How to boost your WiFi router

Some science about megahertz

According to physics of wave

Lower frequency travels further than higher frequency

Therefore, you can set up your router for a broader coverage (by using lower frequency) or for higher performance (by using higher frequency).

For broader coverage

• Bandwidth: 20 MHz
• Channel: 1

For higher performance

• Bandwidth: 40 MHz
• Channel: 11

Channels

Most routers are preset to use channel 6 (as a balance between coverage and performance) or auto in which case the router searches for the less crowded channel by try and fail attempts.

However, the science of wave tells you to avoid all channels except channel 1, 6 and 11 because other channels' frequencies overlap each other and therefore are less clean.

Security and performance

Your wireless security settings may affect performance of the WiFi network. For example, avoid using Open System or WEP for security reasons. Use WPA or WPA2.

For encryption algorithms, note that AES is faster and more secure than TKIP. However, if you have old devices, TKIP+AES option will be a fallback option in case AES doesn't work for older devices.

Other options

In case the above settings were not enough if you you need broader coverage, then it is better to set up your router for higher performance and add a wireless access point (AP) to the network to get broader coverage. It is preferable to connect the AP to the router by wires to make the signal stronger between them.