What channel should i set my wireless router

This means the 11 channels have to squeeze into the MHz available, and in the end, overlap. The example MetaGeek uses here is what is called Adjacent-Channel interference— where neighboring WiFi channels overlap with one another.

Other forms of interference also include Co-Channel— where numerous client devices are competing with one another on the same channel— and Non-WiFi— where other common household devices, like microwaves, compete for signal on one of the WiFi frequency bands 2. With these WiFi frequency band and WiFi channel aspects in mind, you can now find the best WiFi channel for your router.

Follow these steps:. And while we're on the topic of finding the best WiFi channel for your router, it's important to note that many routers today are designed to automatically choose which WiFi channel to use. However, at Minim, we did observe that routers don't always choose the best WiFi channel available and so this shouldn't be trusted entirely. Rather, following the steps above will help ensure you router is using a WiFi channel that can deliver better, if not the most achievable, WiFi performance without the addition of other WiFi boosting devices.

Samantha Albano on April 21, WiFi channels explained A WiFi channel is a small band within a larger frequency band, which is a certain radio wave frequency range that your router uses to transmit wireless signal. Here's why: There's a tradeoff between WiFi coverage and speed One of the main differences between the 2.

Follow these steps: Choose a WiFi frequency band While you may be inclined to choose 2. If your home has many floors and rooms to reach, 2. But, if you have a more open floor plan with less objects and walls in the way, 5 GHz will likely provide the better WiFi experience.

Additionally, most routers today are dual-band, which means they can operate in both WiFi frequency bands simultaneously. Immediately after I ran Speedtest and got 87Mbps. To figure out your wireless situation, all you need to do is grab a free wireless scanning app. Scan your space, and you might see a graph that looks something like this:. As part of your wifi scanning, you might also notice that your network is overlapping a larger number of channels than other wifi networks.

To put it in technical terms, your router might be using channel bonding, which combines multiple adjacent channels together to give you even faster speeds.

However, if other nearby networks are using the same wifi channels, they could affect your performance as well. It might also be the trick that gives you better wireless performance, depending on the setup of competing networks around you. Wireless signal strength is measured in dBM on a logarithmic scale ranging from to with values closest to 1 being more desirable.

A value of is considered okay, while a value of is considered very good and represents twice the signal strength of Wireless networks have come a long way in the past couple of decades. And yet, sustained Wi-Fi speeds are still a vexing problem in a lot of situations. A number of subtle factors can come into play, including the way your router is set up, the presence of nearby interference, whether you live in an apartment building or a stand-alone house, where your microwave sits in relation to the rest of your network, and how far your devices are from the router.

But many of us have looked through that list of a dozen or so channels and wondered what they are, and more importantly, which of the channels are faster than the others. After All versions of Wi-Fi up to and including These MHz are separated into 14 channels of 20MHz each. On a non-MIMO setup i. If you use If you want maximum throughput and minimal interference, channels 1, 6, and 11 are your best choices.