Tech Help

I generally just use ebay or amazon for replacement batteries. They can be a bit hit and miss, but mostly work. Most are after market generic cheap manufactured batteries. Getting a legitimate manufacturer produced battery is generally a lot more expensive, and not much less hit or miss (and what looks like one, might often not be one).

I shop on price, and suck it and see....you are normally looking around £25-30.

Don't buy used batteries.

How is the "internet coming in the wall"?

What do you want to be able to do at the extreme of your internet connection? Have four people stream 4k movies and/or online game....or have one person connect to social media? Or something else?

The answer is always to run a cable from the router, to a switch or access point where you need it.

Unless you can't.

Some data:

The only speed review for wifi on that device that I can find is:

5Ghz = 60% of 500mbs throughput (ie 300mbps which is equivalent to 0.0366 GB). This is close to the router, no obstacles.

2.4GHz - no data, 2.4ghz is better through walls and at long distance, though significantly slower (greater than a factor of two). There is a suggestion that the aerial array is optimised for 5Ghz. That wont make 5Ghz go through obstacles better...it will just allow it to operate on more marginal signals by being more sensitive. At that end of things it's going to do a lot worse than the optimal figure.

If we assume that 80% of line speed is achievable through the switch (which I would estimate to be on the reasonable/conservative side - the hardware in these is know to be 'fast' for consumer routers), that makes line speed (cable) more than 20 times faster than optimal wifi speed. That is to the router - obviously the router can only push data down the pipe at the rate that your pipe supports. That is a FTTP (ie fibre all the way, from house to exchange) so the limitation on speed over the wire is likely to be contractual, more than technical - although this is a full fibre asynchronous (download several times faster than upload - it is designed for you to be a data consumer, not data provider).

Some factors that cause radical drop in wifi speed:

Bridge or 'Booster' wifi/mesh - These techniques can allow a signal to reach where they otherwise couldn't ('booster' on the limit of 'access point' range...then allows a device outside 'access point' range to see the 'booster' and talk to the access point via that. This has an obvious immediate problem. The 'booster' has to receive the data from the device, and pass it to the 'access point' (or vica versa). Both actions require the same amount of wireless traffic. This action can therefore only ever happen at half the available wifi throughput of the 'booster' to the device. Less if the 'booster' to 'access point' has lower throughput...or indeed the internet connection for that matter (though this is almost never the culprit). This team is only ever half as fast as it's slowest member. No faster is possible.

Contention - if more than one person is trying to push or pull data at one time, this detracts from the individual data throughput available - this shares the maximum throughput with the requesting parties. So if two devices were trying to pull data from a 'booster' connection at the same time then each individual device would only see a quarter of maximum throughput (losing a half to the other device, and a half to the booster duplicating traffic to pass it down the chain). In this specific case that would be at least 80 times slower than a wired connection - because a correctly wired cable can operate in a duplex mode and does not have to transmit the information twice to it's target. This might not be a problem if the devices are sending the occasional email. It is highly likely to be a factor if one or both of the devices are streaming video.

Interference - with wifi if someone near by turns on a device operating on the same channel, or boils a cup of water in a microwave, the likelihood is that your maximum throughput will plummet.

Propagation - 5Ghz is twice as fast as 2.4Ghz. 5GHz doesn't really go through walls or ceilings very well...any direct line of site path between access point and router that involves traversing walls or ceilings will likely quite soon cease to work for 5GHz. It wont be very good with 2.4Ghz either (it will be attenuated - ie your throughput aka bandwith will significantly drop).

You might want to go and load something like this wifi analyzer onto your phone. Then move the access point about, and look at the effect on the signal where you want your device to operate from - bear in mind that not all the neighbouring wifi channel devices or microwaves will be operating at all times. It is not unknown for a good signal to be available during the day, but any sort of signal at all be impossible at night. Or vica versa. Or never. Or allways. It is impossible for me to know. you have to look at your specific circumstances. To get optimal wifi performance approaching that of the speed of your internet connection you probably would have to be in the same room as your router, and quite close to it. To be honest I'd still connect to the router with a cable in those circumstances (unless I was doing something light, like that email, or writing this interminable diatribe), because it would be more stable, not prone to interference, and twenty times faster.
All of these considerations must also be made for wired (cable) connections. Except:

Operating within cable spec, terminated with appropriate switches, and with a router capable of managing the throughput (at least in excess of your internet connection), there is no need to consider interference or propagation (the cable and wiring is in spec) nor will the switch add a bridge/booster effect (it's in spec). If you cabled properly, had a switch/router that supported 10Gbps (you haven't) - in which case you could run 200 times faster up to 100m away on a cable. Which aint happening ever on wifi.

You could run a cable temporarily, and coil it up and stick it behind the sofa when not in use.

Always cable. Unless you can't.

Generally if I am out and about working on a laptop my preferences, in order are:

1. Run a cable if wired socket available.
2. Connect to portable mobile broadband (even if that's just my spare mobile, running as a hotspot, immediately next to my laptop - sometimes connected by usb).
3. Try to use the wifi, if available, most likely end up giving up.

If you can't cable...really can't cable, then you might need to find a longer cable from your wall socket to your router (access point) and in conjunction with your mobile wifi analyzer optimise the position of your router for the location you need a device to work optimally from. Don't measure and then sit in the line of sight of the device to router. Human bodies are excellent wifi screens (think also about people sitting in the line, or walking through the line, and maybe sneak into people's houses within a 100m radius and take the fuse out of their microwave plugs).

Given that most people are consumers they are most likely to shop on price, not facility. All of those may possible FTTP clients also means lots of backend required at the exchange to serve more throughput, which just isn't there. so there's no point offering an upgrade to a service that can't be delivered....would require putting a lot more backhaul in that requires more investment in both terminating and authenticating equipment and switchgear but also backbone connection to main network trunk entry points.

Bottom line - they can make more money out of milking the existing provision and customers, with no further investment, while selling FTTP at a premium to a small number of customers (minimise investment, maximise return)....which will continue to be seen as an elevated premium service while it is not ubiquitous. Yet more evidence that the market will provide.