WiFi Optimization
What strategies does your organization have in place to ensure that you’re maximizing the performance of your WiFi network? Chances are, you could be doing more to ensure your team has access to a high-performance wireless network at all times. Here are a few straightforward steps you can take to ensure that you’re getting the most out of your wireless infrastructure.
Assess Access Points
Whether you’ve already established the locations of your wireless access points, or you’re planning a new network setup, a wireless site survey can help you pinpoint optimal locations for wireless network components. Plan an optimized wireless layout that takes into account objects and barriers that may disrupt wireless signals like metal, glass, doors, or other electronics. Most routers direct signals at a downward angle, so elevating routers can boost signal performance while minimizing obstructions.
Depending on the size of your facility, a survey can be completed in anywhere from a day to a few days. With a plethora of WiFi analysis tools available today, a laptop, tablet, or smartphone can be transformed into a WiFi analysis tool that helps you identify WiFi problems, analyze signal strength, and find optimal channels and locations for your access points.
Make sure to perform your WiFi survey during a typical day at work with average levels of traffic and with furniture and structures in their usual places. That way, your team can paint a realistic picture regarding how your team uses the space to deliver measurable, real-world results. With wireless routers tuned to provide reliable, high-speed Internet access, a WiFi survey can add lasting value to your day-to-day operations.
Leverage (or Upgrade) Your Equipment
If you’re planning a wireless network setup or upgrade, it’s critical to ensure that you’re selecting enterprise-level hardware that’s built for a business environment. Unlike residential systems, business-grade WiFi hardware is designed to support anywhere from a dozen to a hundred simultaneous connections without slowing your team down. At the same time, enterprise-grade access points offer premium connectivity ranges that far surpass home network equipment.
If you already have wireless equipment, but you want to get more out of it, a managed WiFi service provider can help you leverage industry connection to get you the latest technology at the lowest price.
Quality of Service
A managed WiFi partner can tailor your wireless infrastructure to your business environment and even unique operations like running cloud-based applications and video conferencing. One step you can take on your own is to establish Quality of Service (QoS) priorities. QoS rules allow you to implement network guidelines that prioritize certain network activities over others. For example, if you don’t want video streaming to slow your network down, you can set your system up to prioritize file transfers and basic Internet access over YouTube. Nobody understands your team’s operations like you, and establishing QoS priorities ensures that your team always has high-speed access to the content they need.
Your Managed WiFi Partners
At QXC, we specialize in optimizing managed WiFi networks for the business environment. While there’s a lot you can do on your own to boost Internet speeds, there are some tasks that are better left to the professionals. Paired with fiber-optic capabilities, a managed WiFi platform can add lasting value to your operations while preparing you for the challenges of tomorrow.
If you’re interested in elevating network speeds to the next level with infrastructure built around your needs, contact our team today, and we’ll start working on a solution for you.
