Strategies for Stabilizing and Securing Your WiFi Connection

Of the wide range of technologies that businesses and people daily rely on, WiFi can be a hard one to get right and working. It is not uncommon for WiFi connections to be slow, unreliable, or finicky. Poor connections and lack of steady connectivity can be a huge contributor to workplace frustration and lack of productivity. If you are thinking about how to improve your home internet coverage, here are some strategies to consider.

Make Sure You Have a Secure Signal

Making sure your WiFi signal is secure is imperative for improving your bandwidth but also ensuring outsiders are not accessing your channel and data. If your wifi is open to the public, the large quantity of people able to access your bandwidth causes the WiFi connectivity to slow down. It is also important to choose a password with enough complexity to ensure the safety of your data and network. For businesses, this is especially important as any past employee or visitor who has had access to the network will continue to have access until the password is changed.

Configure a Guest WiFi Account for Visitors

Whether you're at home or work you're likely to have an influx of guests at one time or another. Most visitors will expect to be able to connect to the WiFi while they’re visiting your home or office. Particularly business visitors most likely rely on WiFi to send emails, work on documents or execute other professional tasks.

A great way to offer WiFi to visitors, while securing the performance and security of your personal or professional wifi, is to set up a guest account. A guest account will ensure the security of important files but also the amount of bandwidth guests are allowed to use without disrupting your company or home network.

Position Your Router In the Best Spot for Strong Connectivity

Many people and professionals choose to hide their router— most router homes are in a closet or behind a TV. Router placement is often overlooked as a strategy for improving connectivity, but where you put your router plays a huge role in the success of the signal. Placing your router in a closet or by other technologies, like a TV, can cause signal interference. To get the best signal from your router, position it so that it has the most direct signal to the most users.

For Businesses, a great place to put a router might be a conference room or some area where a lot of employees congregate. In your home, putting the router as close to the ceiling, so it has little interference with furniture or other technologies, is a great way to boost your connection. From a higher mount, the router can send a strong signal without having to interfere with any obstacles.

Use Different Channels on Your Router

Routers transmit an array of channels that can be used for WiFi connection. One of the problems that arises with different channels is that all of your neighbor’s routers could be on the same channel causing congestion. When you're configuring your router, the router will scan for the least trafficked channel; however, they continue to stay on this channel even when they become congested. If you are having problems with slow connectivity, you should check your WiFi channels to find one with less congestion and reconfigure your router.

Strengthen Your Signal with a Booster or Sim Card

If all the aforementioned strategies do not help your connectivity, you could invest in a signal booster or Sim card to strengthen your WiFi. A signal booster will amplify the signal currently coming off your router to reach a greater distance. Again, it is important to place boosters strategically to have the best effects. A sim card is a great option if you are having persistent trouble in certain areas and want to create a hotspot.

WiFi has become an expected tool in professional and personal settings. The strength and security of a WiFi signal is essential to creating a happy workplace and home.