As we continue to work remotely from our personal devices and technologies, it is important that we remember that the WiFi we are accustomed to having access to at the college is not the same as at home.
ITS would like to offer some tips that might be helpful in getting the most out of your personal internet connection!
1. Consider if your internet is really the issue. The issue might actually be the device you are using. A good way to test this is to restart the device you are using, and see if you are able to better connect to your internet. Sometimes all it needs is a restart.
2. Determine the speed of your internet by running a speed test. This is easy and can be done by getting whatever device you are using as close to your router as possible. Next, turn the WiFi on your device off and then back on again. Once that is done go to speedtest.net, and there you can run a very quick test. For sufficient WiFi your speed should have at least 10 mbps download and 5mbps upload for watching videos and video conferencing.
3. Make your WiFi more accessible. Wifi can be thought of similarly to music coming out of a speaker. The closer you are to it the more clearly you can hear it. You should consider moving your router. Sometimes the shape of your home can create a barrier for your wifi, and moving it to a more central location in your home, or closer to where you are working could help alleviate some of your connection issues.
4. "Have you tried turning it off and then back on again?" A timeless question, that although seems trivial, holds quite a bit of power. Resetting your router and leaving it off for 15-30 seconds can be a very helpful and successful troubleshooting tool for connectivity issues.
5. Get the most out of your Internet Service Provider (ISP). Ask about upgrading your service, or updating your modem. Additionally you might want to consider doing some research and seeing what the BEST ISP in your area is, and switching to that ISP if you are not already using them.
6. Preserve and persevere! If you have done everything you possibly can and are currently working on the fastest WiFi that you are able to receive, then you must preserve the bandwidth that you have. This means that you have to do things such as turning off anything that uses a lot of data, like iCloud or Dropbox, turning off your camera when video chatting, or using your phone as a personal hotspot and tethering it to your computer.
To find out more about these tips and others like them please reference this article.