6 Tips For Better WiFi When Working From Home
Working from home is already tough as it is with countless distractions and less than optimal environments for productivity. Remote working is made even harder and sometimes downright impossible with a Wi-Fi system that has to support multiple family members streaming Netflix, gaming or listening to music while you need to make that important video conference call.
When working in the office your
productivity was directly associated with the performance of your office’s wireless
internet network and a sudden transition to working from home has left hundreds
of thousands of members of the working community struggling to recreate these
networks. Non-technical employees are now left to troubleshoot their own IT and
networking issues as many on-site Wi-Fi service providers, like EMG Antennas,
have had to drastically decrease such operations temporarily and many internal
IT departments are dealing with high numbers of tickets and low amounts of
internal resources to handle them. All of a sudden, your home internet and
Wi-Fi network, which worked fine when you needed it, is suddenly struggling to
support your video conferencing and other workplace technologies.
In a different time, a Wi-Fi
equipment upgrade would be a quick fix solution for a lacklustre Wi-Fi system
but with many big-name retail stores temporarily closing shop and online
retailers prioritizing shipping for essential medical items, the ability to
simply upgrade your equipment isn’t as easy as it was before. Before you go
nuts trying to figure out how to become a network engineer to fix your
temporary issues, check out these quick-fix solutions that can offer immediate
improvements to your network.
Understand your internet
connection and speeds
We deal with dozens of calls
daily from people looking for “Wi-Fi” services for their apartment or home, and
after a few questions, we learn that these people are actually looking for
internet services and not Wi-Fi. The point of this tip is to let you know that
your internet connection and Wi-Fi are two different things and that any
limitations of your internet connection will also extend to your Wi-Fi. Your
office may have had a dedicated internet connection with symmetrical download
and upload speeds. This type of internet connection is ideal for video
conferencing, VoIP and having multiple devices connected utilizing high-speed
bandwidth for whatever they may need it for. More than likely, you do not have
an internet connection at home as robust as you do in the office.
Check out your internet bill to
see what speeds you’re paying for. Unless your service is fiber-based, you
likely have a much lower upload speed than the download. Depending on the
speeds you have, this could create a bottleneck if you have more than 1 or 2 devices
on a video conference at the same time. You need about 5mbps for both download
and upload for any device that is connected to a video conference. The speed
requirement can increase or decrease based on the platform you’re using and the
quality of the video.
Limit unnecessary internet
activity
If your issue is one of bandwidth
limitation and upgrading is not an option, you can get some extra performance
by limiting internet usage in your home during the moments when uninterrupted
connectivity is critical for you. This is easier said than done when everyone
is home and bored with limited offline activities but a small sacrifice can go
a long way and give you the extra bandwidth you need to complete your video
conference without interruption. High bandwidth activities can include online
gaming, video streaming services like Netflix or YouTube and file downloading.
Think of your high bandwidth
activities as water running through a hose and the hose is your internet
connection. If you only have 50mb in download speeds and you are streaming
multiple videos, gaming online and downloading large files, you may be pushing
the limitations of your internet connection or hose. The hose has finite limits
and does not expand to support needs beyond its limitation – the same idea
applies to your internet connection.
Review your coverage area and
reposition your access point
High-speed internet is pretty
affordable and readily available in most highly populated cities so bandwidth
limitations can usually be addressed easily. Wi-Fi coverage is different and
will usually vary from household to household. People often use the wireless
router/modem combo provided by their internet service provider and in most
cases, it’s placed in the worst possible location.
The devices used to deliver your
Wi-Fi, either your wireless router or access point would be best placed in a
central location where it has a line of sight with all the rooms in your
apartment or home that require Wi-Fi access. If your home is larger than 1000
square feet or has a unique layout that will not support placing your access
point in a central location, you may want to consider a Wi-Fi system that uses
multiple access points in order to extend your coverage to all areas of your
home while at the same time allow you for seamless connection while moving
throughout the house.
Run ethernet cable if necessary
For better Wi-Fi in your home
while working remotely you may need to run some ethernet cable in order to
allow you to reposition your wireless router or to connect to your device
directly. A hardwire ethernet connection will always be more reliable and
stable than a Wi-Fi connection since you are physically connected to your
network equipment rather than wirelessly. Latency and ping time should be
better and you may see increased connectivity speeds depending on how far you
are from your wireless access point.
Running a cable isn’t ideal for
people simply because of aesthetics. Visible cable is ugly and many people
would prefer to use bad Wi-Fi rather than run a cable to enhance their
experience. Bad Wi-Fi at home may be fine when you’re working in your office
but sometimes sacrifices need to be made if you’re trying to improve wireless
connectivity in your house. When running cable try to use non-intrusive methods
to secure the cable out of the way of walking paths. Zip-ties, painters tape,
and staple guns can be used to quickly secure a cable to the wall and can be
removed after use with no damage done to your walls.
Tweak your home router
If you feel confident and want to
try to be an IT professional, consider going under the hood of your home
router. Try checking for content filtering, schedulers or QoS settings. These
features are not available in all home routers but it’s worth the shot. Your
goal is to control how much water goes through that hose or prioritize where
you want the water to go first. Prioritizing devices that are being used for
essentials tasks like video conferencing can yield some improved performance
without having to make much, if any, physical or behavioral changes to
your environment.
Call the experts
If you’re not feeling confident
about becoming your own in-house network engineer, you can always call the
wireless specialists at EMG Antennas. Setup a remote video consultation to
review your current environment and receive custom recommendations on how to
fix your Wi-Fi. Our experts can connect remotely to your hardware to change
settings, ship out pre-made ethernet cables and lease enterprise-grade wireless
access points directly to your home to help you enhance your wireless
connectivity.
The adjustment to working from
home can be quite difficult for many workers, especially those that rely
heavily on network supported technology. An inefficient Wi-Fi network doesn’t
have to add to your problems. Try out the tips in this article to see if any of
them help make your network a bit more reliable. If you’re not able to see much
a difference, give the experts at EMG Antenna call for a remote network
site survey and consultation. Reach
us for any services like WiFi Installation Sydney.
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