10 Tips to Improve Your Wi-Fi Signal
In today’s world, where online system has became a major part of our lives. We faces some issues such as slow browsing, wireless dead zones, stream inability, drop down of Wi-Fi signals, etc that are annoying the users on online world.
The most familiar issue is Interference: It occurs mainly in the densely populated areas where one’s network speed is get affected by the signals from other wireless networks and electronics. Moreover,one’s network signals can also get interfered by other phone systems and wireless devices.
The second big issue is Distance: The wireless signals can travel up to a certain optimal range.Hence, performance will get affected if there are large numbers of walls or corners to go through,or if the network has to cover a larger distance than the specified router’s transmission capability in the particular area.
These points should be concern while buying a new phone system. Nowadays, most are using DECT 6.0, a feature coexisting nicely with standard Wi-Fi networks.
But other than interference or distance, the issue can be unwanted guests piggybacking on your network:One can check his/ her router's administrator interface to view the number of connected devices or can also use a network analyzer tool to view, whether an unknown device is connected to one’s network or not. Close the network using security WPA2 and set a strong password that others can’t guess.
There are some other reasons also that disturb your network connection. Hence, here we are providing some tips to troubleshoot:
1.Updated Router Firmware
Might be there is a need to update your router immediately.This update can be made simply by clicking a firmware upgrade button as most current routers get it inbuilt into its administration interface.To enhance the speed and performance, the software is modified every time by the Routers manufacturers.One’s device model and manufacturer will decide that the firmware up gradation is an easy or hard process. Though tiresome yet a good and necessary act,older models have to find and download the firmware from the router manufacturer's website.
One should regularly update one’s firmware even if his/ her wireless network is working properly.This will provide you better features, improved performance and security updates.
2.Most favorable Router Placement
Your wireless coverage is get affected by your router’s position.A wired router can be placed inside a cabinet or near a window, to allow the cable to come in or it can be placed at somewhere out of sight.On the other hand, a wireless router requires open areas, must be away from physical obstructions such as walls or others and also from the heavy-duty appliances or electronics working nearly, that can affect the Wi-Fi performance.
To enhance your coverage and get better signals, either vertically orients the external antennas of your router or lift the router up, if possible or mount it on the wall or put it on top of a table or shelf.A large number of mobile apps like-Netgear's WiFi Analytics and tools such as Heat mapper or Editors' Choice inSSIDer for Office, showing your Wi-Fi network’s weak as well as strong spots are available to view your network coverage.
3.What's one’s Frequency?
Ensure that one have a configured network's administrator interface to access best possible performance. Having dual-band router seems to be advantageous, as in place of commonly available 2.4GHz band, it allows selecting 5GHz band providing better throughput as well as less interference from other wireless networks and devices. One can easily switch to this mode, by simply navigating, enabling and then setting the 5GHz option, if it is offered by one’s router's administrator interface.
4.Change the Channel
Being multichannel,modern router scan switch across various channels while communicating to one’s devices.You mostly prefer to use the default router and if the same channel is used by neighboring wireless networks also, it results in signal obstruction. On computers based on Windows, typing netshwlan show all from the command prompt will show you the complete list holding all the channels and wireless networks being used in your surroundings. Example-at PC Labs, channels 6 and 11 is being used by most of our and our neighbor’s networks.After getting this list, you can easily select the less crowded channel and also switch your router yourself to transmit on this channel. Depending on the manufacturer and devices, this setting is provided in your wireless network's administrator interface, and option under the basic wireless settings category.
5.Quality Control
A tool named Quality-of-Service is a type of settings comes inbuilt in modern routers under the network's administrator interface advanced settings. It is used to limit the amount of bandwidth the apps are using.This is helpful to one who regularly uses VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) or do lot of video streaming. One thing to note is that someone downloading a huge file from dropbox will degrade the quality of your call or video.Hence, at that times specify the priority for applications and services and specify the lowest priority for the downloaders one.
6.Not to depend on outdated Hardware
Till now, we had talked about how to grab more and more from the existing equipment but can we expect the excellent performance from the past hardware? Our behavior follows the fact "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" particularly for the networking equipment.Routers bought in the past come with 802.11g standard having maximum throughput of 54Mbps and still have the same. Followed by the modern router 802.11n at 300Mbps and the latest one 802.11ac at 1Gbps. Here a list of best wireless routers is provided allowing searching a faster router.
Some more facts to consider about our routers age is that if our computer is purchased in a period of last few years, it have either 802.11ac or 802.11n wireless adapter and should be well-suited to new routers. But you can access a USB wireless adapter in case an integrated updated adapter is not available in your laptops. You can also access a different adapter, if you are not satisfied with the performance of your inbuilt network adapter.
Soon, the market will get 802.11ac MU-MIMO (Multi User-Multiple Input Multiple Output)routers. Similar to the Linksys EA7500 Max-Stream AC1900, MU-MIMO routers can simultaneously pass on and get numerous data streams to numerous devices without degrading the bandwidth. Moreover, needs testing with multiple clients and the only condition is that the clients must be well-matched with theMU-MIMO.
7.Replace one’s Antenna
Adding an external antenna where your router is already holding internal antenna will provide a transmission of a stronger signal.There are Omnidirectional antennas, send signals to all directions or directional antennas, send signals in one specific direction, provided by the routers manufacturers. Applyingan external antenna will provides high-gain, actually making a huge difference and here we recommend you to select the directional antenna to be your external antenna.The explanation is that;one’s network is not experiencing weak spots in every direction. Hence,the external antenna pointed in one’s weak spot direction will transmit the signal accordingly.
8.Wireless Repeater setup
As mentioned above, routers can broadcast the signals up to a certain distance. The signals get weak after the specified limit or distance.Here, we requirea Wi-Fi expander or a wireless repeater, can also be called a wireless range extender to boost your signal so that it can transmit across the large area covered by wireless network and even penetrate through the thick walls or other physical structures that are responsible for blocking of the signals. Though appears similar to standard routers yet works differently, it simply picks up and rebroadcast your wireless router’s existing Wi-Fi signal.For its placement also, you must concern the similar rules that you do in case of a router. The extender must be close to both, your main network router and weak spot, to pick up the strong signal and to well extend that signal respectively.The extender required here must be capable to broadcast your signal, may or may not be of the similar brand or model as your existing router. Example-you need not necessarily buyan 802.11n extender for your existing router on 802.11ac.
9.Improve to a Mesh-Based Wi-Fi System?
Though access points provide high bandwidth yet for it a wired connection to the main router is required and similarly though Range extenders bring connectivity to dead zones yet provides half of the bandwidth as compared to primary router.Hence, you have to sign in to a new network named SSID created as a result of these limitations and their solutions, when moving from one spot to another spot of a region. Alternately, choose Wi-Fi system if not getting connectivity anywhere in the particular region.
Wi-Fi systems make use of mesh technology to connect to the router as well as to each other, covering every corner of the house. It includes a few networking components (for instance a main router for direct connection to your modem and a series of satellite modules to place across your house) that shares same password and SSID, all being the part of a single wireless network.Different from the range extenders, that use 2.4GHz or 5GHz radio bands to communicate with the router.
Nowadays, there are user-friendly apps that guide you;how to installit step by step, where to place each node to receive maximum coverage, to select the best Wi-Fi channel and radio band which results in improved performance.Additionally, the Wi-Fi systems can be managed easily using our smartphones. Just by clicking a button provided, you can also disable your Wi-Fi access to specific devices and can without logging into a complicated network it give network priority to certain devices. Though,a Wi-Fi system is useful yet expensive in comparison to the newer routers.
10.Get into the Guts of Your Router
Today, open-source DD-WRT router operating system is in market. You can either simply download and install DD-WRTon any router existing around you or can have router that is able to run it,from some major routers manufacturers such as Linksys, Netgear, and TrendNET.DD-WRT will provide you more developed features such as security and granular customization and virtual private networking (VPN) and it enhance your performance as well.
Your routers features, how to set up and configure it, these are some points that you need to check and consider for speeding up your surfing. Reading will also provide tips for Troubleshooting Your Internet Connection if having issues in signal reception and maintenance.
Ellie Williams, the writer here is one of the passionate learners. Finding and making available the new and distinct ideas, information on technical topics to its users, is her passion. Talking about her writing, she is a confident technical and professional writer and writes articles on various technical topics are attractive as well as useful for the readers. She has been working for our website and has written on topics such as support for Linksys Router and Support for Belkin Router etc.
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