The ubiquity of Wi-Fi is being felt more and more in the world. In almost every apartment building or office building, you can find signals from a dozen different access points. Although a few years ago, wireless internet was relatively rare. And one could only rejoice at the progress achieved if the operation of the wireless Internet in such a saturated technotronic environment was not accompanied at times by various problems, in particular, a decrease in speed.
Using the latest versions of Wi-Fi technologies
The best way to get your home network to work as quickly and reliably as possible at this stage of technology development is to use modern hardware. And here, first of all, you should know that the IEEE 802.11 A, B, G wireless standards are already outdated and slow. The highest speed of wireless Internet will be provided by the IEEE 802.11 N standard. Therefore, you need to purchase equipment with its support.
Choosing the best place for your router
The router, even if it does not fit into the interior with its design, should not be hidden behind cabinets, curtains and other household items. If you want to have a good signal, you should select an open area for the router with no walls or obstacles and point its antenna straight up. Ideally, the router should be placed in the middle of the space of rooms that it should serve.
Using a boosted antenna
If your router's native antenna is unscrewed or removed, you can purchase and install a boosted antenna. These are sold separately.
Finding the least congested wireless channel
If you live in an apartment building, neighbors' routers can interfere with yours and cause the signal to degrade. Routers can operate on several (usually there are only 12) different channels, and you need to find the channel with the lowest load. Using free utilities to find free channels like Wi-Fi Stumbler, inSSlDer or Wi-Fi Analyzer can help you increase your Wi-Fi speed.
Interference from household and mobile appliances
However, neighboring routers are not the only ones that can cause interference. Cordless phones, microwave ovens and other devices, as well as a microwave router, can interfere with the operation of your router. The solution to this problem can be the purchase of a dual-band router. Cordless phones with other bands are also available. If you do not want to spend money on new equipment, you can simply try to move your router away from other equipment.
Wi-Fi Theft Prevention
Protect your wireless hotspot with a password. Otherwise, you immediately attach a bunch of free Wi-Fi lovers to it. Moreover, it is necessary to use a password using WPA2 technologies, which will more reliably protect the home network from intrusion by strangers.
Bandwidth management
The use of video chats, online gaming services, and frequent torrent downloads can significantly reduce bandwidth, and the Internet will become slower for other applications. To prevent this, you can use QoS, which can prioritize some over others. As a result, the more important and / or used applications at the moment will receive the necessary bandwidth.
Flashing the router
An excellent way to expand the operating range of the router and, as a result, increase the speed of the wireless Internet, is to install the DD-WRT firmware, which will give the router additional security features and increase power. In the latter case, there may be a danger of destroying the router with careless settings, however, most routers are capable of handling power increases up to 70mW without any problems.
Reboot the router on a schedule
If your router needs to reboot from time to time to keep it from freezing due to overheating, you can configure the router to automatically reboot one or more times a day using the aforementioned DD-WRT firmware or even a regular socket timer.
Some non-standard tricks
You can extend the operating range of your router with simple DIY add-ons. For example, an empty aluminum can, or a foil wrapping the antenna, directed with a hole into the working area, will slightly improve the quality of the wireless connection. The results of these tricks may not be very impressive, but you can squeeze a little more out of your Wi-Fi with a minimum of effort.
