Is Your Office Burdened by Slow WIFI? – How to fix that

Slow WIFI is a very common issue in workplace. We are currently in an era where a strong WIFI connection is crucial to a productive business. However, we are also in an era where office WIFI is not always as good as it should be. 39% if employees say that the internet is faster at home than it is in the office.

With over 54 minutes of work lost each week per employee, add that up and you’re looking at 1 work week a year lost. Say your business has 25 people, you’ve just lost half a year of work to poor WIFI issues: Something that can be easily fixed.

Today we’ll be going over some different methods of fixing your WIFI as well as some reasons your WIFI could be suffering.

Outdated Equipment

If your router, access points or client devices are old, they likely only support older, slower WIFI standards like 802.11b/g/n. By upgrading to newer hardware, you can get access to faster solutions such as 802.11ac or WIFI 6. It is a good idea to replace your router and access points every 3-5 years to ensure you’re using the most recent and efficient WIFI options.

Interference

Did you know that many different household items can interfere with your WIFI, leaving your connection disrupted and slower. Items such as microwaves, cordless phones, Bluetooth devices and many more will disrupt your WIFI strength. To remedy this, you can switch channels on the router or move items of interference away from WIFI electronics such as Access points and routers.

Congested Bandwidth

Too many devices and users hogging your bandwidth can congest and slow down the overall speed of your network, resulting in slow WIFI. The only effective way to fix this is to upgrade your Internet plan, something which you should be doing as your business grows anyway. You can do smaller things as well such as limiting streaming quality or file download however this would likely just reduce productivity as much as slow WIFI would.

Outdated Firmware

Outdated router firmware can’t take advantage of faster WIFI capabilities. To fix this, log into admin console and update the firmware to latest release from manufacturer. To see the difference, perform speed tests before and after.

Distance from Router

Having your router or sever tucked away in the corner of your office is normal, but this can cause slow WIFI in the workplace. Having your service blocked and weakened the further your device is from the router. To fix this you can invest in what is called a mesh network, this is where access points (WIFI extenders) are placed around your premises to boost signal strength in areas where the WIFI is weakest.

How a Site Survey can Fix your Slow WIFI

A WIFI Site Survey is involves assessing the entire network infrastructure of your premises, this helps to identify coverage gaps, interference sources and optimal access point placement. This helps in determining which one of the previously covered WIFI solutions is a best fit for your business / project.

A WIFI survey allows you to better plan the design of your infrastructure, saving you money as you more efficiently distribute your access points.

At Genmar, we offer WIFI site surveys to any company: from a small business moving offices, to an enterprise level project / construction company, and everything in between.

If you’re interested in improving your WIFI and saving potentially thousands in Internet infrastructure, check out our WIFI site surveys at

Or Contact Us and see how we can help your business solve its WIFI issues