How to improve Wi-Fi

Work out whether Wi-Fi is the limit before you change package. These are things to try. None of them fixes every home.

Separate Wi-Fi from the line

Run this test, or copy a large file, with the device plugged into the router with an Ethernet cable if it has a socket. Then run it again on Wi-Fi, standing next to the router, and again in the room where the connection actually feels bad.

If Ethernet is clearly faster, the line is not the part that is falling short in that room. If Ethernet is slow as well, router placement will not create speed the line does not have.

Where the router sits

Put the router in the open, off the floor, and not inside a cupboard, behind a television, or against a thick outside wall. A roughly central spot beats a tidy corner. Moving it by a metre sometimes matters more than swapping the package, because walls and furniture soak the signal up.

5 GHz, 2.4 GHz, and what the device chose

5 GHz (and 6 GHz, on newer kit) is usually faster when you are close to the router, and it is less crowded. 2.4 GHz travels further through walls and overlaps with microwaves, baby monitors and neighbouring networks, so it is often slower and steadier at a distance.

Many routers advertise one network name and pick a band for you. They sometimes pick badly. If the settings allow separate names, you can choose the band for a device that keeps joining the slow one. The manual from the router manufacturer is the right guide for that model; the menus are not the same on every box.

Interference and building materials

Stone, brick, mirrors, water tanks and metal kitchen appliances all get in the way. So do neighbouring networks on the same channel. If one room is behind a particular wall, a router on the other side of that wall will always struggle, however new it is.

When one room never gets a decent signal

A cable to a second access point is the predictable fix. Powerline adapters use the electrical wiring and vary with how that wiring was put in. Mesh kits can help when the units have a strong link between them; a wireless hop that is already weak just moves the same problem. A bigger single router does not punch through a house the laws of physics have already blocked.

A router that has been awake for months

If the connection has become unreliable, turn the router off, wait a full minute, and turn it on again. That clears a stuck state. It does not raise the speed the line was sold at. Firmware updates, installed the way the manufacturer describes, fix some crashes and Wi-Fi bugs. Download firmware only from that manufacturer.

While you measure

Pause cloud backups, game updates and other downloads first, or the test reports whatever is left. Test again after each change so you can tell which change mattered. What affects speed covers the cases that are not Wi-Fi at all.