With the rise in popularity of home automation devices, homes are also often equipped with a printer, voice assistants, security cameras, and streaming systems like Chromecast or Apple TV.

Obviously, all of this means that our network is more in demand than ever, even too much in demand for us to take advantage of the connection speed for which we are paying.

So here are some tips to improve the situation and optimize your home Wi-Fi network so that it can reach its full potential.

Knowing this, we consider that roughly speaking a downlink speed of 100Mb/s and an uplink speed of 50Mb/s are relatively satisfactory values.

Note that the download speed corresponds to the speed at which the data coming from the internet arrives on our computer. The upload rate represents the speed at which data is transmitted from your computer to the Internet.

To give you an idea, we can read on the CRTC website that 90% of homes and businesses in the country enjoy connection speeds of at least 50 Mbps upstream and at least 10 Mbps downstream. .

Often, operators offer a certain speed, but you have to be careful since it can be out of their control and depend on the installations around you.

Not only does their comparator help us find the best internet plan for home or work, but they also offer a free speed test tool .

This gives us the exact speed of our connection, but above all it allows us to see how much we could pay with another provider for the same speed.

Wired connection VS wireless connection

First, it is important to mention that a wireless connection will always be slower than a wired network. The transfer speed isn’t the same, and the good old Ethernet ports perform better than a Wi-Fi card built into a device.

Even if we want to talk about optimizing the wireless network, it is impossible to ignore the fact that devices connected to the network by means of a cable will be better served than those connected by Wi-Fi.

For this to be possible, thought should be given to the location of the modem. We must perceive it as the gateway to the Internet in the house, the one that allows us to receive the signal from our service provider to distribute it to our devices.

How to choose the location of the modem and/or the router

Today, more and more modem models are compatible with wireless technology and you can connect devices with or without a cable.

Although somewhat rarer, some older modems do not offer wireless connectivity. In this case, you must connect a wireless router to it, which will distribute the signal to devices in Wi-Fi mode.

It is important to choose the location of your devices in the house carefully because in wireless mode, the further the device is from the router and the longer the delay before the data packets are transferred, it is logic!

How to choose the optimal router

The router used can affect the speed of the connection. For example, if you pay for a 100 Mb/s connection and your router only offers a speed of 54 Mb/s, you never benefit from the speed for which you pay.

Basically, the 5 GHz band is newer and is twice as fast and stable as the 2.4 GHz band. On the other hand, its range is shorter and crosses physical obstacles less well.

Together, this reduces network congestion as devices that require a 5 GHz connection, such as HD or 4K streaming, online gaming, etc. will have better stability.

Also consider the standard used, and choose the most recent if you have a large number of devices connected to the network.

The most recent development is Wi-Fi 6, which corresponds to the 802.11ax standard. Basically, this represents a speed 40% faster than that of Wi-Fi 5, corresponding to the 802.11ac standard.