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How to get broadband to a garden office

Why the wifi drops at the bottom of the garden, and the six ways to fix it, from a quick test to the option that just works.

Updated 23 October 2026

Why garden rooms get poor wifi

Distance is only part of it. The materials that keep a garden room warm also block radio signals. In tests by the Irish communications regulator, foil-faced insulation boards cut signal strength by up to about 55 decibels and foil-backed plasterboard by up to 45, while mineral wool and plain plasterboard made little difference. "Insulation materials with metallic layers tended to cause significantly more attenuation," the report found. Aluminium and uPVC window frames blocked more than hardwood ones.²

Those tests used mobile phone frequencies, not wifi, but losses rose with frequency, and wifi uses higher frequencies still.² Many garden rooms are insulated with foil-faced boards and some have metal cladding, so the room can lose much of the signal from the house. That's why the reliable answers bring the connection into the room by cable or put a transmitter inside it, rather than hoping the house router reaches.

How fast does it need to be?

Less than you might think. For a one-to-one video call, Microsoft recommends 1.5Mbps each way for Teams, with 4Mbps each way for the best performance.³ Zoom says a 1080p HD call between two people uses up to 3.8Mbps up and down.⁴

Most home lines can do far more. Ofcom puts the average maximum speed available to UK homes at 285Mbit/s (July 2025),⁵ and its most recent measurement of real speeds, from March 2023, found averages of 69.4Mbit/s down and 18.4Mbit/s up.⁶ So in a garden office the weak link is almost always the hop from the house to the room, or the upload speed of your line, not the headline speed.

Your options, from simplest to most reliable

1. Mesh wifi with a unit in or near the room

A mesh system uses several units that pass the signal between them. Put one at the back of the house, or inside the garden room, and it may be enough for a room close to the house.

• Check it can take the cold. BT's Whole Home Wi-Fi discs are "for indoor use only" and designed for 0 to 40°C, which an unheated garden room can drop below in winter.⁷
• Outdoor units exist. TP-Link's Deco X50-Outdoor, for example, is rated IP65, works from -30 to 60°C and joins other Deco units in a mesh.⁸ It was £109.99 at Screwfix when we checked.⁹ IP65 means it's dust-tight and protected against water jets from any direction.¹⁰ It needs power where you mount it, and its signal still has to get into the room, so place it where it can see a window or door of the garden room.
• Best of both: a mesh unit can sit in an outbuilding if it's connected back to the router by a network cable.⁷ That's option 3 with mesh on the end.

2. Powerline adaptors

Powerline adaptors send the internet over your electrical wiring: one plugs in by the router, the other in the garden room. They're quick to try, but not guaranteed across a garden supply.

• TP-Link says powerline "generally" works across fuse boards, but "a few" have a filtering effect that weakens it, and adaptors on separate circuits may not talk to each other at all.¹¹
• Sockets with built-in surge protection can cut the connection, and washing machines and other motors can cause interference.¹¹ Plug the adaptors straight into a wall socket.
• devolo says powerline works in a garden shed if the house and shed share an electrical circuit.¹² Most garden offices are fed by their own cable from the house fuse board to a small consumer unit in the room. That's still your home's supply, so powerline may work, but the long cable and extra fuse board can weaken it.

If you try them, buy from a shop with easy returns and test before you rely on them.

3. Run a network cable (the reliable option)

A cable from your router to the garden room gives you the full speed of your line, with no signal to lose. Cat5e and Cat6 cable both work up to 100m.¹

• Use cable made for outdoors. Direct-burial Cat6 has a tough polyethylene sheath designed to be buried and resist sunlight. It cost £42 for 50m from one UK supplier when we checked.¹³
• Keep it apart from the power cable. The cabling standard BS EN 50174-2 suggests 200mm between unscreened power and data cables where there's no divider or only a plastic one, and less with a metal divider.¹⁴ In practice, lay the data cable in its own duct and keep it as far from the power cable as the trench allows, ideally 200mm. Never tape it to the armoured power cable.
• Bury it with the power. Wiring rules don't set a fixed depth for buried power cables; ELECSA, an electrical certification scheme, recommends at least 600mm, and deeper or extra protection under flower beds or anywhere likely to be dug.¹⁵ Laying the data duct in the same trench, at the same time, costs little.
• Can't dig? Outdoor-grade cable can often be clipped along a fence or wall instead, in conduit, kept apart from any power cable.
• Earthing and lightning. If you use screened cable, ask your electrician whether the screen should be earthed at one end only, because garden rooms often have their own earthing. For long runs, an Ethernet surge protector at each end, or fibre optic cable with a small converter at each end, avoids the problem altogether.
• Inside the room, plug in a wifi access point or a mesh unit for your laptop and phone, and use a cable straight into your desk computer if you can.

4. A wireless bridge, if you can't dig

A point-to-point bridge is a pair of small outdoor antennas, one on the house and one on the garden room, that beam the connection between them. They're built for far longer distances than a garden. TP-Link's CPE210 claims more than 5km,¹⁶ and a UK reseller lists Ubiquiti's NanoStation Loco 5AC at up to 10km, at £46.99 each. You need two, plus a power injector for each, which is sold separately.¹⁷

They work best when each antenna can see the other, and the maker notes that range depends on obstacles in the way.¹⁶ They're a good answer for a long garden, a route across a patio or drive you don't want to dig up, or a rented home.

5. 4G or 5G home broadband in the garden room

A mobile broadband router uses the phone network instead of your home line. Ofcom estimates that 4G or 5G home broadband is available at 96% of UK premises.⁵ Check your address on Ofcom's coverage checker first, and look at the indoor result.¹⁸

• Speeds vary a lot. In Ofcom's 2026 smartphone data, 85% of 5G downloads reached 20Mbit/s or more, against 51% on 4G.¹⁹
• Uploads matter for video calls: 27% of 4G uploads and 14% of 5G uploads were below 1.5Mbit/s.¹⁹
• The same foil insulation that blocks wifi blocks mobile signals,² so try the router in a few spots, starting by a window or door, or choose one with a socket for an external antenna.

6. A second line, or satellite

A separate fixed line to the garden room sounds tidy, but it's rarely simple. Openreach installs the full fibre box "inside your home",²⁰ and its installation guide doesn't mention outbuildings. On BT's community forum, one customer said BT told him his garden studio would need its own postal address, and experienced forum volunteers agreed.²¹ We couldn't find an official policy either way, so ask your provider before counting on it. Extending your home connection is usually easier.

Satellite broadband is mainly an answer for homes with no decent line at all. In July 2026, Starlink's UK Residential 100Mbps plan started at £40 a month, with uploads of about 15 to 35Mbps, according to ISPreview, though a £10 monthly kit fee added in June may still apply.²²²³ Check the current price before ordering. You still need to get the connection from the dish to the garden room, unless the dish goes on the garden room itself.

Which option suits you

Electrics and the rules

In England, a new circuit to a garden room is notifiable electrical work, and the rules cover outbuildings that share the home's electricity.²⁴ Use a registered electrician who can certify it, or notify building control. Laying a network cable isn't on the list of notifiable electrical work,²⁴ so a competent installer or confident DIYer can do it, though it should still be kept apart from the power cable as above, and not dug in near an existing power cable. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own building regulations, so check locally. Our garden office guide covers planning the power.

Questions people ask

What is the best way to get internet to a garden office?

An outdoor-grade network cable from your router, in its own duct, with a wifi access point inside the room. Cat5e and Cat6 work up to 100m, which covers almost any garden.¹

Do powerline adaptors work in a garden office?

Sometimes. TP-Link says they generally work across fuse boards, but some boards weaken the signal and separate circuits can stop it.¹¹ Test them before relying on them.

Why is the wifi so bad in my garden room?

Distance, plus the building itself: foil-backed insulation, metal cladding and aluminium window frames all block radio signals.²

How much broadband speed do I need for video calls?

Not much: Microsoft recommends 1.5Mbps each way for a one-to-one Teams video call and 4Mbps for the best performance.³ Upload speed matters as much as download, because you're sending video as well as receiving it.

Can I get a separate broadband line to my garden office?

It isn't straightforward. Openreach installs full fibre inside the home, and on BT's forum a customer said he was told his garden studio would need its own address.²⁰²¹ Ask your provider, but extending your home connection is usually easier.

Related guides

Sources

1. Monoprice (cable manufacturer), citing TIA/EIA-568, Cat6 cable distance limits: what you need to know.
2. ComReg (Irish communications regulator) with Aalborg University, August 2018, The effect of building materials on indoor mobile performance (Technical Report 18/73).
3. Microsoft, Prepare your organisation's network for Microsoft Teams.
4. Zoom technical library, Calculating bandwidth usage for Zoom meetings and phone.
5. Ofcom, November 2025, Connected Nations UK report 2025.
6. Ofcom, September 2023 (March 2023 data), Latest home broadband performance trends revealed.
7. BT, BT Whole Home Wi-Fi FAQs: set-up and installation.
8. TP-Link (manufacturer), Deco X50-Outdoor.
9. Screwfix, price on 23 Oct 2026, TP-Link Deco X50-Outdoor.
10. Wikipedia, summarising IEC 60529, IP code.
11. TP-Link (manufacturer), Why can't my powerline adapters work properly? (FAQ 406).
12. devolo (manufacturer), Wi-Fi in the garden.
13. Connectec, price on 23 Oct 2026, Cat 6 direct burial HDPE cable.
14. Connectix, quoting BS EN 50174-2 and BS 6701, Electrical separation of power and data cables.
15. Professional Electrician, November 2018, Armoured cable supplies to outbuildings.
16. TP-Link (manufacturer), CPE210 2.4GHz 300Mbps 9dBi outdoor CPE.
17. NetXL (UK reseller), price on 23 Oct 2026, Ubiquiti NanoStation Loco 5AC.
18. Ofcom, Mobile coverage checker.
19. Ofcom, October 2026 (smartphone data, August 2025 to July 2026), Mobile Matters 2026.
20. Openreach, How is full fibre installed?.
21. BT Community forum, October 2023, FTTP fibre needed in an outbuilding.
22. ISPreview, July 2026, Confusion as Starlink remove £10 monthly kit fee for UK broadband service.
23. ISPreview, June 2026, New UK Starlink broadband customers hit by £10 monthly kit fee.
24. HM Government, Approved Document P: Electrical safety, dwellings (2013 edition).