine. Does the speed test have any more information about line quality (ping, jitter etc?)?

Might be worth running the same tests in the house as well because it might be an issue outside your house rather than between house and office

Are you wired? Go wired and see if you still have an issue.

First obvious thing is to plug your laptop directly into the network cable in the garden office and see if the same happens. That can rule out the access point or not.

So with my limited knowledge and google I managed to get the 5G router in pass through mode and the 2 Linksys up an running though the Three 5G router app interface and software is shonky as hell, I had to reset the router to factory and while doing so had to give it a password which was different to that on the bottom of the device as it needed a #/special character so I gave it the same one but with the #. Surely it should default to what’s on the bottom label?
The Linksys don’t like blockwork/concrete though so had a few dropouts but moving the child node a bit to the right and it’s been stable and a good signal now all round the flat.

Now I need a small shelf/wall bracket for the router but the one Linksys sell while nice and neat appears to be for WH/01-03 series models and not the MX5500 series. A slightly less aesthetic solution from Amazon doesn’t fit as the clips to secure the node are too big and obviously for a bigger model.
Anyone found a neat solution for this? Preferably in white or grey?