How to improve the coverage and quality of our best WiFi signal

What We Have Covered in This Article

Last Updated on January 6, 2020 by Editor Futurescope

If there is a world that has a great importance of internet in the society in which we live that is, WiFi. But today where you go there the best WiFi signal runs well. Few places are left where there is no point of connection and if it does not yet exist, calm, soon have it.

How to have a good WiFi connection?

WiFi connections give us the opportunity to have almost any device without cables, but it also has the problem of being quite sensitive to the environment to use. So let’s see how we can, at least try, improve our WiFi connection.

The position of our router is more important than it seems

The recommended position for router within home, is as central as possible, so we would ensure a fairly homogeneous coverage throughout the stay. If we cannot place it in an area as centered, we must ensure that it is at least in an area where there is good coverage, no matter where we are in the house.

An important detail is trying not to have our router inside a piece of furniture, or covered by something, or near devices such as televisions, cordless phones, etc …

Orient the antennas well, whenever possible

There are routers, especially operator, which do not have external antennas. But if our router is one that has two antennas or more, we must take into account the orientation of its antennas, as it is quite important:

2-antenna routers: It is recommended that the antennas form an L or an angle of 90 °.

Routers with more than 2 antennas: In this case antennas are recommended to form a W or fan.

Types of WiFi and channels

In WiFi networks there are two variables that are also important in having the best quality in our wireless network. One is the type of networks that can handle our router and another the channel in which it is operating.

WiFi networks are classified into different types, the most common being:

802.11b: It works on the 2.4GHz frequency and has a maximum speed of 11Mbps

802.11g: It works on the frequency of 2.4Ghz and has a maximum speed of 54Mbps

802.11n: It works on the frequency of 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz and has a maximum speed of 600Mbps

802.11ac: It works on the frequency of 5Ghz and has a maximum speed of 1.3Gbps

What we usually find today are usually routers with 802.11n or 802.11ac connections, if our router does not work with these types of WiFi, it would be advisable to ask for a change to operator or replace with new router.

To find which channel is the one that is most free in the area there are applications for it, but the one I recommend is WiFi Analyzer. Thanks to this tool, now we can search our nearby wireless connection, finally we get one around us.

What to do if coverage does not reach all places?

It may be the case that after having positioned and adjusted our router correctly, we still do not have a coverage in conditions. If we are in this situation one of the best options is to use a best WiFi signal repeater or use some home resource.

WiFi Repeaters

WiFi repeaters are devices that are located near the area where the wireless coverage drops. It does to transparently repeat the best WiFi signal that boost signal within a zone. Thanks to this tools we can enjoy good coverage in any corner of our home.

It may be the case that our house has several floors, the ideal solution would be to place router as high as possible, but it is difficult for us to have too much in sight. So to avoid having to hang pretty close to the ceiling of our router, we have option to a WiFi repeater that works using PLC technology.

PLC technology, basically, is to use our electrical installation as a network cable, so we will not have to wire the house. Based on this technology there are WiFi repeaters, so we will only need to connect one terminal to our router and place the other terminal in that place of the house where we want.

Home Solutions

If you’re a freelancer and want to try some more economical option, you can try the following:

Aluminum Foil Antenna: Something that is so simple that you can make with the paper of the sandwich (new paper is recommended). We can improve our WiFi coverage with this simple trick.

best wifi signal

Windsurfer: It is an antenna that we can download from FreeAntennas, that we will print and we will cover with aluminum, soon to place it on the antenna of our router. This allows the best WiFi signal to be concentrated towards a specific area.

Watch the neighbors …

One of the reasons why our wireless network is not going as we expected is that we have non-grateful people in our network. When we hire the internet service, the operator installs everything kindly, until all good except for the detail that we leave our router with the security and access keys that come from the source.

One of the first things we have to do is change the access password to the router, which gives us the possibility to change the settings and the whole configuration. The other thing we must do is change the password of our WiFi network, provided we have a password too simple, the style of our phone number or something.

An expert advise to make a password to remember, for that reason to be remember:

  • First, we will think a word associated with what we want to put the password, in this example I will select the word NetGear.
  • Second, we will think of a number of length equivalent to the number of spaces between letters, since N e t G e a r has 6 spaces between the letters that form it, we will use a number of 6 digits, for example 281216.
  • Third, we will choose a symbol, for example @.
  • Now we will only have to gather all the pieces of the puzzle, interspersing letters and numbers, besides using the symbol at the end: N2e8t1G2e1a6r @

Thus we obtain a password that has uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols. With patience we can remember safe passwords, without being the typical 1234 that usually uses enough people.

Problems with the best WiFi signal? You can solve them by improving the location of the router

The router has become one of the necessary devices in all homes, office, bars and restaurants. That is why, being essential, a poor performance in the wifi signal causes great anger and bore some. Many times we believe it is because the neighbor steals the signal. Also we initially attribute to a failure in the service of our network provider and once discarded this the next step is to look for a culprit in the form of hardware or problems in the configuration.  However, most of the time it is due to poor device placement. A depleted signal may have been caused by the poor position of the router, as well as the type of materials in the walls that surround it.

They are the usual steps in a large number of cases but if we think seriously we are overlooking a concept. As it is relative to placement in the home of our router. Not everywhere the performance will be optimal due to a large number of variables that we will now define to try not to have to suffer the effects they cause in the best WiFi signal.

Let’s look at how to get better performance in best WiFi signal from home looking to place the router in the best position as well as avoiding material barriers that prevent a good distribution of the signal.

We give you some tips to place the router in a suitable place to get the best wireless signal.

Near our usual point of use

If we have in the living room a television and the video game console. If it is in the living room the place of the house in which we usually make use of the mobile, will not it be more interesting to place near the router and not in the other end of the house? It is true that we can make use of PLC’s or network extenders but if we can avoid it better than better.

If it is not possible to place it in the same room or nearby we can choose to place it in an intermediate zone so that the signal is distributed more or less evenly throughout the house. Of course, at no time think of the bathroom or kitchen as possible locations.

It may seem clear, but it is best to have the router in a location close to the area where we want to use the wifi. A good solution is to place it in a centered area, away from the ends of the home.

Search for high places

Nothing to put it in low points. The best thing is to look for a high point by taking advantage of a piece of furniture or a closet (we do not need to place it on the ceiling) so that without installation we have a better distribution of the radio signals emitted both to the surroundings and down.

Walls those great enemies

When we put the router we will be almost impossible to avoid the walls. Unless we live in a loft, the signal will be doomed to have to fight with walls and walls to reach the whole house. This will cause a loss of signal quality.

In this case it is interesting and as far as possible to avoid placing the router near a wall or that is excessively enclosed in a room. That at the time of distributing the best WiFi signal does not have to cross an endless number of walls and partitions.

The reason is, as we mentioned before when talking about tiles and pipes, the material used in construction. It is concrete, brick … heavy materials that make the signal lose strength. Even if the walls are of plaster or plaster, the signal will also be diminished.

To achieve a better signal diffusion, it is recommended to place the router in the highest possible area. This makes better use of the radio signals emitted by the device. These signals propagate to the surroundings and down.

One of the advantages of the wireless signal is that it is possible to use the internet without connecting cables. However, nearby walls can be a great enemy for WiFi since they negatively affect the signal.

Materials that attenuate the signal of the router

The walls do not get along with the routers because of the material from which they are built. Thus, if they are of light materials such as plaster, the signal is attenuating as you have to cross walls. However, the coverage, although diminished, can reach several areas. This is not the case when you have walls built of concrete in your passage. In that case, the signal may be completely canceled.

The lockers do not get along with the WiFi

As in the case of the walls, the cabinets with metallic structure will make a screen for the best WiFi signal and will make it impossible to detect the wireless coverage in the devices. Wooden cabinets, as with plaster walls, can attenuate the signal, although they do not prevent it from reaching the other side.

Avoid metal cabinets

The metal and glass are great enemies so it is not advisable to place the router inside a metal cabinet or a glass window as well as not having to cross different areas of the house with this type of furniture.

If with all these measures we cannot improve the signal or it is simply impossible to prevent the Wi-Fi reaching the whole house we can choose to look for and make use of some of the solutions we have already discussed. Use PLC`s, a Wi-Fi repeater or even a cable that doubles the signal to reach all points of the house.

It is advisable to avoid placing these devices on tables or metal or glass surfaces. The rebound effect that occurs seriously affects the best WiFi signal. These materials do not favor the distribution of the coverage in a uniform way.

Avoid the bathrooms and the kitchen

If you have ever wondered why in some areas of the house there is no way that there is coverage or WiFi, this may be one of the answers. Tiles and tiles that are commonly found in bathrooms and kitchens can prove to be a problem for the router. They do not reach the level of screen that exert metallic materials, but they attenuate to a great extent the signal.

And because of the type of building, especially in the older ones, bathrooms and kitchens usually have a large amount of metal in the walls resulting from the installation of pipes and pipes that supply the water floor and serve to evacuate the waste.

A facility that in many cases are made of copper and other metals (now are beginning to use plastic materials) that make barrier with the signals that emits our router so that although they manage to transfer them, they do lose part of their effectiveness. And if this were not enough, the tiles and tiles also make the screen & dim the best WiFi signal. Placing the router in a bathroom can be, not so much, almost like locating it in a faraday cage.

And in multi-story spaces?

In homes and premises that have two floors, the position of the router in one or the other plant is indifferent since the quality should be optimal in both levels. If there are three floors, it is advisable to place the router on the central floor.


Editor Futurescope
Editor Futurescope

Founding writer of Futurescope. Nascent futures, foresight, future emerging technology, high-tech and amazing visions of the future change our world. The Future is closer than you think!

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