Tips to help you improve your wireless network performance

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A fickle Wi-Fi environment make you have an enjoyable time but temporary poor performance affects your mood. This article will give you a basic concept of wireless signal influence factors and make you more clear when configure the settings.

 

Before adjust any settings, you may curious about the factors which may influence the wireless network.

• Distance: Wi-Fi coverage is based on the AP’s capability such as numbers of antennas and output power. The wireless client’s antenna has limited TX/RX ability than AP so the transmit power of the AP should be set to match that of the least-capable device in the network to avoid connection problem.

• Obstacle: Wi-Fi signal is one of radio frequency signals that can be reflected or absorbed by obstacles such as buildings, walls, appliances and any objects. Especially 5GHz is easier than 2.4GHz to get attenuated due to higher frequencies have shorter wavelength.

• Interference: Radio 2.4GHz is shared with a lot of other devices (Bluetooth, microwave) which may generate interference. Wi-Fi signal can also interfere with each other if using the same channel. In radio 2.4GHz, there are 13 channels available and only 3 are non-overlapped that have less interference. In radio 5GHz, up to 25 channels are available and all the channels are non-overlapped. But in some area nearby the airport or army base, radar signal uses 5GHz radio band may influence wireless signal.

 

Although there are many factors that influence the network performance and no golden rules for fixing wireless network issues. First of all, we suggest upgrade drivers at all devices to latest for enhanced and fixed. Then you could try the following tips may help improve the wireless performance.

 

• Band select: Now you know radio performs different in 2.4GHz and 5GHz. The wireless client nowadays usually designed to prefer the 5GHz band over 2.4GHz but you could also setup separate SSIDs with different radio to let wireless client connect via 5GHz signal.

• Channel deployment: Besides band select you could have SSID using the channel with less interference. There are some signal analysis softwares to measure the environment like inSSIDer to help you deploy the wireless network by choosing clear channels.

• Radio Power: The value is not the bigger the better, depending on different deployment scenario and wireless devices. Multiple APs in a limited coverage area should set to lower power to avoid clients connect to distant APs. The visible signal above -65dBm will have better performance.

 

We hope above information could help you to get clear and optimize the wireless network performance.