Extend the Effectiveness of Your Wireless Network

Your business wireless connection is an increasingly important consideration, which means it needs to be installed and supported thoughtfully. Today, we will tell you a little bit about Wi-Fi and how to get the best performance out of your business’ wireless network.

Understanding Wi-Fi

Wireless Fidelity, or Wi-Fi, is essentially a Local Area Network built wirelessly through the use of a router. The WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network), much like the LAN (Local Area Network), is networked by connecting endpoints to the central Internet source. Instead of cables and switches, this is accomplished through radio waves. These Wi-Fi radio waves are typically transmitted at frequencies of 2.4GHz and 5GHz.

Understanding the Wireless Network

Since the router sends out radio waves for the endpoints to use for Internet transmission, the Wi-Fi network has to be built around the makeup of your home or office. The more obstructions in the way of the path between an endpoint and the router, the weaker the signal will be.

Those aren't the only things in your house that can affect your Wi-Fi’s effectiveness. Microwaves, baby monitors, even Bluetooth speakers and appliances can effectively block your Wi-Fi network from getting to endpoints. What’s more, the more devices that need a signal at one time will interfere with the strength of the signal. 

Building the Wi-Fi Network

When you set out to build a strong and reliable wireless network, you will first need a wireless router. There are a wide variety of wireless routers on the market for both consumer and business use. Security options and other features will need to be considered when choosing a router. It’s not easy with all the options, but our technicians would be happy to audit your existing needs and make recommendations. 

Once you have your hardware, you are going to want to place your router in a central location inside your office and elevate it, if possible. The more central and higher up it is, the fewer obstructions you’ll have to deal with as most of the metal and wood and concrete objects you’ll have will be near the floor.

If your office is too large to be covered by a single access point, Wi-Fi repeaters can help you extend the wireless signal so that you have all the coverage you’ll need to get a strong, reliable signal.

Device Upgrades

Modems and routers, like all pieces of equipment, are known to fail over time, so you will want to ensure that not only is your hardware working correctly, but also that it is updated regularly and loaded with the latest threat definitions. A lot of home networks are only secured by the firewall on the router, so making sure that software is updated is essential to keeping unwanted threats out of your network. At your business, your router shouldn’t be your only line of defense.

If your device needs to be replaced, or the needs of your organization have changed, contacting one of our reliable IT professionals can get you the knowledge you need to make smarter, more educated investments so you can improve your business’ computing network and infrastructure. If you would like to talk to us about your Wi-Fi network, or any other IT related issue, give us a ring at 607.433.2200 today.