Understanding and optimizing your Wi-Fi

Understanding the difference between internet speed and Wi-Fi speed is important. Internet speed is the upload and download speed that is stated on your internet speed plan on your bill — this is what you pay for. Think of internet speed as the “pipe” that enters your home. Once inside the home, all your personal devices that need to access the internet are connected to the modem either via Ethernet or Wi-Fi.

Ethernet-connected devices perform the best and offer the maximum speed of your internet plan.

Wi-Fi is technology that connects your personal devices, such as your tablet, smartphone or laptop, to the internet without a physical wired connection. This technology transmits radio signals to and from your modem so you can browse webpages, stream videos or play online games.

For Wi-Fi connected devices, your internet gets distributed and shared amongst all your Wi-Fi personal devices that you use. The Wi-Fi speeds that you can attain depend on various factors that are explained in this article.

Wi-Fi coverage is the quality of your signal over a certain distance that enables you to connect your personal devices to the internet seamlessly.

Wi-Fi coverage behaves similarly to music playing from a speaker. The closer you are to the speaker, the better quality and clearer you can hear the music. Like listening to music, your Wi-Fi signal is stronger (and faster) the closer you are to your modem. As you move farther away from your modem, Wi-Fi signals lose intensity, which is why the quality of your connection decreases. At some point, you might move far enough that you will simply be out of range and have no Wi-Fi signal at all.

There is no simple rule to calculate the amount of coverage your modem will offer. For everyday use, like surfing websites, streaming videos or sharing photos, your Wi-Fi network will provide great coverage throughout your home.

The speeds you can achieve within various coverage areas varies with distance from the modem, along with other factors.

As illustrated below, the darkest green coverage zone represents the area that you enjoy the best speeds for applications that require intensive internet connectivity, such as watching high-definition and 4K videos on Netflix or YouTube. Farther out, you can enjoy standard definition videos, sharing photos and more. Finally, the farther out you go (represented by the lightest green coverage zone), you will be able to browse and respond to emails, along with activities that do not require high internet speeds.

The size of each coverage zone depends on your usage and your home’s unique characteristics. Here are some of the key factors that impact your Wi-Fi coverage and speeds:

Here are some tips to optimize your coverage:

Your modem will be able to provide coverage throughout your home. On average, maximum speeds and best coverage are achievable within 2000 sq ft around your modem. As you move into further coverage zones, your speeds will slow down.

: The 2000 sq ft radius is based on testing conducted in real homes on the TELUS Advanced Wi-Fi modem. Individual results may vary depending on the construction materials of your home, location and configuration of your Wi-Fi modem, location and capabilities of Wi-Fi devices, number of nearby Wi-Fi networks, number of active Wi-Fi devices or other factors. For a description of Wi-Fi performance, please read the

How to improve your device performance

section of this article.

The speed and reliability of your Wi-Fi connection can be impacted by a range of factors, including:

Some devices may cause interference with your Wi-Fi signal if they are within close proximity to your modem. If possible, try removing or turning off the sources of potential interference. Try to relocate the following away from your modem and Wi-Fi devices:

To improve performance, try moving those devices away from your modem. If the interference persists, contact the device manufacturer for additional troubleshooting.

Installing Wi-Fi Plus can help with Wi-Fi congestion. Learn more about

Wi-Fi Plus

.

The number of devices, the age of your devices and what you do on your devices also impact performance. If you have multiple Wi-Fi devices operating at the same time, each device must wait its turn to communicate through your home internet.

Even though you may subscribe to a high-speed TELUS Internet plan, your Wi-Fi device may only achieve a portion of the maximum speed of your plan.

Newer or higher-end devices are more likely to outperform older or lower-end devices. Since not all devices are created equal, you might notice that some of your devices perform faster when connected to your Wi-Fi network.

Wi-Fi speeds may be slower on older devices, such as early-generation smartphones, tablets and iPads. These same devices may also be impacting the performance of your whole Wi-Fi network, slowing down other devices in your home. All Wi-Fi devices have to communicate with your modem. A legacy device communicates slowly with the modem and every other device will have to wait longer until this device finishes, thus slowing the experience on the newer devices.

Wi-Fi can propagate on two different frequency bands: 2.4GHz and 5GHz. Wi-Fi on 2.4GHz travels farther but slower than 5GHz. Older devices mostly operate on the 2.4GHz band, while newer devices operate on either 2.4GHz or 5GHz. If a device is capable of 2.4GHz and 5GHz, this is considered a dual-band device. To learn more about dual-band Wi-Fi networks, read the related article on

Smart Wi-Fi

.

‘2.4G’ and ‘5G’ correspond to different Wi-Fi frequencies: 2.4GHz and 5GHz. 2.4GHz offers speeds great for surfing and coverage for farther distances. 5GHz offers faster speeds – great for streaming in a closer range of the modem. Each network has its advantages and disadvantages. See the table below for more information:

You might be wondering how fast your smartphone, tablet or laptop are over Wi-Fi. We ran some real-life tests* with a few popular devices to provide some examples:

Device Wi-Fi speeds are dependent on the supported Wi-Fi technology standard (ex. 802.11n, 802.11ac), the number of antennas in your personal device and other factors found within your device specifications.

Run a speed test

to check your device's wired or wireless internet performance.

*Tested with the TELUS Advanced Wi-Fi modem on 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands in real homes on Gigabit Internet (which was validated to achieve 950 Mbps download speed tests using a wired connection). The results in this table were measured using speedtest.net over Wi-Fi. Individual results may vary depending on the construction materials of your home, location and configuration of your Wi-Fi modem, location and capabilities of Wi-Fi devices, number of nearby Wi-Fi networks, number of active Wi-Fi devices or other factors.

For help with complex fixes, updates, advanced settings and security issues on your devices, please visit the manufacturer's website.

Newer Wi-Fi adapters are capable of delivering improved performance. If you are tech-savvy, you may want to upgrade your computer’s Wi-Fi adapter.

Here are some other ways to improve your device performance:

Watch a video about why your Wi-Fi may sometimes disconnect.

Try the initial steps below to see if your performance improves before progressing:

If you continue to experience Wi-Fi performance issues, we recommend running our automatic

Health Check tool

.

At TELUS, we offer professional installation services to make sure that your modem is placed in an ideal area for optimal performance. For large homes, we offer

TELUS Wi-Fi Plus

to extend your Wi-Fi coverage further. Our technicians are equipped with tools to optimize your Wi-Fi and leave you with peace of mind to connect to the Internet.