If you’re using your home or office Wi-Fi network and webpages and videos are slow to load or aren’t loading at all, chances are that you’re in your home’s Wi-Fi black spots. Black spots are usually caused by the distance of the device from the router, thick brick wall standing as a barrier, and interference from other devices connected to the router network.
In this article, we will discuss steps you should take to resolve black spot issues.
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Reposition your router
This is a free option you can try. If you’re having black spot issues in your home, you should try moving your router to a central position in your home, a place free from any kind of obstruction. You shouldn’t keep it on the floor behind a table, TV or computer. Wi-Fi signal easily travels through open space.
Also, if your router has a movable aerial, Wi-Fi signal works better if the antenna is positioned up (perpendicular to the router), this ensures that the signal from the router doesn’t shoot into the ground or ceiling.
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Upgrade your router
If after repositioning the router and aerial, you still experience weak or slow network, consider upgrading to a better router. The oldest to newest Wi-Fi standard include 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n, 802.11ac and Wi-Fi 6. If your router uses any of the “b” or “g” standard, you should consider upgrading to a newer one that offers longer range and faster internet connection.
Although good Wi-Fi gives you a very good performance and range, the best speed comes at the expense of range. You’ll get better speed and performance if you go for a router that uses 2.4GHz and not 5GHz.
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Get a Mesh Wi-Fi system
A mesh Wi-Fi system is two or more routers that work together to provide much wider Wi-Fi coverage, more than a single router can offer. A mesh device works perfectly for homes or offices with multiple floors.
To set it up, you attach one of the units from a mesh Wi-Fi kit to a network port on your router, this creates a new Wi-Fi network to which all your devices connect. Then you place the second and third mesh device in different location of a different floor in your home or office. All the mesh device work together to create a single Wi-Fi network that is super strong and fast across your home or office.
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Get a Powerline adapter
Though they gradually being phased out and replaced with mesh and other devices, they are still very effective for connections between two homes of offices in separate buildings. To use a power line, simply plug one adapter to a power socket in your home, near your router and connect it to the router using an Ethernet cable. Then plug a second adapter to a power socket in the other building.
NOTE– The second building must be getting its power from the main building for the Wi-Fi connection to work.
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Wi-Fi extender
Wi-Fi extenders mainly work by capturing wireless signals from routers and rebroadcasting it. it helps to strengthen signals from routers from a different building or on a different floor of a house.
A Wi-Fi extender uses half its antenna to receive a wireless signal from a router and the other half to transmit a new signal. Extenders should be placed in a central location, not far away from the main router.
