How to Improve Your Wi-Fi Router Speed– Having a good router can make a big difference to your internet connection. But if you don’t have the money to buy a top-of-the-range model, what other avenues are open to you?
In this article, we’ll discuss how to improve the signal and speed of your router.
Most newer routers don’t need to be rebooted regularly. However, if you’ve ever run into a dead internet connection, rebooting your router is often all it takes to get you back up and running.
However, if you regularly reboot the router, the DD-WRT and Tomato firmware options have timed reboot options. So please set it to reboot once a day while you’re sleeping, and you’ll never even notice the downtime while the router powers off and starts back up.
Routers are generally backward compatible with all 802.11 wireless standards. However, older standards are slower, and routers tend to default to the oldest standard on the network. Removing old devices from the network and rebooting your router will automatically reconfigure it to use a faster standard.
Remember that some devices are configured to receive new passwords from your router to keep functioning. You may need to find and remove these manually or have them “forget” your Wi-Fi network.
A simple way to make a router faster is to buy a new antenna.
The antenna on most consumer-grade routers is awful. An amplified aftermarket antenna is a great fix and a simple way to improve signal quality and thus improve speed without the need for a new device. Powered and amplified aftermarket options start at around $15 and go up into the low $100s.
Plug-in range extenders are a bit more expensive, but they act as a powered antenna and wireless repeater in one. As a result, they can offer a significant improvement to homes with dead zones or signal degradation, but your mileage may vary.
Placement of the router will affect its range, so keeping it central helps most of the devices connected to it. Also, avoid putting it anywhere it might experience interference, such as near steel beams or in an area with thick walls.
One of the most overlooked ways to maximize router speed is to ensure your router is always running the latest software and firmware from the manufacturer.
Sure, the updates usually are security fixes, but they’re not going to suddenly make your router blazing fast. However, every incremental gain can help. If you’ve not updated in a while, you might see more of a boost than you’d expect.
Many otherwise tech-savvy people still use the default username and password on their router. Even intermediate hackers are capable of hacking relatively secure networks with non-default passwords. Using a strong Wi-Fi password is equally important. While you might do a great job splitting your devices up into separate bands, updating your firmware, and switching channels during high traffic periods, it’s all an exercise in futility if your neighbors are piggybacking your Wi-Fi and using it to torrent movies all day.
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