A huge share of the "my internet is broken" callouts we take from Craigmillar and the wider south-east of Edinburgh turn out to have nothing wrong with the broadband line at all. The line tests fine at the router. It's the Wi-Fi that's struggling — usually in the same back bedroom, the same upstairs office, or the same kitchen extension that's just out of reach. This guide walks through what's actually causing it, and the fixes that genuinely work versus the ones that look good on the box and disappoint in practice.
If you'd rather skip straight to a proper home survey, that's exactly what our networking and Wi-Fi team does on a callout — but most readers can fix at least half of this themselves with the steps below.
What a "Dead Spot" Actually Is
A Wi-Fi dead spot is a room or area in your home where the signal from your router is too weak or too noisy for a stable connection. The phone shows one bar but pages won't load. A video call stutters in the kitchen but works fine in the living room. It feels like the internet is broken, but the broadband line is happily delivering its full speed — your devices just can't reach it cleanly through the building.
Three things cause it almost every time: where the router is, what the walls are made of, and how much radio interference is in the way. Get those right and most "dead spots" stop being dead.
The Edinburgh Housing Pattern We See Every Week
This is the genuine pattern across Craigmillar, Liberton, Newington and a lot of the older Edinburgh stock. The Openreach master socket — where the ISP-supplied router lives by default — is almost always near the front door or in the front living room. From there the signal has to push through one or two solid internal walls (often the original lath-and-plaster on top of stone), past a microwave, past the next-door neighbour's router on the same channel, and into the back bedroom. By the time it arrives there's nothing left.
We had a customer in Craigmillar last month convinced their broadband was failing in the evenings. Five-minute survey: router was in a cupboard in the hall, behind the boiler, with two neighbours' networks on the exact same channel two metres away. Moving the router out of the cupboard and onto a shelf six feet higher — and changing one setting — fixed the entire problem with no new kit at all. No purchase, no install, just placement. Many of these are like that.
Step One: Move the Router Before You Buy Anything
The first thing to try is a setting change, no purchase required. Routers radiate roughly outward in all directions from where they sit, with thick obstacles eating signal in every direction the signal has to pass through. So:
- Get it out of any cupboard, alcove or TV cabinet. Metal and dense wood absorb a surprising amount.
- Raise it. A shelf at chest height or higher works better than a unit on the floor.
- Move it as central as the line will allow. If the master socket is at the front of the house, a short Ethernet cable along the skirting can move the router five or ten metres into a better position without re-running the phone line.
- Keep it away from microwaves, baby monitors and cordless phones. All three live in the 2.4 GHz band.
This single step solves more home Wi-Fi complaints than any product we sell, install or recommend. Try it before spending anything.
Step Two: Change the Channel (and Use Both Bands)
Modern routers broadcast on two frequency bands — 2.4 GHz (long range, slow, crowded) and 5 GHz (short range, fast, much less crowded). In a Craigmillar tenement or terrace, the 2.4 GHz band is often saturated with neighbours' networks competing for the same channels.
Two practical fixes. First, in the router's admin page (usually 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.0.1 — check the sticker on the bottom), look for "channel" under wireless settings and change 2.4 GHz to channel 1, 6 or 11 — whichever is least busy in your building. Second, make sure the 5 GHz band is switched on; many older ISP routers default to 2.4 GHz only. The 5 GHz signal won't go as far through walls, but it's far cleaner where it reaches.
Step Three: A Wired Backhaul Beats a Wireless Extender
This is the bit most guides skip. A single wired Ethernet cable from the router to a second access point in the dead-spot area is the most reliable fix for a serious dead zone — better than any wireless extender, better than most powerline kits. The signal arrives at the second point fresh, full strength, and on its own channel.
In an Edinburgh terrace or semi, that often means a flat Ethernet cable run along the skirting between rooms, or up through a corner from the living room to an upstairs landing. It's not glamorous but it works. If you're not comfortable with cabling, this is one of the things our home and office callout team handles in a single visit.
Step Four: Powerline Adapters — When They Actually Work
Powerline kits send the network signal along the house wiring. When they work, they're excellent. When they don't, they're maddening. The rule we've learned the hard way: they work well when both adapters are on the same ring main and the wiring is reasonably modern. They struggle when the upstairs is on a separate consumer-unit circuit, or when the wiring is old and noisy.
For a typical Craigmillar bungalow or maisonette they're usually fine. For a Victorian conversion split across two flats with separate fuse boards, mesh almost always beats powerline. Don't be afraid to try a kit and return it if the second adapter never sees a stable link.
Step Five: Mesh Wi-Fi — the Genuine Cure for Bigger Homes
A mesh system replaces your single router with a set of two or three units that talk to each other and present one seamless Wi-Fi network across the whole house. Devices roam between the units automatically. For anything bigger than a small two-bed flat, mesh is usually the right answer — particularly in houses with an upstairs, a kitchen extension, or a converted loft.
The key with mesh is placement. Each unit should be roughly halfway between the previous one and the area you're trying to cover. Two units one room apart wastes a unit; two units three rooms apart with a thick wall between them gives you two weak signals instead of one strong one. We size and place these as part of a survey on most of our networking callouts across Edinburgh and the Lothians.
When the Broadband Line Really Is the Problem
Occasionally — maybe one Wi-Fi callout in eight — the line itself is the culprit. If a wired test directly into the router shows speeds far below what you're paying for, or if everything drops simultaneously across every device at the same time of day, that's a broadband-side issue, not a Wi-Fi one. The fix there is a call to the ISP, sometimes with a router swap and occasionally with an Openreach engineer visit.
If you're upgrading your router or replacing an ISP-supplied unit, the old kit is electronic waste and shouldn't go in the household bin — we handle that through our IT recycling and e-waste disposal service, with data-bearing devices wiped before disposal.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions we hear from homeowners across Craigmillar and the rest of Edinburgh when Wi-Fi stops behaving.
- Will a Wi-Fi extender solve my dead spot? Sometimes, but they often halve the speed at the extended point and add a separate network name to remember. A mesh system or a wired access point is almost always a better long-term fix.
- Why is my Wi-Fi only slow in the evenings? Usually channel congestion — every neighbour gets home and switches on their own router. Changing your 2.4 GHz channel or moving devices onto the 5 GHz band is the first thing to try.
- Does the router's age matter? Yes. An ISP router from 2018 simply doesn't support the same number of devices a 2026 home throws at it. If you have more than fifteen connected things in the house, an upgrade is usually overdue.
- Do you cover homes outside Craigmillar? Yes — our networking team covers the whole of Edinburgh and the Lothians, including Easter Road, Newington, Musselburgh, and the rest of the city. We bring a meter and a survey kit, not guesswork.
Getting Reliable Wi-Fi Across the Whole House
Most home Wi-Fi problems aren't really hardware problems — they're placement, channel and layout problems with a hardware fix bolted on at the end. Work through the no-purchase steps first, in order. If you're still seeing a dead spot after moving the router, changing channels and trying a powerline kit, then mesh is almost certainly the right next purchase. And if you'd rather just have someone do a survey and set it up properly, our networking and Wi-Fi team covers Craigmillar and the rest of Edinburgh on standard callout terms. Book a survey online and we'll bring a coverage meter, not a sales script.
Last updated: 15 June 2026