The Internet is the center of our lives. It connects, helps study, and keeps the little ones occupied while we do our chores. The internet has transformed our lives and has become a necessity. Life without internet sounds dark, gloomy, and boring. Can you imagine a life without electricity? Or communication without mobile phone? They are no longer a want but have become a need. 

Wireless connectivity has made things easier. Living room, bedroom, or the back yard, you are always connected. Always ready to share a picture, video or an important email without missing the BBQ. Life is easy, comforting, and connected only until your Wi-Fi is alive and kicking. Well yes, we have all been there. The dreadful disconnection. It is like the lights go out and you can’t see anything. No backup, plain darkness. The plot thickens when you don’t even know how to fix it.

That was only worse, what follows is the worst part. The times when you have connectivity; the connection is live but your internet is slow. With disconnection you know it is not working but when it is slow it gets frustrating. You know something is wrong and feel you can do something about it but the question is, what? You know the internet is slow but what is causing this slowdown is the real question here. Know what is wrong with your internet, here are 3 Wi-Fi troubles and their quick fixes:

Before we get into some details, let’s first make sure that everyone’s on the same page. Wi-Fi gets the internet to your devices using radio waves. Now, this makes it a transmitter and every transmitter has its limitations. We are only concerned by the area it can cover with its radio wave emissions. If you put it in a corner and you have a big house it is going to affect the coverage. Similarly, in your case, you may have a router that does not have a great range. What? It covers a smaller area than you expect.

As you move away from the router, the connection starts to weaken. You may face weaker signal strength in some parts of the house. There may be areas where you cannot get any coverage. This results in no connection or slower speeds. You don’t want that, do you?

You can remedy it without any help. You should not feel the need to consult a technician. Move your router to a central room of the house. The centrally located router will help cover a bigger portion of the house. Elevating will prove helpful as well. This will take the hurdles out of the way and you can have better reception throughout the house. 

There are times when you are sitting right next to your Wi-Fi router and still get slow speed. What is that all about? This is frustrating and does not make any sense, right? That’s why we are here. To help assess the issue and suggest a quick fix. Try plugging your computer directly to the modem. Once done, check your speed by visiting a speed testing website like speedtest.net. If the speeds don’t improve, the trouble is likely to be with your internet connection and not the router. You may have to get in touch with your ISP (Internet Service Provider) to get it resolved. For example, you can visit https://www.localcabledeals.com/Cox/Customer-Service for an instant solution to your Cox internet troubles.

Another possible reason is that the broadcasting channel may be overcrowded. There might be numerous other routers or devices surrounding yours. The sharing channel is like a narrow road with a lot of cars. Slow! There is a remedy for it as well. You can access your router setting and change the channel that your router uses to broadcast Wi-Fi.

What if that doesn’t work either? Well, there is another fix to it. If nothing else works, make a fresh start. No, you don’t have to buy a new router and you can stay with the existing ISP. What do you do when your phone starts to lag or gets slow? You don’t throw it away, you don’t replace it. You refresh it by restoring it to default settings. That is what you need to do now. Perform a factory reset on your router and setting it up again should do the trick.

Is your Wi-Fi moody? Works well and then suddenly it slows down. Like the times when you share a voice clip with someone and it takes forever to send. You blink and it is up and running. Strange, right? Did you notice a pattern? You are streaming fine but as soon as one of you leaves the room to get some popcorn, it starts to lag. Wait, how did we know? It is simple, some routers don’t work well with microwaves. Microwaves, especially the old ones, use 2.5GHz frequency which causes interference at times. Now you know why you need to pause the movie or prepare popcorns before you start streaming again. 

There is also a good chance that you are facing interference from the neighboring devices. If you live in an apartment complex then this might be the issue. Multiple devices surrounding yours can choke a certain channel. It possible that most the people in your complex are streaming an event at the same time. Everyone using the internet simultaneously can clog the channel. NetSpot can help you give an X-ray vision of the channels. You can identify the heavy traffic lanes and adjust accordingly. 

Wi-Fi is a lifeline that keeps us connected, informed and entertained. You can scroll through your Facebook newsfeed, send an email, pay your bills online, and pull up a funny video that the little one likes. It is good to have a reliable connection but nothing is perfect and small hurdles should not stop the show. From spotty connection to slow speeds. You can do the initial inspection yourself and fix your internet without any delay. Don’t lose the connection and stay connected!