Do we really need to say it… working from home has become a reality for many. It might not be a permanent state and many companies have successfully adopted a hybrid working system filled with people working from home, others in the office, and many online meetings. For some, working from home has increased productivity, for others, it has destroyed their work-life balance. In many cases, people have very quickly come to realize how grateful they should be for the office’s WiFi and how quickly your home WiFi can disrupt your productivity. Let’s have a look at some of the challenges posed by our home internet and how we can overcome them.

Honey, is the WiFi working?

Poor connections and out of date technology is something that can very quickly turn a normal workday into one massive frustration. It just doesn’t work when you are in the middle of really getting work done and suddenly everything is slow, your webpages don’t want to load, emails don’t want to send and receive, and your online meetings and calls keep buffering and dropping. Your home internet is often just not up to scratch if your work is very internet-dependent.

Your home internet might become throttled once it reaches a specific data usage, or there might be dead spots in your house that keeps you caged into a single spot where you can work. The bandwidth could very quickly reach maximum capacity if you and all the other members of the household have to use it to work and/or study. It’s no joke, and when there are deadlines barrelling towards you, slow internet is a downright nightmare. So what can be done?

Did you turn it off and on?

If you have a poor internet connection and slow speed, there are several things you need to consider with how your internet is set up at home. We’ve already mentioned that your internet could get throttled. This is when your internet service is intentionally slowed down to regulate network traffic and minimize congestion. It can be done for various reasons, you might experience throttling when you use specific websites or your provider might throttle you when you reach a certain data usage. If this is the case, you can check your contract and possibly upgrade it to receive an unthrottled connection.

The location of your router or modem can also heavily influence your device’s reception of a signal. It is important for there to be a clear line of sight between the modem and the device receiving a signal from it. In a house, this is not always possible. Your router could be in a central room and where you sit with your device is a different room. The more obstacles the signal’s way, the worse your signal, speed, and effectiveness could be. A solution would be to move your router closer to your office or to add a WiFi extender to the system. Another option is to invest in a mesh network. Rather than all devices connecting to the single router, the mesh has a hub with various nodes in the house, and a device connects to the closest node.

A different solution to your slow internet could be to invest in a Quality of Service (QoS) technology. It manages traffic in an attempt to reduce packet loss, latency, and jitters in your network. This technology is often included in the SLA with your network provider, but we suggest you double-check. The QoS can be used to set your work-related internet usage as a priority to ensure your work can always be done.

What can you do

When you struggle with your internet, you should carefully consider what contract you have and what services you are receiving from your internet service provider. If it is affecting your work, consider changing your contract or even your provider to ensure get the connection you need. You might also need to update your equipment and technology.