Practical Tips for Improving Wi-Fi Reach in Your Home

Our dependence on the internet has never been more evident. It’s not just our personal lives: our professional lives have also been taken over by the internet. And we do not just need internet access. We need it to deliver content as quickly as possible.

Under these circumstances, a slow or dropping Wi-Fi connection can be a teething problem. Things may worsen in certain areas of your home when the Wi-Fi connectivity bars suddenly drop.

Such areas inside your house are called Wi-Fi black or dead spots that are caused due to the router being too far away interference from other devices, or thick walls coming in between the router and the device.

Many solutions have been introduced to combat this lack of stability, like smart pods in Ireland. So, let’s see what you can do to improve home connectivity.

Get a Better Router with Wi-Fi 6

Often, the most effective way to improve Wi-Fi reach inside your home is the most obvious solution — getting a better and more powerful router. If you’re on Wi-Fi 4 or Wi-Fi 5, the more devices you use, the slower the Wi-Fi connection becomes. You should consider replacing your old wireless “b” or “g” router with a new one for a broader range and higher speed.

Therefore, you should get yourself a Wi-Fi 6 router capable of connecting as many as eight devices to the internet simultaneously. Wi-Fi 6 also uses the Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (ODFMA) technology that allows data transfer to multiple devices simultaneously through a single transmission. If money isn’t a constraint, go for Wi-Fi 6E, which utilizes a third band, 6GHz, apart from 2.4GHz and 5GHz, for greater throughput and higher efficiency.

Move Your Router

It is the most basic thing to do. If the Wi-Fi signals at some parts of your house are weak, check where you have placed your router. Keep it out in the open right in the center of your home. You’ve also got to ensure that your router isn’t up against any major obstructions.

You can’t keep your router in a cupboard or be discreet about its location by keeping it behind a wall or the TV. You would do your best to keep it at a high place, so your Wi-Fi signals easily travel through large open spaces.

Routers often come with moveable antennas. The strongest Wi-Fi signals are emitted from the sides of the antennas. Therefore, you’ve got to position them at such an angle so that the signals don’t shoot up and hit the ceiling straight up or head straight to the ground.

There are routers with many antennas. In such cases, you’ll have to adjust them at different angles to get the widest coverage.

Go for Powerline Adapters

A traditional Powerline adapter is an affordable solution for spreading your Wi-Fi range to every corner of your home or even a separate building nearby.

You’ll only have to plug one adapter into a power socket that’s close to your router. Then, connect the adapter to the router with an Ethernet cable.

The second adapter shall have to be plugged into a power socket in any other room in a part of the home you want your Wi-Fi signals to reach. It might even be a separate building altogether, like the outbuilding.

The setup should work if the power source at the outer building and the main building stays the same. In other words, both adapters must work on the same power connection.

Beat Bandwidth Throttling

To improve the performance of your internet connection, a Virtual Private Network app can also be helpful. Specifically, a VPN can boost internet performance by preventing ISP (Internet Service Provider) throttling.

During times of high demand, like Saturday nights, your ISP may deliberately slow down your internet speed to limit your bandwidth usage for certain websites to maintain the overall speed of the connection. A VPN for PC stops type-based throttling, meaning it might stop ISPs from slowing down your speed based on what you do online.

Conclusion

Slow and dropping Wi-Fi connections can be very frustrating indeed. Make it a point to get a router with Wi-Fi 6. Apart from which router you’re using and where you’ve placed, it also matters a lot. Keep it close to the devices you use and free of any obstructions. Using traditional Powerline adapters is also an effective way of boosting Wi-Fi performance. Our suggested solutions give you the fast Wi-Fi you have always longed for. Your fast Wi-Fi is now a reality.

Martin Woolridge

“Pop culture advocate. Troublemaker. Friendly student. Proud problem solver.”