We recently released much faster broadband speeds over Hardy OneNet. Many customers wonder about the relationship between wired broadband speed and wireless Internet coverage (wifi). To be clear, the wifi signal strength throughout your home does not change with the faster OneNet speeds; rather, that existing wifi signal might not be capable of transmitting the faster speeds over its current frequency.
When Hardy increases speeds, we increase the bandwidth pipe to your home, allowing a faster speed. That doesn’t automatically translate into in-house wireless signals, however. Many people believe wifi is the same as overall Internet speed, but this isn’t correct. In general terms, wifi tries to take the bandwidth speed available to our equipment in your home and distribute it wirelessly throughout the inside of the house. This requires the use of wireless spectrum, which typically falls in the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz frequency range. A 2.4 GHz connection travels farther at lower speeds, while 5 GHz frequencies provide faster speeds at shorter range. Our new faster speeds can require the 5 GHz frequency to achieve that faster speed, but then that signal travels a shorter range. Your wireless device and a router automatically determine the best wireless frequency connection to achieve your device’s maximum wifi speed – some devices are not capable of certain speeds or the 5 GHz range. Your actual wifi coverage in the house hasn’t been reduced when speeds are increased – a more accurate description is that your wifi coverage might need more routers than before to transmit new faster speeds wirelessly throughout your entire home. Again, the actual coverage, in terms of the wifi signal strength, has not changed – it’s just that the existing wifi signal might not be capable of transmitting faster speeds as far, depending on its frequency.
A wireless router set-up that delivers a certain signal strength throughout your entire house – even the far back corners of distant rooms – at one speed might not be able to deliver a much faster speed over the same distances. A wired connection to a device usually delivers a more stable Internet experience, but we understand that’s not always possible, and wifi offers more freedom of movement when utilizing your broadband connection.
We realize that many homes these days have numerous devices that connect wirelessly to our broadband, so it’s helpful to understand how bandwidth and wifi coverage work. Many factors affect wifi speed on various devices.
Bandwidth is the amount of information that your Internet connection can handle at any given time. When you connect to the Internet with multiple devices – be it to browse the internet, stream movies or shows, or play games – each device takes up some of your Internet connection, leaving less bandwidth for other devices. If you connect too many devices without sufficient bandwidth, your Internet speed will appear slower, resulting in a poor user experience. It’s similar to the water pressure in your home. As you turn on more showers and faucets, the water pressure in your home gets lower and lower. As you add more devices to your Internet connection, your overall bandwidth can be quickly consumed.
Other factors also come into play: The location of the wireless router and the signal strength to your devices, the capacity of the devices themselves, and how much bandwidth is required for applications. Many older devices aren’t equipped to handle Internet speeds above a certain limit. Also, as mentioned earlier, the faster the speed, the less distance a wireless signal will reach.
Your Internet experience also depends on the network capacity of the sites you visit. As HardyNet and other Internet providers offer faster and faster speeds, Internet sites themselves have to take into account how much traffic they can handle at one time. This is why you hear of some sites crashing when they experience an unusual amount of traffic at one time.
We’re also seeing more and more devices connected in households as residents buy more smart-capable devices like Smart TVs – these days everything from refrigerators to light bulbs can access the Internet. All these things affect wifi performance. We suggest using a wired connection when doing an Internet speed test. If you are using a wireless connection, please keep these coverage factors in mind, especially if your wifi coverage seems different after a speed increase.