January 6, 2020

Wireless Broadband Service for Your Home: Understanding How Speed is Shared

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Everybody loves pizza, right? There’s nothing worse than wanting a slice and realizing all the slices are gone and you’re left with only crumbs. Did you know your home’s Wi-Fi is like that? Just like that delicious pizza, there are only so many slices to go around. Once those slices are gone, you get buffering, latency, slow downloads and poor online performance.

If you think of your in-home Wi-Fi network like a pizza, each slice provides the data a device needs to execute a certain function. Of course, the more speed your network has, the more pizza there is to go around. The size of the slice each device takes is based on activity. If you’re just scrolling through Facebook or checking email on your phone, it may only take a pepperoni off of the top. But if you are streaming a movie in 4K from Netflix, it could take half of your pizza or more. If your multiple devices are doing multiple things at the same time, your pizza will be gone quick! If your movie is buffering or an attachment won’t download quickly, it means that something else is taking most of the pizza!

Are you having trouble with Wi-Fi performance at your home? Sounds like you need to upgrade your network – or order a bigger pizza if you will. If you have the largest pizza on the menu and there’s still not enough to go around, here are a few tips to enhance your network’s performance.

  • Directly hardwire your devices: By using an ethernet cable to connect your computers, TVs, gaming systems and more, you will get the best speeds your network can provide.
  • Location, location, location: Be sure to position your router in a spot that will provide the best coverage for your home. The farther your devices are from this area, the weaker the signal becomes, resulting in reduced speed. It should be at least a few feet off the ground, and in a central location.
  • Test your speed: Do you know what kind of “pizza” you’re serving up at your house? Test your network’s speed to find out. Your Internet provider may have a way to test your download and upload speeds. You can also Google “test my Internet speed” and perform a quick test. An additional note about speed tests – if you find you’re getting lower speeds than expected, do a test on a hardwired device. If the speed looks good when directly connected, consider a Whole Home Wi-Fi System like Point Broadband’s SmartHome powered by Plume, which will provide consistent Internet speeds throughout your home.

Being online and having access to WiFi is less of a luxury and more a necessity. It’s how we work, play, communicate and more, so it’s important that you have fast and reliable connectivity. The experts at Point Broadband have the products and services to ensure you have the pizza you want, when you want it!