Broadband for a Garden Office

With working from home now more common than ever, many people have transformed their garden sheds into an office. It means you have a work area at home that can be free of the distractions inside the main building. However, as you’re a little further away from your Wi-Fi router, you might find internet access is an issue.

Luckily, it is possible to have a good connection in your garden without spending much money.

Photo credit: Pixabay

It’s unlikely that you need to upgrade your broadband if you already have fibre optic internet.

Even an entry-level fibre broadband package will deliver around 30Mbps, and that’s a comfortable minimum speed for most households.

However, the ideal speed will depend on what your work entails and how many other people may be using the broadband simultaneously. Even if you already have a decent fibre service, you might want to look into a higher-speed connection. This doesn’t have to cost a lot of money, and you may be able to transfer to a faster package with your current provider. It’s usually the cheapest way to upgrade your broadband and the easiest, too.

If you can’t get a better package deal or you don’t like what they’d be charging you, you can switch providers. Use a postcode checker on a broadband comparison site to see what deals are available in your area. You can see what deals are available for the speed you need and go from there.

It is worth considering an upgrade if you do not currently have fibre optic broadband. The older ADSL broadband (which has an average speed of around 10Mbps) can be acceptable for work but will struggle if you share the connection with anyone else in your household. It is also poorly suited to certain activities, like high-definition video streaming and large file downloads.

If your speeds are good enough in your house and you still can’t get a decent connection in your garden office, you will need to look into a way to strengthen your wireless connection or extend your home network.

Wi-Fi boosters

The cheapest way to improve the reach of your internet is to buy a Wi-Fi extender or booster. An extender will boost the distance your WI-Fi can reach, but the speed of the connection can be much slower than a direct connection to the router. Also, depending on how far your garden office is, you might need to spend more to get a booster that can be used outdoors.

Mesh Wi-Fi

An alternative to boosters is Mesh Wi-Fi. A Mesh network features multiple ‘nodes’ which can be placed throughout the house and the office. This can bring fast Wi-Fi to every corner of your home much more effectively than an extender. But mesh kits are expensive and can be a little more complex to set up. And once again, getting it out to a garden office may involve additional costs if you need to install a mesh node that is rated for outdoor use.

Wired network

For the fastest and most reliable connection, you should look into installing a wired network by running an ethernet (network) cable from your router into your office. This will give you the same broadband speed as you get in the house and will be much more dependable than Wi-Fi.

This is a job you can tackle yourself, but it does require some DIY and technical knowledge. If you’re not keen to take it on you can ask an electrician or network specialist to carry out the work, but that will come at a price.

Powerline networking

Another option is to buy a powerline networking kit. This allows you to transfer data over electrical circuits, creating a wired network without having to install any new cables.

The kit will contain at least two adapters with ethernet cables; plug one into a socket near your router and connect them using an ethernet cable. You then take another adapter and insert it into a plug socket in your garden office, at which point you can connect it directly to your computer or attach a Wi-Fi access point.

However, this will only work if your house and office are on the same electrical circuit. The speed of the powerline network will also not be as good as a proper wired network. And you might find that it’s somewhat unreliable, so the adapters may need to be rebooted from time to time.

Mobile broadband

Our final suggestion is that you could invest in mobile broadband to give your home office its own dedicated connection,

You will get internet through a dongle or a Wi-Fi router, but this will be a mobile internet service. That will mean that the data may be limited depending on the contract you choose, and might not be as fast as you’d like if you can’t get 5G. A 4G signal could be sufficient, but it is likely to be slower than fibre broadband. However, 5G can be very fast, with speeds of more than 100Mbps.

But if you can get a good network signal, and your office is some way from your house, this might be ideal compared to the hassle or expense of expanding the coverage of your home broadband.

It can be difficult to get a good connection when your office isn’t inside your home, yet broadband internet is vital for modern home workers so this is something you need to get right. But there’s almost always a solution, and the methods outlined above should cover most situations.

Consider what kind of budget you can put toward this project, and take some time to look into what methods could work best for you. Not all of these options will work for every person, so weigh up the complexity and cost of each and choose the set up that will best fit your home office needs.

Published in: Home advice | Author: Alex