Improve Your Wireless Signal With a New Router

How long has it been since you installed your last wireless router? Finding it hard to navigate your way around and find efficiency with your slow wireless connection? With the ever growing market of mobile capabilities, you most likely need a wireless router upgrade. These days, you have to think beyond just a couple laptops using your network. Employees come to work with mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets, media players and e-book readers and your business has probably adapted to the technology with wireless printers, and these days, even televisions.

While you can do what you want with your business, we don't suggest cutting your employees off from network use as many use their personal devices for work-related issues. Eliminating access could take a large toll on workplace morale. Your best bet is to simply upgrade your wireless router to a more state of the art version to make up for the increased demand.

There are several separate options to choose from, depending on your network's demands. Older wireless routers use 802.11g technology where now 802.11n technology is available. The difference is that 802.11g routers have a max speed of 54Mbit where 802.11n routers have a max speed of 450Mbit. What does that mean? In simplest terms, newer routers have almost nine times the bandwidth capability as older ones.

Another consideration to take when purchasing a new router is frequency transmission. There are basically two types of transmission frequencies available for wireless routers, 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. Most people think 5 GHz is better because it's a higher number. They're mistaken. 2.4 GHz travels for a longer distance and has a higher penetration rate through walls and solid objects. The downside is the 2.4 GHz frequency is free licensed, so a lot of devices use it which can create dead zones if there a lot of devices in the area using that bandwidth. 5 GHz does transmit data faster, and not a lot of devices use this bandwidth, but the downside is that its solid object penetration is significantly lower. Its transmission distance is smaller, however, which limits the distance a device can capture signal. An excellent signal from 2.4 GHz will still be faster than a poor to decent signal from 5 GHz.

A router isn't everything though. You can have the fastest router in the world and still lag out if your ISP isn't providing sufficient speed. At times, the ISP becomes the bottleneck, but many ISP's have business solution packages that offer higher speed Internet access than standard residential Internet access. There are other ways to limit the use of your network, including using a Unified Threat Management (UTM) appliance.

A UTM can help filter out heavy media streaming websites from being accessed by employees that could lag out your network. You could also use commercial grade load balancing routers designed for hundreds of users. Computerware can help you design and implement a wireless network catered to your business size and projected growth, and to provide you with other IT solutions such as a UTM appliance. Give us a call at (703) 821-8200 today to set up a consultation!