Most people find it convenient to have Wi-Fi in their homes and offices. A Wi-Fi router with a strong signal can cover pretty much any room in your house or office with internet access.
Wi-Fi has become an indispensable part of our lives. Streaming videos, gaming, and surfing the web are all done on Wi-Fi devices. The convenience is great, but the need to keep your network secure. Sometimes when you're outside your home or office, you'll find yourself in a spot where you can't get a strong enough signal to send data back and forth. Read on to find out how you can extend your Wi-Fi range.
If you’re looking to boost the Wi-Fi range in your home, you can take a few approaches.
1. Reposition Your Router
Like most people, you put your router in the corner of the house, and it's probably near the floor, where walls and other obstacles can block its signal. You can improve its range by repositioning it.
Try placing it as close as possible to a window that faces the direction of the greatest Wi-Fi dead zones in your home. If your router is on the ground floor and bedrooms are upstairs, try to put it near an upstairs window instead of on the first floor. Raising a router off the ground (even by just a few inches) can also help.
2. Upgrade to a Better Router
If you've been using the same router for years, it might be time to upgrade. Newer routers offer more speed, better coverage, and additional features than previous models. You may also want to consider purchasing a range extender if you live in a large home and have trouble getting strong wi-fi signals in every room.
3. Get a Mesh Wi-Fi Kit
If you're running a small business and don't have the IT support to troubleshoot the occasional Wi-Fi problem, your best bet is to buy a mesh Wi-Fi kit. These boxes allow you to connect multiple devices and extend the range of your network.
A mesh Wi-Fi kit comprises a central router, which connects to your existing network, and one or more additional routers that connect to an individual device. It allows you to expand your network as needed without purchasing new hardware.
4. Use Powerline Adapters
If your router is in the basement or garage, you can extend your network's range by running Ethernet cables up through walls and floors to wherever you need a signal. That's a messy, time-consuming job, so power-line adapters are a neater alternative.
These adapters use existing electrical wiring to transmit an internet signal between each other. Connect one to your router (with a short Ethernet cable) and plug it into the wall socket. Then connect another adapter in another room and plug that into the wall. The two adapters will establish a connection, turning every socket they're plugged into an internet port.
5. Buy a Wireless Booster
Wi-Fi boosters take an existing signal from a nearby router or wireless access point, amplify it, and rebroadcast it. It strengthens your signal in areas where it was previously weak or nonexistent. Most boosters use the same 2.4 GHz frequency as standard routers and can connect via ethernet or wirelessly.
6. Use 2.4GHz Instead of 5GHz Wi-Fi
Wireless routers come in two frequency band flavors: 2.4GHz and 5GHz. The lower frequency allows for a longer range but can interfere with other devices like Bluetooth speakers, cordless phones, and microwaves. The higher frequency is faster but has a shorter range. If you have a dual-band router, the 5GHz frequency will appear.
If a stronger signal isn't available from your current router's frequency, you can use the other one instead. Please go into the router's configuration page and change it to the other one. The SSID (network name) will be different for each band, so you'll need to reset any devices connected to it to the new SSID (and password).
7. Kick-Off Wi-Fi Intruders
Wi-Fi intruders can be the main reason for a slow connection. You need to know how to detect them and kick them off your network.
They may use your Wi-Fi to download illegal content, watch inappropriate videos, or do other things that negatively affect you. If you're using a public Wi-Fi spot, you're more vulnerable to these people.
How to Detect Them?
Check the default gateway number on your PC's browser. You'll see a list of all devices connected to your network after logging in with the username and password for your router (look up their defaults if you don't know what they are).
If there is a device there that doesn't belong to anyone in your household, change the router's password and connect it again with the new password on each of your devices.
Final Thoughts
Mistakes are easy to make when setting up a Wi-Fi network, but there are relatively simple solutions to most problems. Your first step should ensure that your wireless router and all wireless devices support the same network standard.
Beyond this basic step, you can resolve any range issues by assessing where dead zones in your Wi-Fi signal are, how far away devices are from the router, and what materials block signal range. The solutions listed above will help to extend your existing Wi-Fi signal if it doesn't reach all of your rooms, and they'll improve your overall network experience.
