Analyse and speed up Wi-Fi

Nick Peers shows how to improve your Wi-Fi network’s performance by reducing interference and congestion.

Today’s Wi-Fi networks are more powerful than ever, but you can still encounter problems at the edges of your network’s range, where ‘dead spots’ see a weak or non-existent signal. This might be down to the placement of your router, but it can also be caused by interference from other networks where they overlap.

Most network interference occurs when competing networks are transmitting on the same channel. If you know who’s transmitting on which channel, you may be able to improve matters by switching your own network to a less congested one.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to use a free app called WiFi Analyzer to not only measure your own network’s signal strength at various points in your home, but also analyse which channels are being overused, enabling you to find your own sweet spot among all that competition.

1 SIGNAL STRENGTH

This ranges from -100dBm (minimum) to -10dBm (maximum), and decreases the further away you are from your router.

2 NETWORK INFO

Get detailed information about your network here — much of it is cryptic for less experienced users, but helps with troubleshooting.

3 LINK-SPEED

Gives you an estimate of your current network speed, as well as listing the maximum theoretical speed for your connection.

4 SWITCH ADAPTER

If you have multiple Wi-Fi adapters installed, click the ‘…’ button and choose ‘Settings’ to access this screen and switch between them. .

5 ALERT SYMBOLS

These symbols turn orange if there’s an issue with the connection, channel (interference) internet access or security.