Faster Internet without Upgrading your Plan.
2020 /2021 have been trying years for everyone, it was also very trying on your home router. Depending on your situation you may have felt the bandwidth crunch more then others. But I am going to talk about a few things that can help improve your overall experience.
WiFi is the future, but wired is still king. What do I mean by that? Most devices now days are WiFi only, but the ones that do have the option of using ethernet are usually higher bandwidth devices. As WiFi technology improves the need for wire to every room will go down, but for now that piece of category cable is still vital to the best performance.
The biggest problem with WiFi is the more devices on the WiFi, the slower the speeds become. However if your home has Cat5 or greater, chances are it can be used to hardwire your important rooms to the network. The ethernet backbone is full bandwidth, allowing maximum connectivity and stability.
Do you have a wire can that looks like the left image?
If your home was built in the 90’s or beyond, chances are you have some sort of Cat5 in the walls. We can assist in making it active to improve performance.
How do you get it to work? Well if you live in the greater Bellevue / Seattle / Everett area, you give us a call. If you are looking for DIY, you need to determine how the wire was terminated. Many older homes had Cat5, but it was used for phone lines, so re-termination will be needed.
After the terminations are completed, we use a network tester to ensure the wires are pinned out properly. Once you have verified the wires are good, you can move on to the network hardware.
We have many levels of network hardware that we use, however in the example above, and most of last year, we chose EERO as our go to brand for it’s performance and stability. We used the EERO Pro 6 as it has the highest bandwidth capabilities, and you can wire the backlink over the ethernet.
Next you need a network switch. Determine how many ports you need, most houses will need an 8 to 16 port switch. The switches come in all sizes and flavors (POE, Managed, .) Most house will benefit from the Netgear 16 Port business class GS116.
If you get your internet via a cable company (Xfinity, Spectrum, Wave..) you will benefit from purchasing a cable modem. I have started to use the Arris S33, which is the latest iteration of the Docsis 3.1 standard. The modem will add stability and can save you money on your monthly bill.
Thank you for checking us out. I hope to put out more content and product testing going forward.
Jeremy Fitch
Northwest Home Automation