A Quick Home WiFi Performance Hack

A dull but useful WiFi hack (I think). Bear with me it's a bit of a ramble but may be of use if like me you get sketchy internet access from your provider, and/or have a clumsy house with thick walls and lots of devices.

Many of us are working at home with kids sucking up bandwidth just when connecting to that crucial Zoom call. I live in the buttmunch of nowhere with 'ok' but often slow and jittery internet access, plus I'm a bugger for loading up the house with tech - Sonos, Homepods, Hue, Streaming TV, & whatever. All updating and turning on at the most irritating of moments.

If like us you have many different devices, of different ages and uses, all connecting and using up interweb juice keep in mind they connect to your router in different ways using different hardware and software. Not all kit talks nicely. But you can make it all work a bit more seamlessly using this simple hack.

Your router probably has 2 bands - a 2.4ghz and 5ghz. Different devices prefer different bands e.g. my iPhone prefers the 5ghz band, whereas my Mac Mini the 2.4ghz.

Run a speed test (see notes) on both, per device, and monitor speed and stability to see which device prefers which band. Et voila, your device will play more nicely now. Move onto the next...

Notes and Caveats (Not exhaustive but I think I've covered most)

• You will need to run both bands, which most routers do (some have more bands but 2.4 and 5ghz are common).
• As a rule the older kit will like the older 2.4ghz band. The latest and best isn't always the fastest and most reliable.
• 2.4ghz transmits at a lower frequency which will go further and penetrate walls better BUT is slower. 5ghz is the reverse. The higher the number the less distance it will travel and lower capability to get through objects.
• There are bands and also channels - The channel your router transmits on can make a difference too. It's set to Auto by default but if you live in a busy wifi area (Can you see more than 5 networks?) you may want to pick a number at either end of the spectrum. If memory serves it's 1-13. Again, test and see where you get the fastest access with the least jitter on the line. (It's not just speed you want but stability. Sometimes the tortoise is better. Find a speed test app that tells you speed, ping and jitter)
• To test speed I use Google Speed Test (JFGI), SpeedSmart on my iPhone , Speedtest, MLab and there are plenty of others - again JFGI.
• You want download as high as possible obviously (In a busy house less then 10mbs will be a problem), upload as high as possible (less than 2mbs and again you may be in trouble as you need upload capacity to manage the download speed and capacity) (NB ADSL can never be the same speed both ways so hopefully you're on fibre which faster and more stable generally). Jitter or noise to be as low as possible < 1ms ideally, and your ping (time to hit a destination server and back again - think a submarine ping) to be as quick as possible < 10ms.
• Move your router if house is heavy and you get patchy signal regardless of the above - If your router has no visible aerials as a rule keep it horizontal, keep it high up (on a shelf ideally) and keep it cool. Away from other transmitters and corners.
• The bandwidth you router operates at IS NOT what you get on each device. And is normally a big fat lie from your service provider anyway. Your aim is to make the throughput of signal from the server - to your house - to your router - to your devices as clean as possible using the above suggestions.
• Can you plug it in? Never forget the trusty Cat5 network cable. If you can plug it in, do it. Avoid WiFi completely.

HTH