Many unseen forces can affect one’s WiFi speeds and overall experience. In the home, walls, appliances, heating and cooling vents and the like all conspire to rob the speed and efficiency one had hoped to gain by setting up WiFi in the first place. Effective techniques for fine-tuning one’s home wireless system are therefore required in order to effectively maintain speed and efficiency between other computers in the home network and the Internet itself.

Maximum WiFi Experience in Your Home

• Importance of Placement: Your WiFi antenna, be it on a wireless router, access point, or other broadcasting device needs to be in specific places in order to ensure maximum efficiency of signal distribution. Since most off the shelf wireless WiFi antennas are omni-directional–they broadcast in every direction evenly–try to place the access point in the center-most part of your living space. Antennas too near an external wall are sending a good percentage of the WiFi signal outside and away from where it can best be used.
• Invest in Directional Antennas: As stated above, the stock antennas are omni-directional, but there are focused, directional ones available. Ensure the modem device has the capacity to unscrew and replace the antenna, then decide the general direction necessary to cover specific areas of the home.
• Upgrade the Laptops WiFi Receiver: This tip is for older laptop computers. Most of the internally located WiFi antennas installed in newer computers are more than adequate to receive even the weakest of WiFi signals. For those older laptops using PC cards, consider upgrading to something newer with stronger signal reception. Using the same manufacturer for both the PC card and the modem/access point may slightly boost capabilities as well.
• Install Wireless Repeaters: Larger homes may have many walls and much distance between the source of WiFi broadcast and the furthest outreaches where one might hope to receive signal. Devices known as repeaters will capture the WiFi from the source, and boost the signal strength for extending the broadcast signal. This is a great option when having signal from the house to an outdoor location is desired. Coupling this option with a directional antenna is the best of both worlds.
• Change the Channel: If many of your neighbors are using WiFi, likely from the same Internet Service Provider (ISP) chances there will be more than a few attempting to broadcast on the same channel frequency. Read the manual which came with the WiFi equipment to discover how to find a channel few if any neighbors are transmitting on. This should increase signal strength and reduce data loss or slow down, as well.
• Reduce in House Interference: Many of today’s wireless devices, phones and monitors operate on the same frequencies that some of the older WiFi apparatus do. If there are a number of cordless phones and other wireless devices transmitting in or about the home, consider going with the latest WiFi specification known as 802.11n (or Wireless-N) as it won’t conflict with other wireless devices in the home.
• Upgrade All Devices: If there are a number of WiFi enable computers and devices, making the upgrade for all of them to be Wireless-N enabled should show marked increases in data transfer speeds between the devices, as well as to the Internet. If possible, also consider going with the same manufacturer of WiFi connection equipment. As previously stated, there tends to be higher speeds and fewer interference when two devices from the same maker are talking to each other.

These simple tips will help to ensure faster large file transfer speeds, and fewer lost connection errors. Why have wireless access if it is slow and losing touch with the source?