Why my Wifi Weak

WiFi can be a stressed out and upset. You may be enjoying a perfectly strong WiFi signal, move just a few steps in one direction, and watch it drop to one bar or even worst disconnected.

Everybody is hoping for a perfect Wifi signal, who does not? But, the reality is WiFi network is unreliable, fluctuating signals, disconnection without notice is all part and parcel when using a Wifi. WiFi could be weakened through many factors. This reduces their performance.

But why it is here?

WiFI is important in our life. But, weak WiFi will disrupt our lives, thus we need to arrange our space to optimized the WiFi signal. That is the 5S way.

5 reason for WiFi Weak

1. Physical Distance

For obvious technical and safety reasons, WiFi routers don’t have the same transmitting power as cell towers. Cheaper routers may even struggle to cover a relatively small apartment with a strong WiFi signal — let alone an entire house. You can determine the reach of your WiFi router using a WiFi analyzer. There are many available in the market. There is even an app for it.

2. Obstruction

WiFi signals can be partially absorbed or even completely blocked by various obstacles and objects. This including walls, duct work, furniture, home appliances, and even people. These WiFi blockers have especially negative effect on 5 GHz WiFi networks. Higher frequency signals don’t penetrate solid objects nearly as well as lower frequency signals. This is analogous to your radio’s AM and FM frequency signals. The lower the frequency the longer distance it covers.

WiFi signal is heavily dependent on having a clear line of sight. So a signal between antenna and the hotspot you are trying to access is needed. To understand this a bit better, think of WiFi like you would sound waves coming from speakers. The more walls, trees, buildings, mountains and even other speakers you have between you and the speaker the less sound you’re going to hear. In some cases however you are able to overcome certain obstructions by using specialized antennas. As a rule of thumb the better the view the more signal you are going to have access too.  

3. Interference causes WiFi weak

WiFi signals occupy the same radio frequency band of the electromagnetic spectrum actual radios, cell phones, microwave ovens, walkie talkies, baby monitors, and many other devices, all of which can interfere with WiFi signals. WiFi networks can also interfere with one another. This is a problem that’s especially common in apartment buildings and other densely populated areas.

Interference occurs when unwanted radio frequency signals disrupt the use of your television, radio or cordless telephone. Interference may prevent reception altogether. This may cause only a temporary loss of a signal, or may affect the quality of the sound or picture produced by your equipment. The two most common causes of interference are transmitters and electrical equipment.

4. Router Capacity

Just like some computers can barely handle casual web browsing and some can render complex 3D objects, not all routers are equally powerful.

You can’t reasonably expect a low-end router to provide reliable wireless access to the internet to a busy office with more than a dozen of employees and several fax machines, WiFi connected printers, and wireless security cameras. But, in most cases, the most important capacity question is when are are at home.

How Many Devices Can Share the Internet Connection at Once?

Since we know that in the home network, the performance of a shared internet connection will degrade as more computers and devices try to access the Web simultaneously. The big question is how many devices can share the Internet connection at once before you get a slow down?

A general rule of thumb is to limit the number of simultaneous connections on your home network to 45. However, the specific number is going to vary widely depending on what each of those devices is doing. For example, downloading MP3s, ISOs or other large files requires much more bandwidth than checking email or simple Web browsing.

Likewise, if the network is hosting Web, FTP, or Gaming servers, then the recommended limit for the number of network connections may be much lower.

5. Bandwidth hog

Sometimes, the problem isn’t with the strength of your WiFi signal but with the capacity of your internet connection. Video chatting or streaming on multiple devices can bring even a strong WiFi network to a crawl. For the best experience, it’s important to manage bandwidth hoggers and prevent them from stealing bandwidth from everyone else.

Torrent, online gaming and UHD video streaming are some of the application with very high bandwidth requirements. So, if you are using such an application or even if your neighbours “borrow” your bandwidth for such application, your internet signal will be at a crawl. This is on top of the WiFi weak being known. A double jeopardy session.

Thus, it is important that we always safe guard our bandwidth. Just to put into a perspective, my friends once get a letter from the ISP (Internet Service Provider) that his torrent network is hogging the ISP. That is way before it is common for ISPs to perform multiple bandwidth throttle and network balancing techniques.