Improve Your WIFI Signal

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Give it a go by all means but I remain unconvinced by that.

I actually think it will cause more disruption than aid it

A lot of people will probably interpret this as faster internet aswell. I have seen it a lot at work peoples internet down or going really slow but because they have full bars think its running swimmingly.
 
And how would it work with internal antennas? Nah, proper positioning of the base station, maybe an extender halfway if the signal is too thin. A lot of people swear by 5 GHz but don't realise that higher frequencies are limited in reach.
And that ISP's keep screwing anyways.
 
The tin foil trick does work, my parents live in an old house with very thick walls and at the furthest point from the router the wi-fi signal was almost non existent i read about the tin foil trick ages ago so we put the router on the windowsill and stuck a large square of tin foil on the window behind it and it did improve the signal strength.

You can buy wi-fi extenders that you plug into a socket half way between the router and furthest wi-fi device fairly cheaply - https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8...vtargid=kwd-2069340282&ref=pd_sl_80rfg30mgu_e

31AfcuV89TL._AC_US218_.jpg
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A lot of people will probably interpret this as faster internet aswell. I have seen it a lot at work peoples internet down or going really slow but because they have full bars think its running swimmingly.
Click to expand...


You are right this is about improving your wi-fi signal not improving speed although if your connection is flakey because you are almost too far away from the router then i imagine it will feel a lot faster if the tin foil trick works and your connection is stable.

To speed up your wi-fi see my next post.





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A lot of people are unaware that their routers operate on two different wireless bands (as stated below) because they both have the same SSID so you do not see them when searching for available wi-fi networks, if you go into your router set up you may find yours does have both so change the SSID of the 5 GHz band so you can tell them apart save and then when you search for available Wi-fi networks on your phone/tablet you should be able to see the newly named 5 GHz band, 2.4 GHz gives less speed but better strength and 5 GHz is the opposite.

The router operates on both the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz wireless bands at the same time using concurrent dual-band technology and internal antennas.
Click to expand...

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I use a home made reflector for my router wifi signal (based on a design off tinterweb), and have done for some time, although the increase in signal is probably marginal.
But if you struggle for wifi signal in parts of your house you either need a booster like Chippy suggests or a Powerline thingy which uses your house wiring.
Or you could of course bin your cheap and nasty ISP provided router and buy a decent router and improve your broadband speed and connectivity as well as your wifi signal.
 
terrym said:
Or you could of course bin your cheap and nasty ISP provided router and buy a decent router and improve your broadband speed and connectivity as well as your wifi signal.
Click to expand...

Spot on terry, i had the Talk Talk HG633 super router before i moved to VDSL when i did the wi-fi speeds were a mile away from the speeds i saw over Ethernet after much complaining i finally got a D-Link 3782 which is much better.
 
Something else that catches many out is they expect their Wi-Fi speed to be the same as the speed they see when testing over Ethernet (as we are advised to do by our ISP's) the problem is most older phones/tablets etc (as i found) cannot use 802.11ac so instead use 802.11n which as you can see from the article below is never going to deliver the speed we expected.



Faster Wi-Fi: It’s something we all crave. Fortunately, it’s also something we can have, even on a budget. It’s not just about fast Internet speeds to and from your service provider. It’s also about transferring files between devices in your home or office, streaming video from a network-attached drive to a television, and gaming with the lowest network latencies possible. If you’re looking for faster Wi-Fi performance, you want 802.11ac — it’s that simple.

In essence, 802.11ac is a supercharged version of 802.11n. 802.11ac is dozens of times faster, and delivers speeds ranging from 433 Mbps (megabits per second) up to several gigabits per second. To achieve that kind of throughput, 802.11ac works exclusively in the 5GHz band, uses plenty of bandwidth (80 or 160MHz), operates in up to eight spatial streams (MIMO), and employs a kind of technology called beamforming that sends signal directly to client devices.

If you’re currently using an 802.11n router — or an even older 802.11b/g model, like the perennial favorite Linksys WRT54G — and are thinking of upgrading to 802.11ac, here’s what you need to know.

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/160837-what-is-802-11ac-and-how-much-faster-than-802-11n-is-it
Click to expand...
 
Nice one chippy. Didn't know about the bandwidths. I think I'll try that before I buy one of the products you've posted which I've been meaning to for a while. There's only one room (extension on the side of the house) that loses all WiFi signal and that happens to be where I spend most of chill out time on my phone.
 
Chippy_Tea said:
Something else that catches many out is they expect their Wi-Fi speed to be the same as the speed they see when testing over Ethernet (as we are advised to do by our ISP's) the problem is most older phones/tablets etc (as i found) cannot use 802.11ac so instead use 802.11n which as you can see from the article below is never going to deliver the speed we expected.
Click to expand...
First 433 Mbps = 54.125 MB/s and 144 Mbps = 18 MB/s (as I found out this morning) .
So my understanding is that if you receive above 18MB/s download broadband speed you are losing out if you only use wifi from a 802.11n device since your home wifi signal is capped by your device at 144Mbps (or 18MB/s).
And if you receive BB speeds above 54MB/s you will be capped at 54MB/s on your home wifi signal even with a 802.11ac router.
For anyone who receives downstream BB speeds less than 18MB/s the 802.11ac router is only worth considering if you are regularly transferring huge files between devices at home via your wifi intranet, or if you are suffering interference of your 2.4GHz signal because there are losts of other router signals in your local area, and changing to 5GHz will help, at least temporarily, since most routers are still on 2.4GHz
Anyone know different?
 
Not sure about the figures Terry I am just a tyre kicker when it comes to these things, I am on 5 GHz using n not ac the best speed I have seen using speed test.net is 27 Mbps, it's usually around 25 - 26.
 
As has been said congestion can have a negative effect on your Wi-Fi performance to see if you are sharing the same channel with a lot of other people install Wifi Analyzer (free)

If you do use it and find you are sharing with a lot of people you can change the channel your router uses in the settings to one that is not as congested.


https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.farproc.wifi.analyzer&hl=en_GB

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW2b2yB69W8[/ame]
 
Here are the results for 5 GHz (top) and 2.4 GHz taken a couple of minutes apart with the same phone and same place in the house as you can see changing from 2.4 GHz to 5 Ghz can give you a decent boost.



ssssssssss.jpg
 
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