“How to find the best Wi-Fi Channel for your router on any OS.”

Nowadays, the Internet connection has become a necessity to live. Everyone wants a good internet connection with no hindrance. Sometimes it is best to leave the wi-fi channel on by default as it may work well at that place. No single track is best about others; it’s just the hindrance of radio interference and frequencies. For that, you need to find a way to choose the best possible Wi-fi connection for yourself.

What is the best Wi-fi channel?

It is the one with the strongest signal and little or less noise. Your router should automatically catch the strongest band or channel combination for you.

 If you live in crowded or denser places, your networks tend to overlap each other with your surroundings wi-fi networks, which hinders the speed of the wi-fi connection. Therefore, the major way to find the best Wi-fi channel is to select that one unique network that is being used by very few people nearby or by none of them. This will provide you a constant good speed.

For that first, you have to decide- What type of frequency do you need?

Wi-fi operates on different frequencies, which are mainly two-

2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. They have other channels.

– 2.4 GHz is mainly effective when the connection is needed till farther distances, though the speed is comparatively low.

– 5 GHz is mainly effective when the connection needed is faster, though it does not cover a vast distance.

There are 11 Wi-Fi channels in the 2.4 GHz frequency band and 45 in the 5 GHz band, but many of them overlap, so it’s best to use one of the non-overlapping frequency bands, which in the case of 2.4 GHz, there are three non overlapping channels and in the case of 5 GHz it is 24. For example, if you are trying to choose a medium for the 2.4 GHz band and find a lot of congestion near you on channel 11, set your router to channel 1 or 6. This goes the same with the 5 GHz band.

Next, you can check your neighboring access points. You can do this by using a Wi-Fi network analyzer tool. Essentially, it’s a quick check to see how other routers in your surroundings are operating- specifically which Wi-Fi band and channels they are using. This information will help you decide how to set up your router’s own Wi-Fi channel settings for minimal interference. The tools are-

  • NetSpot: Free applications for Windows 10, 8, and 7, Mac OS X 10.10 and higher.
  • Acrylic Wi-Fi: A free application for Windows 10, 8, and 7.
  • Wi-Fi Scanner: A commercial application for Mac.
  • linSSID: used as an analyzer tool for Linux.
  • Wi-Fi Analyzer: A free Android app that gets Wi-Fi information.

These are the applications that provide information about nearby channels and your wireless network.

How can you analyze the Wi-fi channels?

?Let’s go into depth a little bit for analyzing that we have to consider two important variables. These are the “RSSI” and “Noise” values. Also, DLink router login has specific channels you can try to sever your connection.?

RSSI or Received Signal Strength Indicator tells you how strong the connection is between your device and your router. The highest number (the higher, the better) is checked for RSSI. It’s important to remember that higher will mean the lowest negative or close to zero. Example-an RSSI of -40 is better compared to an RSSI of -77.

Noise is the total of all the noise sources and unwanted signals within the range of connection. You’ll need to look for the lowest number for noise. Again, the lowest number would be the farthest from zero as the numbers are negative. For example, -98 is better than -85.

Both values are always in negative numbers.

SNR ? which stands for “Signal-to-Noise Ratio,” is the difference between Noise and RSSI value. This completes the calculation.

SNR value= RSSI ? Noise value.

For example, channel 13 has an RSSI of -40, and the noise is -90.

So, to calculate the SNR: (-40) ? (-90) = SNR of 50.

The higher the SNR ratio or number is, the better the Wi-Fi connection.

You could also try and change the network settings if the wi-fi connection is not working properly. For this to be done-

Once you know the wireless channel that’s least congested near, you can go to the router administration page by typing its IP address in a browser address bar. Depending upon the router, it will be something like 192.168.2.1, 192.168.1.1, or 10.0.0.1. For details, check the router manual or the bottom of the router. Then you have to go to the wireless router settings to change the Wi-Fi channel and apply the new medium. Doing anything on your laptop or other network devices is not needed. This can make an impact on your wireless network performance.

By keeping in mind the above points, this is how you can choose the best wi-fi connection possible. I hope this article will be informative and helpful for you to decide. Go and browse happily!