Improve WLAN speed with a fast radio channel
If you want to improve your WiFi pace, you must also pay attention to the radio channel. We will explain to you what is important.
Radio channel with 2.4 GHz: narrow pace history
If you have a normal router, it will be working in the 2.4 GHz frequency range. At first there is nothing wrong with that. However, this area is fairly overloaded: Here, telephones, Bluetooth devices, surveillance cameras and other WLANs also spark.
- You can quickly expose the sources of interference with a Fritzbox. To do this, go to the configuration page and select the "WLAN radio channel" item.
- In the screenshot you can see on which channels how many other WLANs are transmitting (yellow). Gray shows you other interference.
- The channels with few sources of interference are faster and therefore less susceptible to interference.
- So the standard channel 11 is a bad choice. In this example, you should prefer channels 7 or 8, because there are no other radio networks and comparatively few sources of interference (marked in green).
- If you don't have a FritzBox, you can also analyze the radio channels with smartphone apps or programs.
Faster WiFi thanks to a 5 GHz radio channel
The sources no longer overlap with the new 5 GHz band. There are fewer access points and Bluetooth and WLAN no longer get in each other's way. There are also other innovations in the latest ac WLAN routers:
- Beamforming: The signal is not sent concentrically around the router as before, but directly in the direction of the receiver. You have to imagine this in a similar way to radio relay or a satellite antenna. As a result, the WLAN signal is stronger.
- The modulation has also been greatly improved. The magic word is "256 QAM". This has long been the standard for satellite transmissions. Now higher data rates are possible because the radio channels are wider and faster.
- Switching to 5 GHz WLAN is therefore worthwhile - provided your end devices support the ac standard. A list of the best routers according to the IEEE 802.11ac standard can be found on the chip homepage.
You can also improve your WiFi signal with repeaters. We present you the three best models.