The router slows down the internet speed. Speed ​​reduction on Wi-Fi wireless connections. Installed non-original wifi module drivers

How to increase the speed of the Internet through a wifi router, if providers promise users high Internet speed under any conditions and often this promise is not implemented in practice?

Sometimes users themselves incorrectly determine the speed of the wifi router. Internet speed is the amount of data transferred per second of time (measured in kilobits or megabits per second).

In browsers and other programs, the speed of uploading or downloading files is measured in kilobytes or megabytes per second. Do not confuse these two concepts.

Possible Causes of Slow Internet Speed

Internet speed may decrease due to the following reasons:

  • the device is too far from the router;
  • low bandwidth wifi router;
  • the network is simultaneously used by several devices that consume a large amount of traffic;
  • software problems in the router;

Before you start troubleshooting the problem, you should test the speed of the Internet using online services. During testing, disable third-party browser tabs and programs that may interfere with the speed test. Some popular services:

Update router drivers

Updating all router drivers can help increase the pace. The installed driver may not be compatible with the operating system version.

Open the device manager (a system utility that displays all connected devices) and select the network adapters tab. Find your wifi adapter in the list and by clicking the right mouse button, select the "update" menu item.

The drivers will be downloaded and installed in the background in one to two minutes.

Advice! After updating the drivers, be sure to restart your computer and router.

Changing the network mode

The operating modes of the router are responsible for its bandwidth on a particular device. There are modes that can increase the speed of the router by improving the QoS level.

To change the operating mode, go to the device manager and right-click on the wifi adapter. Select the properties item. The "Advanced" tab lists all possible modes of the router through which you can increase its performance.

wifi adapter

Select WMM, Preamble, or Output Power for the fastest internet speed. These modes can only be used by a certified router, otherwise you will not be able to connect to the Internet.

You can increase or decrease the speed of Wi-Fi at any time by changing the operating mode.

Impact of Security Standards on Internet Speed

Router security standard is a technology that encrypts and transmits all data that passes through wifi.

The more complex the protection mode, the lower the speed of the Internet, because it takes more time to encrypt / decrypt packets (incoming and outgoing network data).

If you want to maximize the speed of your router, disable all security standards. However, then there will be a risk that unauthorized users can penetrate your network.

For the best security-to-speed ratio, choose WPA security. You can change the protection level through the router settings.

Router firmware

If the above methods do not help increase the speed of the Internet and the router periodically turns off spontaneously, you should reflash it. Contact any service center that specializes in servicing wifi routers.

Self-flashing can lead to malfunctions of the device. To find out which software version you need to update to, turn the device over and look at the current firmware version, as shown in the image:

For example, in the figure, the software version of the router is 7.2, which means that it needs to be updated to the 7th version.

Other Ways to Increase Internet Speed

There are also other ways to help increase the wifi speed on your personal computer or laptop.

  1. Increasing the channel width. You can change this setting in the router settings window. The recommended channel width for an uninterrupted and fast Internet connection is 20 MHz. You can also increase the width of the channel;
  2. Transmitter power control. This parameter is also set in the router settings. The recommended value is 75.

A video that will tell you how to apply all of the above methods to increase Internet speed in practice:

How to increase the speed of a WiFi router and the Internet? speed up wifi

The speed of a WiFi router is the main problem when creating a wireless network. We often hear from viewers that the router cuts the speed, which is why they have a low Internet speed.

- Why do you need nubuck in Reshety?
- To limitlessly use the capabilities of the bluetooth, and switch with other subscribers throughout the region of Russia using Wi-Fi!
(C) Ural Pelmeni

The IEEE 802.11 working group was first announced in 1990, and for 25 years now there has been ongoing work on wireless standards. The main trend is the constant increase in data transfer rates. In this article, I will try to trace the path of technology development and show how the performance increase was ensured and what should be expected in the near future. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the basic principles of wireless communication: modulation types, modulation depth, spectrum width, etc. and knows the basic principles of Wi-Fi networks. In fact, there are not many ways to increase the throughput of a communication system, and most of them were implemented at different stages of improving the standards of the 802.11 group.

The standards that define the physical layer from the mutually compatible a/b/g/n/ac line will be considered. 802.11af (Wi-Fi at terrestrial television frequencies), 802.11ah (Wi-Fi in the 0.9 MHz band, designed to implement the concept of IoT) and 802.11ad (Wi-Fi for high-speed connection of peripheral devices like monitors and external drives) are incompatible with each other. on the other hand, have different applications and are not suitable for analyzing the evolution of data transmission technologies over a long time interval. In addition, the standards that define security standards (802.11i), QoS (802.11e), roaming (802.11r), etc., will remain outside of consideration, since they only indirectly affect the data transfer rate. Here and below, we are talking about the channel, the so-called gross speed, which is obviously higher than the actual data transfer rate due to the large number of service packets in radio traffic.

The first wireless standard was 802.11 (no letter). It provided for two types of transmission media: radio frequency 2.4 GHz and infrared range 850-950 nm. IR devices were not widespread and did not receive development in the future. In the 2.4 GHz band, two methods of spreading the spectrum were provided (spreading is an integral procedure in modern communication systems): frequency hopping spectrum spreading (FHSS) and direct sequence spreading (DSSS). In the first case, all networks use the same frequency band, but with different rebuilding algorithms. In the second case, frequency channels from 2412 MHz to 2472 MHz with a step of 5 MHz are already appearing, which have survived to this day. The 11-chip Barker sequence is used as the spreading sequence. In this case, the maximum data transfer rate was from 1 to 2 Mbps. At that time, even taking into account the fact that under the most ideal conditions, the useful data transfer rate over Wi-Fi does not exceed 50% of the channel, such speeds looked very attractive in comparison with the speeds of modem access to the Internet.

For signal transmission in 802.11, 2- and 4-position keying was used, which ensured the operation of the system even in adverse signal / noise conditions and did not require complex transceiver modules.
For example, to implement an information rate of 2 Mbps, each transmitted symbol is replaced by a sequence of 11 symbols.

Thus, the chip speed is 22 Mbps. For one transmission cycle, 2 bits (4 signal levels) are transmitted. Thus, the keying rate is 11 baud and the main lobe of the spectrum at the same time occupies 22 MHz, a value that, in relation to 802.11, is often called the channel width (in fact, the signal spectrum is infinite).

In this case, according to the Nyquist criterion (the number of independent pulses per unit time is limited by twice the maximum channel bandwidth), a bandwidth of 5.5 MHz is sufficient to transmit such a signal. Theoretically, 802.11 devices should work satisfactorily on channels separated by 10 MHz (as opposed to later implementations of the standard, which require broadcasting at frequencies spaced at least 20 MHz apart).

Very quickly, speeds of 1-2 Mbps were not enough and 802.11 was replaced by the 802.11b standard, in which the data transfer rate was increased to 5.5, 11 and 22 (optional) Mbps. The increase in speed was achieved by reducing the redundancy of error-correcting coding from 1/11 to ½ and even 2/3 due to the introduction of block (CCK) and high-precision (PBCC) codes. In addition, the maximum number of modulation steps has been increased to 8 per transmitted symbol (3 bits per 1 baud). The channel width and frequencies used have not changed. But with a decrease in redundancy and an increase in the depth of modulation, the requirements for the signal-to-noise ratio inevitably increased. Since it is impossible to increase the power of devices (due to energy savings of mobile devices and legal restrictions), this limitation manifested itself in a slight reduction in the service area at new speeds. The service area at legacy speeds of 1-2 Mbps has not changed. From the method of spreading the spectrum by frequency hopping, it was decided to completely abandon. It was no longer used in the Wi-Fi family.

The next step in increasing the speed to 54 Mbps was implemented in the 802.11a standard (this standard began to be developed earlier than the 802.11b standard, but the final version was released later). The increase in speed was mainly achieved by increasing the modulation depth to 64 levels per symbol (6 bits per 1 baud). In addition, the RF part has been radically revised: direct sequence spread spectrum has been replaced with serial-to-parallel orthogonal dithering (OFDM) spread spectrum. The use of parallel transmission on 48 subchannels made it possible to reduce inter-symbol interference by increasing the duration of individual symbols. Data transmission was carried out in the 5 GHz band. The width of one channel is 20 MHz.

Unlike the 802.11 and 802.11b standards, even partial overlap of this band can result in transmission errors. Fortunately, in the 5 GHz band, the distance between channels is these same 20 MHz.

The 802.11g standard was not a breakthrough in terms of data transfer speed. In fact, this standard became a compilation of 802.11a and 802.11b in the 2.4 GHz band: it supported the speeds of both standards.

However, this technology requires high quality manufacturing of the radio part of the devices. In addition, these speeds are fundamentally unrealizable on mobile terminals (the main target group of the Wi-Fi standard): the presence of 4 antennas at sufficient separation cannot be implemented in small devices, both for reasons of lack of space and due to the lack of sufficient 4 energy transceivers.

In most cases, the speed of 600 Mbps is nothing more than a marketing ploy and is unrealistic in practice, since in fact it can only be achieved between stationary access points installed within the same room with a good signal-to-noise ratio.

The next step in transmission speed has been taken by the 802.11ac standard: the maximum speed provided by the standard is up to 6.93 Gb / s, but in fact this speed has not yet been achieved on any equipment on the market. The increase in speed is achieved by increasing the bandwidth up to 80 and even up to 160 MHz. Such a band cannot be provided in the 2.4 GHz band, so the 802.11ac standard operates only in the 5 GHz band. Another factor in increasing the speed is an increase in the modulation depth to 256 levels per symbol (8 bits per 1 baud). Unfortunately, such a modulation depth can only be obtained near the point due to the increased requirements for the signal-to-noise ratio. These improvements made it possible to achieve an increase in speed up to 867 Mbps. The rest of the increase comes from the previously mentioned 8x8:8 MIMO streams. 867x8=6.93 Gbps. MIMO technology has been improved: for the first time in the Wi-Fi standard, information on the same network can be transmitted to two subscribers simultaneously using different spatial streams.

In a more visual form, the results in the table:

The table lists the main ways to increase throughput: "-" - the method is not applicable, "+" - the speed was increased due to this factor, "=" - this factor remained unchanged.

Redundancy reduction resources have already been exhausted: the maximum error-correcting code rate 5/6 was achieved in the 802.11a standard and has not been increased since. Increasing the modulation depth is theoretically possible, but the next step is 1024QAM, which is very demanding on the signal-to-noise ratio, which will ultimately reduce the range of the access point at high speeds. At the same time, the requirements for the performance of the hardware of the transceivers will increase. Reducing the inter-symbol guard interval is also unlikely to be the direction of speed improvement - its reduction threatens to increase errors caused by inter-symbol interference. An increase in the channel bandwidth beyond 160 MHz is also hardly possible, since the possibilities for organizing non-overlapping cells will be severely limited. An increase in the number of MIMO channels looks even less realistic: even 2 channels are a problem for mobile devices (due to power consumption and dimensions).

Of the listed methods for increasing the transmission rate, most of them take the useful coverage area as a retribution for their use: the bandwidth of the waves decreases (transition from 2.4 to 5 GHz) and the requirements for the signal-to-noise ratio increase (increase in modulation depth, increase in code speed). Therefore, in their development, Wi-Fi networks are constantly striving to reduce the area served by one point in favor of the data transfer rate.

As available areas of improvement, the following can be used: dynamic distribution of OFDM subcarriers between subscribers in wide channels, improvement of the media access algorithm aimed at reducing service traffic and the use of interference compensation techniques.

Summing up the above, I will try to predict the trends in the development of Wi-Fi networks: it is unlikely that in the following standards it will be possible to seriously increase the data transfer rate (I do not think that more than 2-3 times), if there is no qualitative leap in wireless technologies: almost all the possibilities quantitative growth exhausted. It will be possible to meet the growing needs of users in data transmission only by increasing the coverage density (reducing the range of points due to power control) and by more rational distribution of the existing bandwidth between subscribers.

In general, the trend of shrinking service areas seems to be the main trend in modern wireless communications. Some experts believe that the LTE standard has reached the peak of its capacity and will not be able to develop further for fundamental reasons related to the limited frequency resource. Therefore, offload technologies are developing in Western mobile networks: at any opportunity, the phone connects to Wi-Fi from the same operator. This is called one of the main ways to save the mobile Internet. Accordingly, the role of Wi-Fi networks with the development of 4G networks not only does not fall, but increases. Which poses more and more high-speed challenges to technology.

Another article on this popular topic. Probably everyone who checked the connection speed through their Wi-Fi network was interested in why it is so low, why the router cuts the speed, and how to increase the speed of the Internet connection. I have already answered almost all these questions in the article:. And in this article we will talk about how to increase the speed of the Internet over a Wi-Fi network. And how it is generally possible.

The whole problem is that when you connect the cable (from the ISP, or even from the router) directly to the computer, we usually get a speed of 80-100 Mbps (if you have a tariff of 100 Mbps), and when connected via Wi-Fi, how lucky. Maybe even 20 Mbps, or even less. If your router is not the cheapest, then the speed will be approximately 50-60 Mbps. But, it all depends on the specific case. And in general, the speed that a router gives out over a wireless network depends not only on the router itself. There are many different factors, which I will write about later in this article.

Separately, I want to write a few words about the maximum speed of the wireless network, which is indicated on the box of your router, or in the specifications. Many people are interested in this question. 150 Mbps, 300 Mbps, this is the maximum theoretically possible speed that a router can give out. Of course, under normal conditions, such a speed will never be obtained. And this is normal, it does not mean that you have a bad router.

Why is the Internet speed slower over Wi-Fi?

I think you will agree that a wireless connection is not as stable as a wired one. And whatever it was, cable connection has always been and will be the most stable and reliable.

Directly, when you connect the Internet cable directly to the computer, there is a direct connection to the provider's equipment. When we install a router, it already manages this connection. The router controls the flow, distributes the Internet to other devices, etc. That's exactly why the speed drops when connected through a router. And especially when connected via Wi-Fi network.

How much the router will cut the speed, mainly depends on the power of this router. The more powerful the router, the faster it can process information, and it has a higher maximum speed stream. And the more powerful the router, the more expensive it is. And believe me, there is a difference between a device for $20 and $200. Otherwise, expensive routers simply would not exist. Nobody would buy them or make them.

We found out why the router cuts the speed, and now we will take a closer look at some of the ways in which you can increase the speed over a Wi-Fi network. At least you can try.

Before doing anything, it would be good to connect the Internet directly to the computer and check the speed. You can check it at http://www.speedtest.net. There is a separate article on this topic that you can see.

If you have a rate of up to, say, 20 Mbps, then you won’t be able to squeeze it out any more. Therefore, we measure the speed with a direct connection, then via a Wi-Fi network. We will find out how much our router cuts speed. And yet, you can check from different devices that you connect via Wi-Fi. Since the speed also depends on the device that we connect.

1 Let's start with the most working way (in my opinion). Search for a free Wi-Fi network channel, and replace it in the router settings. When your devices see many other Wi-Fi networks, all of these networks can interfere with your wireless network. And because of this, the connection speed often suffers.

Therefore, you can try to determine the freest channel and set it in your router settings. There is a very detailed article on this topic:. It also shows how to change the channel in the settings of different routers. Here, for an example on TP-LINK:

Here you need to experiment, try different options. And if you already have a static channel, then set it to Auto.

2 WiFi 5 GHz. If you have a lot of neighboring networks, and a lot of interference that affects the speed, then the best option is to switch to Wi-Fi 5 GHz. Buy a router that supports broadcasting a Wi-Fi network at a frequency of 5 GHz. There the speed will definitely be higher. I recently wrote about one such router:. But, there is one caveat, not all devices.

New phones, tablets, laptops that are already on sale, they most likely already have support for Wi-Fi networks at the new frequency. But older devices do not support it. This can be easily found from the characteristics. But, this is not a problem, since all dual-band routers broadcast a wireless network at a frequency of 2.4 GHz. So older clients will be able to connect to it.

Not only is the 5GHz network now almost completely free from interference, but also according to the 802.11ac standard, compared to 802.11n, the speed is higher. If at a frequency of 2.4 GHz the maximum speed is 300 Mbps, then at 5 GHz it is already 433 Mbps (for Tp-Link Archer C20i).

3 Wireless adapter driver. This method is only suitable for computers and laptops. As I wrote above, the speed also depends on the Wi-Fi receiver installed in your computer. In a wireless network, the speed is always equal to the slowest device. No matter how powerful your router is, if you have an old Wi-Fi adapter on your laptop that does not even support 802.11n mode, then we will not see any great speed.

Replacing a laptop Wi-Fi adapter is of course problematic. But, you can try to update the driver of this adapter. Perhaps a new version has already been released with various improvements, and after the update we will get an increase in speed.

4 Set the 802.11n mode and channel width. If you do not have very old devices that do not support 802.11n, then you can try setting this mode of operation in the router settings. As a rule, the default is automatic selection of the operating mode. For greater compatibility with different devices.

You can do this again in the settings of your router, which you can go to according to the instructions. As a rule, these settings can always be found on the tab where the Wi-Fi network is configured. This setting item is usually called " mode", or " Network mode". Must choose " 11n Only" (N Only), and save the settings. This is how it looks on TP-LINK routers:

On the same page, you can also change the channel width (Channel Width). You can try to put 40MHz.

Save the settings and reboot the router.

If after these settings you have problems connecting to Wi-Fi of some devices, then return everything back.

5 Perhaps in the settings of your router is set old WPA encryption method. Not only is it unsafe to protect the wireless network in our time and is already very outdated, it also has the ability to limit the speed.

Need to set WPA2-PSK encryption (You probably already have it installed). You can set the correct security settings by following the instructions. On the example of D-Link, Tp-Link, ASUS. And in the section "Setting up the router" on our website there are instructions for other devices.

6 The closer to the router, the stronger the signal and the higher the speed. Therefore, try to set the router like this (I have a location) so that there is a good signal throughout your house.

And if you have a large house, and the router cannot break through the signal to distant rooms, then you can install. Or buy a more powerful router.

7 You can still try update router firmware. In the new version of the software, something is improved and finalized. Therefore, after the update, the speed over the Wi-Fi network may increase. We have instructions for all popular manufacturers on our website. I give a link to the instructions, and instructions.

8 Also, do not forget that the more devices connected to the router, the lower the speed will be. Firstly, the router will simply divide the initial connection speed between all devices, and secondly, from the load that the devices will create on the router, it will cut the speed even more.

Afterword

The best way to solve this problem is to buy a more powerful and expensive router. And even better, dual-band, so that you can use a Wi-Fi network at a frequency of 5 GHz, and get good speed.

Well, if buying a new router is not included in your plans, then we will definitely try the tips that I wrote about above. I think there will be some kind of result. Do not forget to share in the comments your result on increasing the speed of Wi-Fi.

After acquiring and installing a router, the user is surprised to find that the Internet connection speed is getting lower. That is, roughly speaking, the router cuts the speed, and this happens - not only in the wireless network (), but even in the wired local network. Let's say, when connecting to the provider directly, the speed was 50 Mbps. Through a router, the same connection is already available at 40 Mbps. But the most interesting thing is that the speed limit on the router is not observed when it works with another provider (with a lower speed, or simply with a different protocol). Why this happens, and whether this problem can always be solved - we try to figure it out further.

First, you need to answer one question: does the router really slow down, or is the problem caused by other reasons? We go to the site 2ip.ru/speed/. Press the "Test" button.

Speed ​​test

If, in the presence of a router (connected to a PC via a patch cord), there is a connection, and the speed really differs (by more than 10-20%, with repeated testing), we conclude that it is “guilty” of the low speed - router.

How much the speed drops through the router, you can evaluate by the quality of work (if you have it). With a reduced connection speed, the picture may “twitch”, freeze, the image disappears for 1-2 seconds. What is the reason for this phenomenon?

And there may be several of them (that is, reasons).

Speed ​​reduction on Wi-Fi wireless connections

It is this type of connection that we must consider, that is, "wireless". The speed of the Wi-Fi network itself, that is, the wireless channel (between the PC and the access point of the router) - may be insufficient, even when using the "latest" protocol. If in theory, the speed of a WiFi router is limited to 300 Mbps, then in practice it rarely exceeds 75 Mbps. When connecting a large number of devices via Wi-Fi, they can also “interfere” with each other.

Conclusion: WiFi router cuts speed, more or less - almost always. But, “how much” depends on the hardware stuffing.

Routing speed

You may notice that the Internet speed through the router is less or more, depending on the provider's protocol. Most routers, for example, can easily cope with or Static IP, lower speed - we observe if the provider uses the -protocol (and the most “complicated” one is). The reason for this "dependency" is the insufficient speed of WAN-LAN routing. The main factors here are: the speed of the hardware, and also the optimization of your firmware. Sometimes, through the router, the speed is lower just with the “default” firmware (but if you “update” it, everything falls into place). That is, we conclude that the "speed" also depends on the firmware.

But most often, when transmitting WAN-LAN packets, the low speed through the router is due to the insufficiently fast central processor (with 240 MHz, for example, you can forget about the VPN protocol). Miracles don't happen. And yet, it should be noted here that some brands of routers have firmware with which everything works perfectly on weak, from a formal point of view, hardware.

Note: When talking about WAN-LAN switching speed, we did not say that this concept includes WAN-Wi-Fi switching as well. And the value of the WAN-LAN switching speed is measured - in the same way, in Megabits / s.

The speed of the Internet through the router, in any case, cannot be greater than the speed of the WAN-LAN switching (which is tested on a given protocol and in a specific router model).

The test result for most common models is posted on the website www.smallnetbuilder.com (website tab LAN-WAN -> Router Charts).

Number of simultaneously open connections

Even if only one PC or laptop is connected to the router, the slow Internet speed through the router may be due to too many connections. The fact is that any program, any process (even "hidden") can create a connection. And not just one, but several.

Solving the problem is easy. Let's say in u-Torrent - go to "settings":

In the "Speed" parameters, we see the number of simultaneously created connections. This setting can be changed.

Question: why without a router - everything worked correctly?

Answer: the fact is that on the other side, the provider also has its own router. Only - different (maybe Cisco, and something like that), that is, faster. These routers have completely different processors. Their throughput is also different.

The maximum number of connections was increased - and the Internet speed through the router dropped (whereas, without a router, the effect is invisible). For different models of routers, this parameter (100 or 200) will be different. The faster the processor in the device (and the better the firmware) - the more connections can be opened without slowing down the speed.

If you find that the decrease in the speed of Internet connections is due to your router, then what to do in this case? For example, how to increase the speed through the router if it is not sufficient, even with a small number of connections?

An option like router replacement, we do not consider. It is better to remember that the low speed through the router is due not only to the low speed of the iron installed in it. But also - other factors (for example - firmware).

Perhaps, firmware update(to a more "newer" version) is one of the good solutions to many problems. Each new version of the firmware is more often "faster". When asked how to increase the speed of the router, we answer: update the firmware. It is better, at the same time, to get acquainted with the reviews, because the “newest” one can be a “beta version”, with the lack of the necessary stability.

Tip number 2. If necessary, and there is such an opportunity - change provider. With the protocol, or (on a static IP address), even the most “ancient” equipment works well. They complain that the speed through the router dropped when the provider started working via VPN. There is nothing surprising here - and, from something (router, or provider services) - in this case, you will have to refuse.

Separately, it must be said about Wi-Fi. Suppose, at a short distance from the access point, the speed is one, and when removed, it decreases. This is quite expected:

With increasing distance, the intensity of the wave decreases, moreover, in proportion to the square of the distance. Add to this the reflections from the "conductive" surfaces, and the diffraction on the metal grating in the walls - this is the answer to the question why the speed through the router is less in the case of a wireless connection.

very unfortunate location - in the kitchen near the kitchen table

Sometimes, it makes sense to switch the access point to a slower protocol (for example, to 802.11g). What - additionally offloads the processor, in the case of a large number of connections. You do not need to change anything in the settings of mobile devices (how to limit the speed on the router - see the setup instructions, most often, this is the main block of Wi-Fi parameters):

Well, the encryption mode ( , ) reduces the speed “by itself”.

Why does the router cut speed? Because it is not fast enough, but relative to the conditions in which it must work.

Methods for "improvement" are divided into 2 classes. Or, we change the "conditions" (the number of open connections, or - more importantly - the communication protocol with the provider). This is one class. Or - change the firmware.

A simple router speed setting is a change in some parameters that affect the speed of operation. For example, if the connection is DHCP, then it is recommended to explicitly set DNS addresses:

It is this advice that is most often cited on the forums. How to increase the speed of the router by changing the parameters less "significant" should be considered for each model separately. We hope our readers will help us in this.

If you want to know how to increase the speed of your router and how to speed up your Wi-Fi connection, then read on.
A small necessary introduction.

The idea for this article came to me "by mail" from a regular reader of mine. I quote from this letter: "... and another problem. I have a very fast Internet. The speed according to the tariff plan is 60 mega bits. But in reality, the maximum that can be squeezed out is 8-12 mega bits. This is enough to work in the browser, but to connect a TV, especially when everyone is at home and surfing the Internet, it’s not enough ... "

I answered the author of this message by mail and gave him some, in my opinion, sensible recommendations for increasing the speed of the router, and. But, everything turned out to be in vain. Internet speed hasn't improved much. Then we decided to chat on Skype.

When he turned on the video connection, in the background, behind him, he noticed the branches of some exotic plant. It turned out that he was engaged in breeding and selling domestic plants and flowers.

And the whole apartment is literally crammed with pots, vases, vessels and other containers in which "his business grew." It all became clear to me...

The Wi-Fi signal is very strongly suppressed by water, and its plants need to be watered ... In general, they decided that the TV was connected not via Wi-Fi, but by cable, through the same router, and an antenna amplifier was installed.

This is such an odd backstory. I told it in order to demonstrate how diverse and sometimes unexpected are the circumstances that affect the speed of a Wi-Fi connection.

Well, now, as promised, I give 5 ways to speed up the Internet

Check the involvement of the router in the drop in Internet speed

This can be done by temporarily turning off the router and connecting the Internet directly to the computer with a cable. Do before and after turning off the router. If there is a difference, then it is worth making further adjustments.

Check your router settings

The main setting of any router that directly affects the speed of the Internet is the power saving mode. In different models and modifications, it can be called differently. For example: "Eco-mode", "Transmission power", "Signal strength" and so on. The names of this parameter can be anything, but the meaning is always the same - adjusting the power of the Wi-Fi signal transmitter. Set all settings to max. Often in such settings there is an automatic adjustment of the signal strength. Disable automatic and set everything to manual mode.

Find the best location for your router

Ideally, this is the center of the apartment. But this is not always the case. The signal can be interfered with by internal walls, pipes, electrical cables, etc. Therefore, I recommend using special programs that help you see the real picture of the distribution and quality of the Wi-Fi signal to more accurately determine the best place for the router.

For Mac OS it is better to use NetSpot, and for Windows Heatmapper.

Eliminate CPU interference

Quite often, the frequency of the computer processor coincides with the frequency of the Wi-Fi network adapter. And then there are strong interferences. This is especially true for laptops, where everything is "stuck" into one tight heap. You can solve the problem using an external remote Wi-Fi module. It’s really possible to immediately “kill two birds with one stone”: minimize interference, and at the same time strengthen the Wi-Fi signal. Since, the transmitting modules built into laptops have an underestimated power to save battery power. But, at home, when working from the network, this is not necessary.

How to increase the speed of the router by updating the modem software

Make sure your router firmware is up to date. On the manufacturer's website, you can always download and install the latest version. And even if you bought a router today, check the software anyway. It may already be out of date.

Tune in to a free channel

When you configure the router for the first time, it automatically selects the least loaded communication channel. But, over time, your housemates can connect to it and it can overload. As a result, interference will occur and the speed of the Internet will drop. To do this, you need to periodically check the congestion of the channel, and change it to a freer one.

You can diagnose a Wi-Fi network and choose the right channel using

 

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