Date: 9/29/2020
For many reasons home Wi-Fi is frequently neglected. Maybe intentionally to encourage kids to play outside or not spend so much time in front of a screen. Maybe it helps make working from home slower and more difficult, so we disconnect at home more often. Maybe there just wasn’t a desire to make things better or a difficulty knowing what to do to make Now that it’s clear that working remotely from home for Work and/or school isn’t going away anytime soon, it’s time to fix things once and for all.
It’s quite common to use your Modem or Router provided by your Internet Service Provider or ISP as your Wi-Fi source. Most of the time they now include this feature. This will work if your area of coverage is small enough. When the modem is in the far corner of the basement from the side of the house upstairs where most of the family is trying to use the signal, it can get unreliable. Try moving the modem to a more central location or closer to the primary use location. You can call your ISP to discuss if this is something you can do yourself or not.
Range extenders or signal boosters can be another option if necessary, especially if you can’t move your primary Wi-Fi source. The downside of these devices is that they tend to repeat the signal causing delay and a speed decrease. This works fine for web browsing and email but not well for things like voice calls, video conferencing or gaming.
I recommend a Wi-Fi mesh solution that provides a new router, where you disable the Wi-Fi signal from your Router/Modem from your ISP, this provides the best solution as many of these products adapt to changing conditions and route traffic the best way possible. Most of the name brands have products that do this. I believe the best product on the market is from Eero. They were purchased by Amazon a while back and continue to develop and update the product line. The Eero Pro model will achieve the best performance and signal but any of their products will be better than what is provided by your ISP. Most electronics stores carry Eero products and obviously Amazon. The work and learn from home boom have caused some supply issues. If you have trouble locating any in stock, please reach out as I may be able to help.
Scott Haselkorn
Chairman
West of the River Chamber of Commerce
