Optimise your WLAN

I am sure most people have a router at home to serve as a gateway as well as to divide bandwidth. Furthermore, with the dwindling costs associated with owning a notebook, it is not uncommon for more than one user to be actively surfing the Web at home. That being said, here are some points to adhere to to ensure a fuss free and decent net surfing experience everytime.

1.) Ensure that your router and your wireless adaptor has LoS (line of sight) if you can help it.

A physical line of sight is imperative to obtaining good connectivity

2.) Configure your router to broadcast at channel 11.

Most routers are configured to broadcast at channel 6 by default thus by the rule of majority, it is most likely that the bulk of the routers in active usage will be left unaltered in channel 6.

3.) Enable MAC (media access control) filtering and set it to allow only workstations in the list to connect to the WLAN.

4.) Secure your WLAN by using WPA2 (wireless protected access version 2.0)

5.) Monitor the connectivity reported by Windows's Wireless Zero utility. If it consistently reports low connectivity and low throughput e.g. 24Mbps or even 1Mbps, it is a sign that you should try switching channel to optimise your signal.

6.) Update your router's firmware and download the latest drivers released by your manufacturer whenever possible.