Boost your Wi-Fi
Speed up AND secure your network
If your internet connection feels slow, it’s tempting to blame your broadband provider. But before you get on the phone to your ISP, check it’s not your Wi-Fi that’s causing the slowdown.
There’s an easy way to do this. First, point your browser at speedtest.net from your regular laptop, and run the test to see what sort of connection speed you’re getting. Then, repeat the test from a PC or laptop that’s directly connected to your router via an Ethernet cable. If the second test generates a higher result than the first, the problem lies with your Wi-Fi. But don’t panic, as there are plenty of simple things you can do to improve matters.
Router position and basic configuration
The first step is also the easiest: make sure your router or Wi-Fi access point isn’t sitting on the floor. Even placing it on a low table can make a big difference to signal propagation.
If that doesn’t immediately solve the problem, it’s time to dig a little deeper to see where your network is really struggling. A computergenerated heatmap of signal strength can be very useful here, giving you a graphical representation of the hot-spots (and not-spots) on your network. There are plenty of heatmapping options: Ekahau’s HeatMapper for Windows ( pcpro.link/278wifi1) is a powerful, free tool that measures the fluctuating strength of the network detected by your laptop as you carry it around your home. This lets you see the effect of moving your router to various locations – or, if you need to extend your network, you can easily see the best place to situate a Wi-Fi extender or second access point.
This latter option may be simpler than it sounds. If you have an old router knocking around that’s been replaced by a newer model, you can easily set this up as a secondary access point. This allows you to divide up your traffic to reduce interference and streamline your traffic: the older router can serve older smartphones and tablets using 802.11n, while your current router runs a dedicated 802.11ac network for the devices you use most often.
If you’re setting up multiple wireless networks in your house, pay attention to the channels on which they’re transmitting. Manually set them to broadcast on channels at least five spaces apart to avoid overlap and minimise interference. Another thing to look out for is channel width. A narrow channel (encompassing fewer frequencies) will be less prone to interference as it’s less likely to conflict with neighbouring networks. If your hardware allows it, set a channel width of 20MHz.
Check your neighbours’ Wi-Fi
On that note, one common cause of slow Wi-Fi is interference from neighbours’ wireless routers. It’s a good idea to check which channel they’re
broadcasting on, and pick a different one for your own network. The easiest way to do this is by using your phone with an app like Wifi Analyser for Android ( pcpro.
link/278wifi2) or AirPort Utility for iOS ( pcpro.link/278wifi3). Although AirPort Utility only scans for Apple base stations by default, there’s an option to scan all Wi-Fi networks available at your location. The channel of each network will be displayed below its name in the list of results. As you can see from the screenshot above, two of the networks available at our location use channel 6 and two use channel 1, so there’s lots of potential for interference and reduced performance.
It’s worth re-checking which channel is the least congested every few months or so. Whenever one of your neighbours upgrades or switches
Placing your rout on a low table can make a big difference to signal propagation
providers, there’s a good chance they’ll end up with a new router that defaults to a different channel, potentially impacting your own online experience.
Secure your network
If your neighbours’ networks are leaking into your house, your network is most likely doing the same to theirs. If your network isn’t protected with a WPA2 password, anyone within range could be connecting and bogging down your connection. Set a long, unguessable password for access – after all, you shouldn’t need to enter it too often. For extra security, consider hiding your SSID, so that your network can’t be seen by those who don’t know its name. In the past, we would also have recommended enabling MAC address filtering, which only grants access to devices whose physical hardware ID appears on the router’s whitelist. However, some devices now randomise their MAC addresses as a security feature – Apple devices running iOS 8 or later use random MAC addresses when scanning for available networks, for example – and it’s not difficult to spoof these addresses, making this a less useful function than it once was.
Enable Quality of Service (QoS)
Not all traffic is equal. Emails and web pages are lightweight compared to VoIP and media streaming, so if your Wi-Fi tends to suffer most when you’re catching up on Bake Off or Skyping family members, check whether your router allows you to prioritise these uses over other traffic.
You’ll need to dig into your router’s configuration interface to switch it on, and the exact process will vary from device to device, but look for WMM (or WME) QoS, which examines traffic passing through the router and ranks it according to its detected type. VoIP gets top priority, to minimise latency, with streamed media placed second, so you can reliably watch a handful of simultaneous standard definition streams or one high-definition broadcast. So-called “best effort” packets, classed as anything from devices that don’t explicitly support QoS, are ranked third; the final classification is background tasks, such as print jobs and file downloads. These get the lowest priority, since latency issues and the odd stumble won’t normally be noticeable for this type of traffic.
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If you have a PC that’s connected to your router over Ethernet, it may have a built-in wireless interface that’s sitting idle. You can configure this as an access point, to share your network connection with nearby devices. This gives those devices a stronger signal to latch onto – which means better performance – and it means that your router has less wireless congestion and interference to deal with, since fewer devices are communicating directly via its antennae.
If you’re using macOS, you can activate this feature with a single click in System Preferences. Windows users need to do a little bit of tinkering at the Command line, but it’s not hard.
Open a new prompt and type “netsh wlan show drivers” and hit Return. Wait for it to return a result (which may take several seconds), and look for the line “Hosted network supported”. If the variable beside it says “Yes” you’re good to go.
To set up your new wireless access point, type “netsh wlan set hostednetwork ssid=PCPro123 key=PCPro123 mode=allow” – changing the first PCPro123 to the name by which you want to identify the network and the second one to the password clients will need to use to connect.
Hit Return, wait for the process to end, then activate the network with “netsh wlan start hostednetwork”. The SSID you set should now show up in the list of available networks on other devices within range.
Reversing the process is as simple as changing some of the variables we’ve already entered at the Command Prompt. To stop sharing your network enter “netsh wlan stop hostednetwork”, and to disable it use “netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=disallow”.
Upgrade your firmware
If you’re happy to get your hands dirty with open-source software, you may be able to replace your router’s firmware with a powerful free system called DD-WRT. Be warned that doing so will almost certainly void the warranty on your router, and, if you’re renting it from your ISP, possibly be in breach of your terms and conditions. But if you’re happy to give it a try, you can check whether your router is supported, and find out how to install the firmware, at pcpro.link/278wifi4.
Once installed, DD-WRT gives you access to a lot of functions that are frequently not supported by the default firmware. Not all of them address Wi-Fi speed issues, but you may be interested in tools such as Afterburner, which improves speed performance on compatible client devices, and offers more granular QoS support.
Indeed, DD-WRT’s Quality of Service features alone could make it worth the installation: in addition to looking at data types, you can directly specify which ports or interfaces should be given the greatest bandwidth, and target different machines through MAC address interrogation.
Upgrade your router
If none of these steps have done the trick, it may be time to upgrade your router. If you’re using a router that came bundled with a budget broadband connection, or if you simply haven’t upgraded for a few years, it could be that your current router simply can’t handle the pace.
Look for a device with MU-MIMO (multi-user multiple input multiple output), which connects to each of the clients on your network at the same time, rather than dealing with them in turn, round-robin style. You should also check that it supports beamforming, a clever radio technique that focuses the Wi-Fi transmission on the client, rather than allowing the signal to fan out in all directions as older routers do. A more focused signal should be both stronger and faster than one that’s sent in all directions at once. If you can afford it, consider a mesh Wi-Fi system (as discussed in Jon Honeyball’s column this month, starting on p110) such as Google Wifi.
If spending £200 on a mesh router doesn’t appeal, then the best approach is to work through the above tweaks and fixes in turn. When you find one that works, try rolling back the others to see what difference it makes. The fewer adjustments you need to make, the better, because the next time you experience degraded performance, it will be easy to keep track of what’s changed and what might need further refinement.
Power up your network
If you have an older house with thick stone walls – or a new house with eco-friendly insulation – you may still find the signal has trouble reaching the furthest points, which will affect performance. In that case, the simplest solution is often to invest in an inexpensive Powerline networking kit, which routes network traffic over your domestic mains circuit. These cost less than £50 for a basic pair of plugs: one connects to an Ethernet port on your router, and the other can be located wherever it’s needed, to connect a computer that’s too far away for a reliable Wi-Fi signal. More expensive Powerline kits have their own built-in Wi-Fi access points at the remote end, which reduces the associated cabling and makes it easy to connect several devices at once. Look for plugs with passthrough power sockets so you don’t lose a wall socket (manufacturers recommend that you don’t plug Powerline gear into an extension lead as this can degrade performance).
A more focused signal should be stronger and faster than one sent in all directions at once