Getting the best from UFB
Right router vital to get the speeds you’re hoping for
from people’s houses and small businesses, through nationwide backhaul circuits and nowplentiful overseas transmission capacity still leaves one missing link: inside the UFB-connected premises.
Long story short, adding a UFB connection to your house and not paying attention to how your devices connect to it will make you wonder if that fancy fibreoptic link was a waste of money.
It’s not, but keeping things humming nicely with a 200Mbps or faster UFB connection requires a bit of planning. Since nobody wants to use network cables any more — and you’ll be connecting multiple mobile devices anyway — WiFi is the broadband delivery medium of choice.
The first thing people notice is that the single ISP-supplied WiFi router probably isn’t going to be enough in many cases. This is especially the case if you have a 200sq m to 300sq m floor-space mansion — the signal won’t reach every bit of your house.
It might be tempting to upgrade your WiFi router from the local electronics megastore to fix the problem. They sell $800-to-$1000 alien headcrab monsters with big chunky aerials that look straight from the worst of ’80s design.
The extra aerials and increased power might help a bit, and newer WiFi routers have refinements that make them work better with multiple devices sending and receiving traffic at the same time.
Nevertheless, unless all your devices support the latest and greatest tech baked into the big expensive WiFi router, you’re throwing money away.
The radios in the WiFi router and the device need to talk to each other the same way, or they’ll drop down to older, slower standards.
If you have a big house, look into a mesh WiFi system like Google’s or an equivalent from vendors such as Ubiquity.
Not only do they look less outrageous, but they’ll cost less and work better, joined up with each other as a single network.
Of course, if you’re a poor soul still stuck on ADSL over copper lines, the above doesn’t matter.
Nothing will make your internet connection go faster besides a technology switch.
Why am I saying all this? I’ve heard from people who’ve been sold expensive gear as a fix for bad in-house network coverage, by ignorant and unscrupulous store owners who don’t understand how technology works.
ISPs could do more to help and supply more suitable routers — the internet is still end to end, and good connections start at the premises.
Still though, working out how to get hundreds of megabits per second to each part of your dwelling is quite a nice first-world problem to have. Just don’t tell. Term Rates correct as at 22nd April 2017. ACU is proud to be a registered NBDT with the Reserve Bank of NZ and is not a registered Bank. A Product disclosure statement is available from