How to squeeze out as much speed as possible from your Wi-Fi
In recent months, the internet has become a critical part of our lives, keeping us connected, our workplaces, friends, and families – and the tools we use here.
Omroom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, etc. We discuss work, network, and meet friends for hours of virtual enjoyment. People are now accustomed to working remotely and are masters of live streaming.
However, more than 70 percent of long-distance workers face technical challenges when working from home, according to Independence Research. M-Lab data indicates that more than three-quarters of US states have seen Internet speeds during the epidemic.
So, how can you maximize every ounce of the internet you have? Here are 23 ways to improve your Wi-Fi connection.
1. Choose Internet providers with fast speeds
If you haven’t recently purchased for broadband deals, it is worth investigating your options. Competition between providers is fierce and blazing speed is becoming more widely available, only intensifying as 5G grows.
The speed you can get varies by region, but some cities in the US and UK now have gigabit connections. Most of us still don’t have access to those hyperfast connections, but shopping around can reveal the potential of more than 50 Mbps affordable providers.
2. Check your speed on a regular basis and monitor in real-time
The first step to good Wi-Fi is to understand your speed. Start by going to Tech Radar’s own speed test to run a quick online test. For more results, start using a computer connected to the router via a wired connection.
Check your speed with another device like a smartphone to compare. When testing through Wi-Fi, check near the router with no path between walls or objects. After the test, you can decide if the speed you are getting is meeting your needs. Move around your home, and try from a distance to see where your Wi-Fi has a slower performance.
You can also monitor your Internet connections in real time, using widely available tools to understand each of them more deeply.
3. Compare the speed to your contract
Is the download and upload speeds close to the ISP’s ad speed, or what’s in your contract? If they are and you are not happy with them, it’s time to upgrade your plan.
If they are not, contact your supplier to discuss your issues. Try some of the following options with troubleshooting advice they share with you. If your Wi-Fi is not fixed, you may need to look for another ISP.
4. Check if your supplier has problems
If you notice a sudden drop in speed but you have not experienced any slowdown in the past, the culprit may be your Internet provider. There are a number of reasons for more malicious activities such as throttling and peering contracts due to deliberate network configuration, difficulties providing, or technical difficulties.
If this is a previous scenario, check your status page for any known outages. If none, the quick call problem can be solved.
5. Decide if you are throttle or experiencing congestion
With throttling, ISP is deliberately slowing down high-bandwidth traffic, such as Netflix or YouTube, if they notice that some activities are using too much bandwidth. On the other hand, the Peering Agreement is an understanding between the major suppliers that traffic congestion issues should not be solved by making fundamental updates to the interconnection points between the networks. Low traffic congestion can occur if the traffic is faster than the ISP’s scale capacity, but the only way users can overcome it is to rely on only one provider.
VPN is a tool to help ISPs make it harder to find what you’re doing, and when you sign up for one, you can run a test to see if you’re up to speed for streaming. The media. If your download speeds up, you know you’re throttled.
6. Make sure your devices are connected to the right networks
If you have multiple networks in your area, you should quickly check that each device is set to the correct network. You may have a public Wi-Fi network nearby, or you can connect to a slower network from your provider rather than your fast private connection.
7. Reset your connection to avoid “sticky Wi-Fi”
Once the device is connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot, it sticks to it. For example, your smartphone doesn’t constantly search for and connect to the best hotspot, even if you are in a range. Devices stick to the network they are connected to until they are out of range.
At the edge of the Wi-Fi coverage area, speed drops and latency increases dramatically. There may be problems with file transfers or downloads, video calls, etc. This means you automatically lose the full performance you can get by switching from one to another. One solution is to reset your connection.
8. Close applications that consume bandwidth
Are those apps ISPs throttling? Even if they don’t throat, they may be slowing you down. If you’re downloading a large file in the background, someone has turned on Netflix, or all your apps are updating at the same time, closing apps that you don’t use will free up more important bandwidth for you.
If you don’t secure your Wi-Fi network with password protection, you should do this to prevent your neighbors and passers-by from leaving your network and using your bandwidth for apps you don’t use.
9. Restart your modem and router
How to complete a list of any Wi-Fi solutions without mentioning unplugging your modem or router? This may be one of the simplest solutions, but it works for a reason.
You may not know it but your router is actually a mini-computer that has CPU, memory, local storage, and its own operating system. Like any computer, it can cause problems such as the CPU being too hot, its memory or the OS failing. Just as you reboot the computer when it is running, you can also do this with your router.
Unplug, count to 10, take a deep breath, reconnect, and then wait about a minute for your tools to go back online.
10. Check the cables
This is something you probably associate with your supplier’s technician who comes to your home. The good news is that you can do it too.
If you have loose connectors or punch wires that go in and out of your modem or router, your Internet may slow down. Poor quality coaxial separators can also affect your internet speed.
So check your Ethernet cable plugged into your router, and then connect the connectors to both your router and modem. Check that they are all in good condition and plugged in firmly. If you have coaxial separators, disconnect them and check your Internet speed to see if you notice a change.
11. Find a central location for your router
Remember those walls mentioned in the test phase? We want to remove them as a variable because they can block the signal. Other disruptions can degrade the signal and in particular, something made of metal and to a lesser extent some materials such as wood, glass, plastic and more.
Wi-Fi signals move vertically and horizontally in all directions, so you want to find a central location within your environment to position your router, and preferably with minimal disturbance. If it needs to reset furniture or equipment, we have to do the same, because we’re going to get the best possible Wi-Fi speed.
12. Upgrade to a newer, better router
If you are using a default router of your ISP or a router that contains old standards like IEEE 802.11 N, B, G, you will not get much out of your internet connection.
Upgrading to a router with the IEEE 802.11 AC (or “Wi-Fi 5” can improve both your Wi-Fi speed and range. Other useful features to look for.
13. Use good frequency: 5GHz
Wireless standards in routers use different radio frequencies and get some crowds. For example, 802.11b and g use the 2.4GHz band, where your Wi-Fi signal competes not only with other computers but also with baby monitors, phones, and other types of wireless devices. The 802.11ac uses a 5GHz band instead, which improves performance by operating at lower traffic frequency.
High frequencies, such as 5GHz, are particularly useful in areas with other wireless networks, such as residential communities or office buildings, although they do not have much coverage.
14. Find an open channel
In addition to having different frequencies, routers have different channels that can operate, and you will see a performance boost if you use a lower traffic channel, such as a faster frequency. Routers operate on a single channel, although the data overlaps five separate channels around it.
To analyze whether your router’s channel is crowded or not, you can use a network analytics tool like InSSIDer or Wi-Fi Explorer to hunt networks within your local area. This shows you a graph of where 45 networks fall in the 11 main wireless channels of the 2.4GHz band, or 45 networks in the 5GHz band (which is another reason for the improvement). Once you find the channel that is open, go to your router’s settings to change it. You may need to set this up manually, but you’ll be glad you did.
15. Update your firmware
Firmware is what the router uses to operate, and with older routers, you may miss important updates that improve security or performance if you don’t regularly download the latest versions.
You can easily update most routers by going to your admin console and finding the option to update it. Make sure the update is fully downloaded and installed, so avoid the temptation to unplug the router prematurely.
You can also explore third-party firmware if your router doesn’t offer.
16. Scan for malware
If you keep your network secure and your firmware up to date, you also want to check to see if your devices don’t have the bandwidth in secret due to malware.
If the device is infected, it can be part of a botnet or open multiple browser windows in the background to perform various tasks to enrich cybercriminals at the expense of your performance. Scanning your devices with a reputable malware removal tool will ensure that the bandwidth your devices consume is yours.
VPNs can add to your security by keeping your information secure when you access data online, but you want to make sure your devices are not compromised to be completely secure.
17. Add Wi-Fi repeaters to larger locations
If you live at home and have lots of interruptions between your router and your device, the Wi-Fi extension, booster or repeater will give you extra speed when you are away from your router.
They work by taking the signal from the router and re-broadcasting it with your network, which communicates with your device and then sends the signal to the router. Personal extensions can be relatively inexpensive. However, the downside of having a large space is that you may need to invest several to achieve the speed you want in your entire home or office.
18. Use a laptop as a Wi-Fi repeater
To reduce the extra costs of transmitting your Wi-Fi signal to every nook and cranny, you do not need to buy a new Wi-Fi repeater. You may already have what you need. You can download software that turns a laptop or PC into a repeater.
Repeaters are basically just small computers, so why not use what you already have to add to your Wi-Fi range
19. Integrate your Internet connections for extra speed
Between home internet, mobile data, and public Wi-Fi hotspots, you usually have access to multiple Internet connections at any one time, but you are not using them.
You can use all your internet connections simultaneously using a tool like Speedify (a process called bonding), without letting you waste all that extra speed. Both your Wi-Fi and mobile connections can work together to produce speeds that are both fast enough.
Another benefit of doing that redundancy. Wi-Fi is great when it works, but if your Internet provider experiences a outage, you can skip a major zoom call and spend several painful minutes reconnecting. Using multiple connections from multiple ISPs, that problem is a thing of the past.
20. Use software that prioritizes the most important data streams
Service quality is a feature now with new routers and VPNs, which automatically prioritize certain applications over others. A good QoS feature should allow you to understand the most important applications and allow real-time traffic such as video calling, streaming, VoIP, etc. to prioritize low-traffic traffic such as app updates.
Your zoom call or gaming session can run smoothly when other apps get frustrated and in slow mode while waiting for your mainstream to finish.
21. Install Powerline Ethernet
Why rely on wireless alone? If you are extending a wireless signal from one end of the house to the other, there is hope for speed. Powerline Ethernet means that network data moves between computers through your home’s electrical circuit, faster than the best wireless technology – and it completes rather than replaces your wireless network.
Modern Powerline Ethernet adapters offer speeds of 1 Gbit / s (500Mbit / sec each way). You see the best latent time, and the streaming video from the NAS is beautiful.
Finally, there are lots of mistakes in Wi-Fi, router issues and your connections are not made better by provider issues, but if you follow these tips, you will have a better internet experience.
22. Use the bridge
Bridge is a repeater that expands the range of your wireless network. It copies all settings, uses the same network name and password and assigns IP addresses to clients from the same DHCP server.
For devices that connect to your wireless network, the bridge is effectively invisible – all they see is the same SSID. And you can use multiple bridges to further extend the wireless network. They are widely used anywhere in hotels, large campuses or the same wireless network for users in a large area, and they also work in homes.
You can have wired or wireless bridges. The Wired Bridge is fast but is another tool that can rely on your wireless network. Consider connecting the bridge with Powerline Ethernet to bring solid wireless connectivity to another room.
23. Move devices wirelessly wherever you can
Not every device in your home needs to be turned off wirelessly. The fewer devices competing for wireless bandwidth, the better. For example, you might have a TV streaming gadget like the Apple TV in the games console and the living room.
A long cable or powerline Ethernet adapter and network switch both guarantee good network speeds and no longer compete for valuable wireless bandwidth just like a tablet, laptop or smartphone.
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