[SIZE=4][B]Are you unhappy with the range and reliability of your wifi network?[/B][/SIZE]

[IMG]http://dpnow.com/files/blog/tp-link.jpg[/IMG]
[I]Powerline networking could be your saviour[/I]

Although this is not a specifically photographic topic, all us photographers depend on decent network performance and most of us now use wifi. Unfortunately, most of us have also experienced severe problems with wifi. So here are some hot tips that have worked for me that I would like to share with you.

[B]Get your wireless router in the best position.[/B]

Every instance of a brick or concrete wall blocks a percentage of the signal to and from your wireless router. You need to position your router where there is the least possible obstruction in line of site from your router to places around the building where people will be using wifi and be connected to your router.

Often you will be limited to the proximity of where your phone line or cable comes into the building. But actually, you're not. I use powerline networking to enable me to position the wireless router almost anywhere. Powerline is a system whereby two adapters plugged into different mains power sockets form a network bridge over the mains electricity wiring. Powerline adapters are now very affordable. Just a couple of years ago a pair of 80Mbps adapters would have cost you �100. Now there are getting close to �30. You can even get powerline adapters with built-in wireless access points to extend the range of your wireless network without having to re-position the main router.

Avoid very cheap 80Mbps adapters. The typical performance of powerline adapters will only be a fraction of the 'rated' speed. If you are using a Wireless N router you should be getting up to 200Mbps transfer rates depending on how far you are from the router. Even a 200Mbps powerline solution may prove to be a bottleneck. 500Mbps adapters are now available.

Also, don't plug powerline adapters into plug extension blocks and adapters. The added impedance will blunt the speed of your adapters. Plug them into the actual wall socket.

Currently the most popular powerline kits on [URL="http://tinyurl.com/cr6jtme"]Amazon[/URL] are from TP-Link.

[B]Avoid airspace congestion[/B]

If there are houses or offices close to you also using wifi then there is a good chance of channel interference. In the UK there are 14 radio channels in the spectrum for standard wifi networking. At all costs you should avoid using the same channel as a neighbouring network that is nearly as strong as your network.

It's easy to check this. You can use a free smartphone app like WiFi Analyzer, which is free, or you can install a program like InSSIDer from Metageek onto your PC (free) or Mac (the Mac version costs a few pounds). Both these programs analyse the wifi airspace and inform you whose networks use which channels and how powerful they are compared to your network at that location. WiFi Analyzer looks like this:

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This happens to be at our office and you can see the red peak is our wireless LAN and all the others are our neighbours. Fortunately, our wifi is much stronger than everyone else's in our office so we don't have problems. Nevertheless, several other wireless LANs use the same channel (1) and we might be better off using, say, channel 3.

Normally you can let your router choose its own channel automatically. It should choose one based on analysis of nearby networks, but it isn't foolproof. If you find there is a nearby network of similar power to yours on the same or an adjacent channel, you may experience unreliable connection to your router. If the router doesn't sort it out by itself, you will have to log-in to the router's mini web server using your computer's browser and alter the channel setting manually. Check the instructions that came with your router if you don't know how to do this.

Once you have the optimal position for your router and you have avoided interference from neighbouring wifi networks, you should find your network flies.