How to boost Wi-Fi performance

Everyone loves to go wireless! But it is frustrating to find that not every nook and corner of your house/workplace gets the signal. Here are a few tips that will help you solve this problem.

Tip 1 : Base station placement is crucial.

This is perhaps one of the most basic areas where most of us go wrong. We tend to place the base station at any convenient place without looking at parameters that affect its performance. Here a few points to keep in mind before placing the base station :

• When the signal has to cover multiple floors, then the best place to place the router is at the top most floor as signal travels faster downwards rather than other way round.
• Do not place near thick walls or any metal surfaces. This reduces signal penetration, which causes low signals. Place the base station in an open space so as to cause least interference.
• Keep away from other devices which operate at same frequency . Most Wi-Fi routers operate at 2.4 GHz frequency which is also the frequency of cordless phones and microwave ovens. Another workaround for this could be to select a router which has a different operating frequency than these.

Tip 2: Change default signal channel.

Do you have other wireless networks around? If yes, then they might interfere with your wireless network and hence cause various problems. The workaround for this is to change the default signal channel which is usually set to 6 to a different value. This will ensure that all wireless networks go on smoothly

Tip 3: Enable WPA Encryption.

Most of the routers have WEP Encryption enabled by default but that is not very secure. It can be easily cracked and cracker can use up all your bandwidth. WPA Encryption is much more secure and can be easily enabled from the administration page of your access point. Also remember to use long paraphrases which are tougher to crack.

Tip 4: Turn off SSID Broadcasting.

This tip is quite useful in organizations and public places where you do not want others to see your wireless network name on their devices. Turning it off is very easy and requires to just uncheck the option of ‘Enable SSID Broadcasting’ on your access point’s admin page.

Tip 5: Use tin foil to boost signal.

This is a very handy tip if all the above tips do not seem to have any significant effect on your Wi-Fi performance. You can use simple tin foil to make parabolas and fix them in a particular fashion to boost the signal strength by several decibels. The video tutorial is posted on Youtube here.

These tips can help you boost you boost your Wi-Fi performance without spending a single penny!

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