As you increasingly enjoy video streaming services at home or conduct video conferences while working from home, do you ever feel dissatisfied with the fact that your home Wi-Fi is slow or intermittent? In order to restore a comfortable internet environment, here are three points to review your home network that even beginners can check right away.

1. Review the “location” of the Wi-Fi router Wi-Fi radio waves are susceptible to obstacles and tend to spread out in a spherical shape around the router. Is your router placed behind your TV, in a shelf, or directly on the floor in the corner of your room? The ideal location is “near the center of the house” and “1 to 2 meters above the floor.” Also avoid near objects that block radio waves, such as microwave ovens and metal racks. Simply changing the location can make communication surprisingly stable.

2. Use different “frequency bands” to connect Many Wi-Fi routers emit two types of radio waves: the 2.4GHz band and the 5GHz band. ・2.4GHz band (suffixes such as -G): Strong against obstacles and can reach long distances, but easily interferes with radio waves from home appliances such as microwave ovens and is slow. ・5GHz band (e.g. ending in -A): Strong against radio wave interference and fast communication speed, but vulnerable to obstacles such as walls and difficult to reach long distances. Basically, be aware of the different uses, such as connecting PCs and smartphones to the high-speed 5GHz band, and connecting rooms far from the router or IoT home appliances to the 2.4GHz band.

3. Check the lifespan and specifications of the router Wi-Fi standards are updated every few years. If your router is more than 5 years old, it may not support newer standards like Wi-Fi 5 (11ac) or Wi-Fi 6 (11ax), which could be the reason for the slowdown. Even if you replace your smartphone or PC with the latest model, if your router is old, it’s a waste of time. Please take the plunge and consider upgrading to a newer router.