Tip of the Week: 5 Ways to Extend Your WiFi Signal

Today, having a strong WiFi signal is critical. You need a reliable signal for every part of your home, office, and even outside the building. Is your wireless signal strong in some areas and spotty in others? Would your life be immensely easier if your signal extended for just one or two more rooms? For this week’s tip, here’s how you can extend your WiFi signal.

Obviously, the surest way to extend your WiFi signal is to upgrade and purchase a new wireless router. Although, before you drop money on a new router and retire one that works perfectly fine, first try these tips to extend your signal.

Router Placement: Look for a Clear Shot
When a WiFi signal is strong in one room, but spotty in a different room of equal distance from your wireless router, then there’s a good chance that the room with poor reception has signal-disrupting obstacles between your device and the router. It could be something as obvious as a physical wall, or something not-so-obvious like a piece of electrical equipment that produces its own signals that causes interference. For the strongest and longest WiFi signal possible, make sure that there’s a clear shot between you and your wireless router.

Add an Access Point
You can add a wireless access point in the vicinity of where you want to boost your WiFi signal. This is as easy as adding a new piece of hardware to your network called a wired access point. This NAS device will be wired to your wireless router and broadcast a WiFi signal from wherever you place it--like on the other side of the steel-reinforced wall in your office.

Use a Wireless Repeater
Whereas a wired access point extends your signal by giving you a new access point via a wired connection, a wireless repeater is a wireless device that catches your wireless signal, gives it a boost, and then projects it on its way. As you can imagine, placement of such a device can be tricky; if you install it too far outside the range of your wireless router, it will catch and try boosting an already-weak signal.

Get a New Antenna
Your slow wireless network may have a bottleneck with its wireless antennas. This could be the case for antennas belonging to your wireless router and/or your mobile device. One symptom of this is if the network strength for your wired connection is significantly stronger than your wireless connection. In a scenario like this, a new antenna will go a long way.

Upgrade Your Internet Plan
Of course, you can make all the hardware improvements you want to your wireless network, but if you’ve got a crummy Internet plan from your ISP, then it will be impossible to boost bandwidth that you don’t have. If this is the case for your business, then upgrading to an Internet plan with more bandwidth is in order.

Want faster Internet speeds and more reliable wireless connection for your company’s network? Call Directive today at 607.433.2200. We’ll come to your office and assess your network. We can find your network’s weak points and recommend ways to improve your wireless setup so that your signal can be maximized. To get the most out of your technology, call us today.