We live in world of hi-tech and almost everything we possess requires internet access with that connection being wireless. Now recently in my flat in Rotterdam I have been having a few issues with internet connection to my iPhone and iPad. The biggest issue is with getting a good connection in my bedroom. But not so much with signal strength, but more so with internet speed. Now many people think that your Internet Service Provider (ISP) provides you with an internet speed and that's it, that's what you get and it may slow down during peak times. Correct! What people don't realise is that performance is hindered a lot when connected via Wireless. Plugging my laptop into the router gave me a download speed of around 40Mbps (Pretty impressive eh? ;) ) However being sat right next to the router and connecting via wireless. This connection then went from 40 to around 30Mbps, still good I know... but slower! Now going to the bedroom (through 3 internal walls and in a flat built probably around the 1950s) this signal was dropping to around 3-4Mbps - bad isn't it. Now most people would just say, well hey that's life and just leave it at that. Luckily with my engineering background, I knew something could be done to improve connection and found out that changing the channel on which the router's wifi sends out signals can dramatically change your range and also your download speeds. Ok this is a slow, tedious process. But if you have range or download speed issues I would definitely recommend doing this before putting your hand in your pocket and upping your wifi equipment spec.
Now I live right in the centre of Rotterdam and my devices pick up around 15+ wireless network connections. These connections all work on the same sort of equipment and the biggest pain is that most of them will be running the same wireless channels. This causes interference and again will hinder your download speed. Take this morning for example... I was trying to watch a few videos on YouTube and I was left frustrated and cursing at the fact my video was buffering every 2 seconds. So I went into the living room by the router, same issue. I ran speed tests and was getting results of download speeds between 0-1Mbps. So I went into router settings and saw that the router was using channel 1 which it had assigned itself as the router was running in auto config. I changed the settings from Auto to channel 6 and running a speed test again, I was now getting download speeds of 24Mbps. So obviously something in the vicinity was also running channel 1 and causing interference to my network. Now so many 'not so tech savy' people will just put the blame on some unknown reason, or curse the ISP. But one thing I say is there is always a reason for everything. If you are getting speeds of a fraction of what you should be getting on your wireless device, ok there could be a fault on the line. But 9/10 times it is configuration problems. I always find that any technology issues you may have, and you have no clue about what you're doing... Google is your friend and a knowledgable friend that can make you an expert over night. Always remember that.
No comments:
Post a Comment