Christmas time has come and gone but with it came additional devices that are now connected to your home Wi-Fi network. Like many digitally connected households these days, you might find family members streaming Netflix, browsing the Internet and playing online games all at the same time. Sometimes, using many Wi-Fi devices on your home wireless network can come at a price. For instance, you might find yourself noticing that your Wi-Fi connection is not as reliable as it used to be with slower download speeds and even dropped connections.
Most often than not, complaints are the greatest just after Christmas when additional wireless devices are added to an existing wireless network. It’s not uncommon to get anywhere from 5-15 different devices connected to a single home wireless network at one time all vying for shared wireless bandwidth. And so if you have an older wireless router sometimes that be very taxing on it causing complaints and frustration from people plagued by slow speeds, low signal reception, and unreliable concurrent connections. Therefore some possible fixes people can try are:
- To start with, you want to make sure the software running your wireless router is up-to-date. Just like a computer, your router runs an operating system that sometimes needs updating. Especially if you router is several years old, you probably can’t set it to update itself automatically and so you will have to login to your router mainly through your web browser to preform a manual update. Sometimes this can improve your wireless reliability and speed.
- Keeping in mind that your router is a small computer running an operating system, rebooting it frequently can help as well.
- Your next option is to find the perfect spot in your house for your router. For some people this is not possible but if you want the best signal and if you are able to move your wireless router, you’ll need it out in the open, free of any walls and obstructions. If it has antennas, point them vertically, and elevate the router as high as possible. Lastly, make sure its in the center of your house, so you have the best coverage possible throughout your home.
- Finally, if none of these options help your situation, you might also want to change your wireless channel. If you have neighbors, their routers wireless signal may be interfering with yours and causing your signal to degrade. Wireless routers can operate on a number of different channels, and you want yours on a channel with as little interference as possible. The easiest way to diagnose this is to use a program on your computer or an app on your device. For Android devices I’d recommend searching for Wifi Analyzer on the Google Play store, and for using Apple devices I’d recommend using a program on your Mac called istumbler that you can find at www.istumbler.net.
- You will want to check to see if your wireless router supports dual-band radio frequencies and if not, you could purchase a dual-band router. Dual-band wireless routers are almost like having two routers in one where one band, running at 2.4 Ghz can serve as an access point for your older wireless devices while the second band, running a 5 Ghz, can serve as a much higher speed access point for your newer devices that support it.
With that in mind, I’ve noticed both Bell and Rogers are now offering dual-band wireless routers as part of their Internet packages, something you can check into if you are looking to change your existing package or switch providers.
The only downside to the 5Ghz frequency is that it has a much shorter range and so it might not reach as far throughout your house. So if you plan on using it with your phone or laptop, you will want to be closer to the router to take advantage of it’s faster speeds. Again, all dependent on if your device supports this frequency.
NOTE:
Wireless extenders can help increase the distance of your signal throughout your house but you also need to keep in mind that as the amount of devices connecting to it increases, your reliability will still decrease.
A good place to check out further information is on thebsite: www.lifehacker.com. If you click on the little search icon at the top of the page and type in “improving home wifi”, or something to that effect, you will get lots of helpful advice.
