Mar 12th 2017
Tech Break 3810
Why WiFi is Still Terrible
Leo explains why WiFi can still be bad, and how to fix it.
Steve's Dell Inspiron laptop drops wifi all the time. Dell claims to have fixed it via remote access, but it didn't work. Leo says that it's likely the person at Dell tech support had very little training and was following the directions in the notebook. All too often, it doesn't fix the problem. What you need to do is call them back and ask to have your case escalated to tier 2 or even tier 3 level support. But why does WiFi drop out? Well, it could be congestion. The 2.4ghz band is woefully crowded. Also, WiFi Networks could be dropping out awhile other networks are heavy use. More likely, the problem is your router. Routers provided by ISPs are usually very basic modem-router combos. It's probably older, too. Leo says to turn off the router portion of it and buy your own. They are newer, more secure, and updatable. Modern routers are also dual band, which are at 2.4 and 5.0 GHz. Check out this article on why WIFI kinda sucks now.
<p>Bandwidth for TWiT Bits is provided by <a href="https://www.cachefly.com/" target="_blank">CacheFly</a>.</p>