With those in hand, go to the manufacturer’s website to find the latest firmware for your router. First, look on the back of your router to find the model and version numbers. The good news is that downloading and applying the update is a fairly simple process. Unfortunately, wireless routers don’t often inform users that an update for their firmware is available. Router manufacturers routinely roll out new firmware for their products, which fixes bugs and increases performance and reliability. Like any piece of hardware, your router can eventually fall out of date. You can change your wireless channel from there. Then type that address into your browser’s address bar. Switching your wireless channel is easy enough - just read the documentation that came with your router to find the IP address for its configuration page (or type “ipconfig” into a command line, and find the address listed for Default Gateway). If the majority of surrounding routers are using channel 1, for instance, those people will suffer from limited range and power. You can use a free tool such as inSSIDer ( to scan for nearby Wi-Fi networks and detect which wireless channel they’re using, then switch to a channel that’s more open. The more routers operating on a certain channel, the slower all their connections will be. You could plug the games console, the TV, Sky+ box, or other set-top-box straight into the ethernet network via a Powerline adapter.Wireless routers use specific channels (one of 11) to send and receive data. Powerline adapters would be a good option for you if, as mentioned in the second scenario above, someone in your house is hogging the bandwidth for gameplay, or if you are streaming from Netflix or similar. You can either connect to this with an ethernet cable, or, if the Powerline adapter has Wi-Fi built in, you can connect to that via Wi-Fi. Then in another room in the house you plug in a second Powerline adapter. You just plug a Powerline adapter into the power socket beside your router, and attach the router to it via the ethernet cable. Powerline adaptors can create a home network over the electrical wiring in your house. Round up of Powerline adaptors on our sister site, TechAdvisor). One option is a Powerline adapter (we have a The problems you might encounter with a Wi-FI extender are signal degradation and the fact that if the extender is placed in a weak Wi-Fi spot it will be pushing out a weak signal. But note, before you rush out and buy an ax router that your current Mac won’t have the required networking card (perhaps this is something we will start to see appearing on new Mac models over the next year). It’s predicted to have a top speed of around 10Gb/s and should perform better in environments with lots and lots of connected devices (which is basically all of our homes now that we have so many iPhones, iPads, HomePods and other smart gadgets). Just a note here to say that the next 802.11 standard – 802.11ax – is expected to arrive in 2019. It’s possible that you have been with them for a while and they might be nice enough to update your router for free. Look for Supported PHY Modes: 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac.Īlso, don’t rush out and by a new router without first contacting your ISP and asking them for an update. Go to: Apple menu > About this Mac > System Report > Wi-Fi. 802.11ac is better at alleviating video stuttering or buffering so you should get better results here.īefore getting an 802.11ac router check that your Mac supports it. These routers are also capable of beamforming – which allows the routers to concentrate the WiFi signal towards your WiFi devices.Īnother reason to get an 802.11ac router is if you do a lot of streaming – and let’s face it, these days that’s most of us thanks to Netflix and the like. One of the features offered by 802.11ac is Multi User-Multiple Input Multiple Output (MU-MIMO) – which means it can send and receive multiple data streams simultaneously to multiple devices without bandwidth degradation. We recommend getting an 802.11ac router if you don’t already own one. The old style of router called 802.11g is still prevalent, but it runs much slower than the 802.11n, and the most current, 802.11ac type. If your sleuthing has shown that there are a lot of wireless networks around you that are using the 2.4GHz band and you have an older router that isn’t able to use the 5GHz frequency, it may be time to update your router.Īll routers use a standard known as 802.11. You should be able to click on the wireless channels options and choose the one that you prefer. It’s likely to be in the advanced wireless settings. How you change the channels will depend on your router software.
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