With so many people working remotely now, home internet connections have become even more vital than ever before. While wifi problems at home may have been a simple nuisance in the past, having connection problems can now cause issues with your work if you’re relying on your home’s wifi to work from home.
Given the increased importance of home wifi, along with the increased difficulty of having a technician visit your home, it may be necessary for you to troubleshoot and resolve your wifi problems on your own.
Here are some easy do-it-yourself ways to get to the root of your wifi problem.
Check Your Devices
The first step in discovering what’s wrong with your wifi is to check your devices. Are you having connection problems or experiencing slow speeds on all devices or only certain ones? If you can stream video on your television without a problem, but struggle to maintain a connection on your laptop, the issue might be with the devices themselves, or the placement of the devices, rather than with the network. Understanding whether it’s just some devices or all devices will help you pinpoint the problem for a better solution.
Move Your Equipment
Is your wifi equipment hidden away in a closet or the basement? That could explain why you’re getting a poor signal. Try moving your equipment to a central location in the house, and put it out in the open. You might be surprised at how much your connection improves with this simple trick. Wifi signals are similar to sound. When you’re farther away from the source, or you put more obstacles (walls, ceilings, doors, etc) in the way, the sound is harder to hear. Wifi works the same, so the more obstacles you can remove between the router and your devices, the better your connection is likely to be.
Update Your Software
If you’re having problems with dropped wifi connections or slow-running devices, the problem might not be with your wifi, but rather with your software. Check to ensure the software is up to date on all your devices and on your equipment. Most modems and routers have software that updates automatically these days, but if the updates aren’t occurring automatically, that can result in problems with the equipment and thus problems with your wifi. You should also try running a virus check on your devices to ensure you don’t have malware running in the background of your devices and stealing the bandwidth from your wifi.
Check With Your ISP
It’s possible that the problem may not be with your wifi network at all, but rather with the internet service coming into your home from your internet service provider. Try running an internet speed test on the devices that are struggling with wifi connections and see what you get. If the speed varies widely between devices, try moving the devices as close as possible to the router and test again. If you still get different speeds, the problem may be with the devices, rather than the network.
However, if you’re getting consistently low results regardless of proximity to the router, then you should contact your ISP to discuss the results and find out what your options are. You might need to upgrade your modem or even your type of internet service. This is a common problem in a home that is running a lot of devices simultaneously, and the effects have likely been exacerbated by people being at home more often and using more screen time.
Add a Signal Booster
If you can’t find a solution to your wifi problems, or you don’t want to invest the time in troubleshooting, a wifi signal booster might be the solution you’re looking for. Wifi signal boosters work by capturing the existing signal, amplifying it and then rebroadcasting the boosted signal. The result is stronger signals throughout the boosted signal area. If you have a large home, you might also want to consider a wifi signal extender, which increases the range of your incoming wifi signal to allow it to reach more areas of your home with a better signal. Signal boosters and extenders can be installed in almost any home to instantly improve wifi signal and reach. Signal booster and extender systems can be customized to exactly fit your needs, based on a variety of factors, including size of your home, strength of incoming signal, budget, and more.
A WIFI Problem Resolved
You don’t have to settle for spotty wifi connections and dropped video calls anymore. Use these tips to troubleshoot your home’s wifi network. When you get to the root of the problem, you may realize a solution in adding a wifi signal booster. Finally, you’ll have the strong wifi network you need.
Comment Policy
Your words are your own, so be nice and helpful if you can. Please, only use your REAL NAME, not your business name or keywords. Using business name or keywords instead of your real name will lead to the comment being deleted. Anonymous commenting is not allowed either. Limit the amount of links submitted in your comment. We accept clean XHTML in comments, but don't overdo it please. You can wrap code in [lang-name][/lang-name] tags.