The holidays are a time when family and friends come from near and far to share meals, memories, and Wi-Fi.
[Related: 4 Ways to Stay Connected While Traveling]
Your Internet connection and wireless may be fine when it’s just you and your family at home. However, add on the phones, iPads, handheld games and other devices of cousins, aunts, nieces, nephews and the rest of your relatives, and it’s quite possible that your home network will turn into a mess of video buffering, dropped connections, and very slow web page loads. The more devices that connect, the worse the performance.
There are a few tweaks you can do on your home network to prepare it for company. Some of them are features already included in your existing equipment.
Enable Both Bands on a Dual-Band Router
If you have a fairly new Wi-Fi router, made within the last five years, it is probably a dual-band router. You can double-check by searching online for the make and model of the router and checking it’s technical specifications.
Dual-band routers transmit Wi-Fi at two radio frequencies: the 2.4GHz band, which has good range but can be slow, and the 5GHz band which allows for a faster connection, but does not travel as far as 2.4GHz.
To optimize wireless network performance, enable both bands of a dual-band router. For guests who are mostly just checking Facebook or texting, you can have them connect their devices to the 2.4 GHz band. For those who are video streaming or gaming, they should connect their devices to the 5GHz band.
How do you enable both, or ensure both bands are active? If you go into the wireless settings from a computer or mobile device and you see your network’s name (known as the SSID) listed twice, then the router has both bands enabled. You can confirm this by going into the router’s management settings. The way to do this varies from router to router, so check with the manufacturer of your router, but in general, you access the settings by opening a browser to the IP address of the router (typically something like http://192.168.1.1 or http://192.168.0.1).
The router will
ask for a login and password. Again these credentials vary between routers, but the username and password by default is usually “admin†for the username and “admin†or “password†for the password. By the way, if you can access your router settings using the default password, change it to secure your device.Next, you want to go into the “Wireless†settings in the management interface. There is usually a tab or link to do so. Check to ensure that both the 2.4 and 5Ghz bands are each enabled and are set to “broadcast.†Also, make sure that each band has a distinct name.
For example, if your network’s name is “MyHomeWiFi,†then the 5GHz band’s network could be “MyHomeWiFi_5.†You can also give each network different passwords. This way you can tell those who only need the slower connection to access the 2.4GHz band, and the gamers and video streamers to connect to the network with “5†at the end of its name.
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Enabling Other Features to Boost Performance
There are some other features you can turn on within the router’s settings to maximize performance and security. Just be aware that not all routers have these features but many of the newer, dual-band routers do. For instance, you can enable a feature called Guest Networking. It’s usually enabled by just selecting it and then saving the setting in the management interface. Guest Networking will create a separate network just for your guests that will only allow them to share the Internet connection and not connect to other devices or access files on your home network.
Another feature you can enable is QoS (Quality of Service). QoS is a feature in many routers that acts as a traffic cop. It will seamlessly manage Internet traffic that comes in and out of the home. You just have to set it up first. You can tell most routers to give the highest priority of bandwidth to the type of Internet traffic that’s most important to you.
So if you plan on playing a lot of Netflix movies when the relatives come to visit, you can set up QoS to give priority to video traffic. QoS helps to keep the network performance balanced and well-managed.
Good practice dictates that you should also ensure you are running the latest firmware for your router. Updating to the latest firmware ensures that the router has all bugs or issues fixed that may be causing performance or security issues.
Also, remove any potential sources for wireless interference if you are going to have many connected to your Wi-Fi. These include cordless phones, baby monitors, microwave ovens, and Bluetooth devices.
Finally, for devices that allow the option of connecting via Wi-Fi or Ethernet, try and connect as many users to Ethernet as possible using the LAN ports on the back of your router. Some handheld games have USB adapters that support Ethernet connections. For the kids who may come over with handheld games, ask their parents if they have Ethernet adapters for the games and connect the consoles to the LAN ports on the router; this takes some of the load off the Wi-Fi environment. Plus, it ensures the kids stay in one spot.
Happy Thanksgiving!