Speed up home network - Best tricks for speeding up your Wi-Fi router

But at least most of us can set one up and connect to it, and be reasonably confident that it'll still be there in the morning.
Why the time for Powerline networking is now
While for most of us networking means radio signals rather than cables, there are some occasions when that old Ethernet cable comes in handy; Who knew networking could be so much fun?

Set up your modem/router and devices for optimal performance

Airport utility

Most of us only ever give a thought to our Wi-Fi network when something goes wrong. And it doesn't help if the technology needed to deliver it all is prone to flakiness, or if the hardware or network software limits the bandwidth.

There are several ways to speed up your home network. The cost of upgrading the network infrastructure is likely to be prohibitive, so a fatter pipe or faster network switch won't necessarily cure the symptoms. More and more people are doing that, and if you want to join the crowd, you've got to be sure you're home Internet network is up to the challenge.
Connected TVs are an utter drag without a fast network. Squeezing the most out performance out of your network is called optimizing, and it isn't very hard, and it doesn't have to be all that expensive.

Here are five things that will make your home network so good you'll be able to say farewell to your cable company.

But first, let me warn you about one thing: Your wireless network simply can't run any faster than your Internet connection. Change Your Networking 

Hardware

Finally, if you want to speed up your existing Wi-Fi network and you've tried moving the router around without much improvement it might be time to upgrade your networking hardware. As I mentioned last year, Cisco's Valet home router is surprisingly easy to set up, and while it lacks some advanced features, it is just fine for most home networks.

The demands for home media network performance increases as we move towards richer multimedia content. Later we look at how to actually measure the speed of your network components and how to design/build a home network that will last you a long time.

If you would like to see which media server is right for you look at our reviews for Servio, TVMobili or NAS. Also, don’t miss how to Use Windows Media Player as a DLNA media server,

MEDIA SPEED (MBPS)

• Voice Calls 0.1
• Music 0.4
• Video Calls 0.5
• Voice Calls (HD) 1.5
• Netflix 1.5
• Netflix (HQ) 3.5
• Movie (DVD) 10.0
• Movie (BluRay) 40.0

Learn more about video file types and bandwidth needs for media servers and players: Video File Formats for Media Servers and Players.

** These speeds should be doubled when calculating how much bandwidth you really need.

Home Media Network

Internet Connection: The speed of your Internet connection is controlled by your Internet Service Provider and may vary with time of day and may also vary from site to site. If your traffic is within the home, like streaming from a media server (see here), then you will have the better part, say 80% of that, available for your home media network. Though many PowerLine devices tout speeds above 300Mbps, the reality is that unless both devices are next to each other you will never get that much.

WiFi Connections: Most existing home networks make use of at least some sort of WiFi device. If you need to buy a new router today and expect need to build a high speed home media network 802.11ac is the way to go.