Improve Your Home's Wi-Fi Signal In Five Minutes

Routers generally have physical antennas that are adjustable. The
antenna often comes pointed horizontally to fit the router inside its
box. For maximum signal strength, position your router's antenna
vertically, pointing straight up. If you have two antennas, you won't
get better performance by pointing them in different directions.

Position your router properly

Consider where you put your router. If you have a large home or
office, place the router close to the center to maximize coverage. If
you position the router at one end of the building, you may have poor
(or no) signal at the other end. But keep in mind that if you already
have your router positioned at one end of your home and the signal
strength is just fine on the other side, you don't need to move it.

For maximum coverage, the router should also be high up. Placing it on
the floor is the worst location possible - place it on a high shelf,
if possible.

Don't place the router on or near large metal objects, such as metal
shelves or filing cabinets. These can block the signal. Metal or stone
walls can also block Wi-Fi, while wood and plaster walls won't cause
any problems.

You might be able to root out other sources of interference. For
example: microwave ovens, 2.4 GHz cordless phones, and 2.4 GHz baby
monitors all have the potential to interfere with a Wi-Fi signal. I've
personally experienced a Wi-Fi signal to my laptop dying every time a
microwave oven was turned on. The microwave oven was in direct
line-of-sight between my laptop and the router. The solution? Move any
one of them so that the microwave isn't in between. If you get
interference from a cordless phone, you might want to purchase newer
5.8 GHz cordless phones; these work on a frequency band other than
Wi-Fi and don't cause any interfere.

Choose the best Wi-Fi channel

If you're in an area with many different Wi-Fi networks - such as an
apartment complex or even just a house close to other homes - your
neighbors' Wi-Fi networks are probably interfering with yours.

To minimize this, move your router further away from the other Wi-Fi
access points, if you can. For example, if you're in an apartment and
have a router in the corner of your room, your neighbor's router might
be right on the other side of the wall.

But the best thing you can do is switch to a different Wi-Fi channel.
You access this option on your router's settings page - check your
router's instruction manual for instructions on how to do that. (If
you don't have the instruction manual, you can almost certainly find
the instructions online.) Locate the Wi-Fi channel option in the
router's web interface and change it to a different channel with less
interference.

It might take a little experimentation to find the best one, but you
can get help choosing a Wi-Fi channel using the Wi-Fi Analyzer app for
Android phones and tablets, which will monitor the Wi-Fi networks near
you and recommend the least-cluttered Wi-Fi channel for your network.
Unfortunately, similar apps aren't available for iPhone or iPad due to
the limitations Apple places on app developers.

That's it - all you really have to do is position your router well and
choose the ideal Wi-Fi channel to optimize your network. Of course,
buying a new router that supports modern, improved Wi-Fi standards may
also offer you a signal strength and speed boost.

--eHow-tech