Most small offices run on a router the internet provider supplied, aimed at a household of four. It works until roughly the point it does not — usually when a dozen devices, a couple of video calls and a shared drive are all competing at once.
Symptoms of a network that has been outgrown
- Video calls break up while everything else seems fine.
- The Wi-Fi is strong in some rooms and unusable in others.
- The shared drive or printer disappears and comes back.
- Everything slows down at particular times of day.
- Someone has to reboot the router regularly. This is the clearest sign of all.
What actually helps, in order of value
- Run cable to anything that does not move. Desktops, printers, the till, access points. Every wired device is one fewer competing for the air, which makes Wi-Fi better for the things that genuinely need it.
- Proper access points instead of one router in a corner. Two or three placed sensibly beat one powerful unit, every time. Wi-Fi is limited by the weakest direction, not the strongest.
- A separate guest network. Visitors and personal phones should not sit on the same network as your accounting machine. This is ten minutes of work and closes a genuine hole.
- A business router once you are past about ten devices. Consumer hardware runs out of capacity for simultaneous connections long before it runs out of speed.
The mistake worth avoiding
Buying faster internet to fix a Wi-Fi problem. They are different things. If the connection is fast at the router and poor at the desk, more speed changes nothing — you are paying more for a bottleneck that is not where you think it is. Test at the router with a cable before upgrading anything.
Things people wish they had done first
- Label both ends of every cable. It takes minutes now and saves hours later.
- Write down the router password somewhere other than the router.
- Give the printer and the shared drive fixed addresses so they stop moving.
- Put the router and switch somewhere ventilated. Cupboards cook them.
If any of this is beyond where you want to go on your own, a Koadi technician can take it from here — remotely anywhere in the US, or on-site in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. Describe the problem in your own words and someone who does this every day will pick it up.