Wi-Fi is a top contender for a technology most of us rely upon. After all, Wi-Fi often provides our wireless high-speed internet and network connections. Without Wi-Fi we’d be stuck watching another reality TV show on a cable-connected device. We couldn’t work from wherever we wanted in our homes.

Well, just when you were becoming familiar with Wi-Fi, the technology is adapting. Now, you might want to consider Mesh Wi-Fi for your home. If you live in a big house or an apartment with thick interior walls, or your living space is spread out over multiple stories, you may have experienced dead spots.

Enter Mesh Wi-Fi. Traditional Wi-Fi relies on a single device to broadcast your Wi-Fi signal, aka your router. If you were having connectivity issues, you might have invested in a Wi-Fi booster or Wi-Fi extender, but now you can reach far areas with a Wi-Fi Mesh system.  Besides, those boosters, repeaters and extenders seemed to only work in limited cases…and never well or long-term.

Mesh networks aren’t a new thing, really. They’re already in use in businesses, hotels, hospitals, college campuses and on military bases with their own isolated networks. But now you can also optimize home connectivity with Mesh Wi-Fi.

How Mesh Wi-Fi works

With Mesh Wi-Fi, you’ll place several smaller, connected devices around the house. Instead of having one main router, you’ll have many access points (also known as satellites) capturing and rebroadcasting the routing signals you need for whole-house connectivity.

Benefits of Mesh Wi-Fi

Having ready access to a strong, reliable Wi-Fi signal wherever you are in your home is a good thing, but that’s not the only advantage of Mesh Wi-Fi. Other benefits include:

• Greater speed. With all access points broadcasting the same signal, you can cut the lag from having multiple, simultaneous connectivity requests. This is HUGE!
• Better coverage. Typical Mesh Wi-Fi devices can cover homes 4,000 to 6,000 square feet and more!
• Ease of use. The typical Mesh router system is automated and provides a mobile app for easy management, even remotely. You can make changes, monitor activity and even pause the internet for the kids and make them do homework!
• Integration with other Smart Home devices such as Alexa is often a feature.

Securing your Mesh Wi-Fi

Just as with traditional Wi-Fi, the security of your Mesh Wi-Fi will depend on your keeping your router devices safe. This means:

• Changing the device’s administrative credentials and password from their default settings;
• Setting up devices to automatically check for and install security updates;
• Changing the Wi-Fi network name to something unique, not something that immediately identifies the network as yours (e.g. if you live at 804 Water Street, don’t call your network 804 Water);
• Setting up a guest Wi-Fi network allowing visitors to log on to that instead of providing every guest to your home with your access credentials.

Mesh Wi-Fi is also known as whole-house Wi-Fi, but you may not need this expansive solution. Consider this…how often do you have connectivity issues? How many Wi-Fi dead zones are you dealing with? What’s your budget? And do you really want several more devices around your house?  You just might need only to set up your traditional router more efficiently in terms of placement.

Want to learn more about dealing with slow internet connectivity or Wi-Fi dead spots in your home? Give us a call at (732) 747-0020 or visit www.tworivercomputer.com. Our experts can help you decide on the best Wi-Fi connectivity option for your needs.

Free is me!  I hear this a lot.  Not the best practice when it comes to wifi and your computer.

 

We get this a lot in our computer repair shop…

 

Valued Customer:  ”my email was hacked” or “my credit card got hacked”

Technician: “how do you know?”

Valued Customer: ”my email is sending out spam” or “I got a call from my credit card company!”

Technician: “have you been traveling”

Valued Customer: ”yes”

Technician: “did you use free wifi”

Valued Customer: ”yes”

Technician: “uh-oh”

 

I’m using this as an illustration so get my point across.  Free wifi, like the ones in coffee shops, airports, hotels, etc. are ripe for bad guys to poach your login information as you enter you email address, bank or shopping account.  They lurk on the same wifi as you and try to gain access to your computer.  If they are successful, they can install a keylogger program that will record your movements, including the login information to critical sites you go to.  Not cool.

 

“But what about the fancy hotel I’m staying in?  That wifi is only for paying customers and it requires a password”.

 

If I was a bad guy and wanted to try to steal info from high-income earners, I would check into an expensive hotel and hang out in the lobby, bar or even just in my room.  I would do a widespread attack and try to see if I could get in and grab any juicy stuff.

 

When traveling abroad, free wifi becomes important because of the restrictions and cost of your US carriers phone/text/internet service when traveling outside of North America.  Many have decided to not call or text and use apps that will use data instead, hence the use of the free wifi.  “I’ll just hop on the free wifi in the coffee shop and do a quick facetime back home”.  I get it.  I might even do it.  I just won’t stay on for long and hop right off.  The fact is, bad guys could be lurking here too and actually setup a wifi router and call it “Free Coffee Shop WiFi”.  You login and they grab your stuff.  Even in your fancy hotel, the bad guys could be broadcasting a stronger wifi network with the same name as the hotel and you jump on that.  Well, guess what?  It’s not the hotel, it’s the bad guy and he’s stealing your stuff!

So what can you do to be safe?  You have a couple of options.

1. Don’t do it
2. Don’t do it
3. Use your cell phone (not connected to free wifi, just cell data) and it’s built-in wifi hotspot feature and connect your laptop to that
4. Use your cell phone and NEVER connect to wifi
5. Use a VPN. Once connected to a (gulp) free wifi network, you would launch a program called a VPN.  That will allow you to surf safely away from prying eyes.  Follow this link to our website to get a list – https://www.top10vpn.com/best-vpn-for-usa
6. Use a travel router, which will convert a wired connection you get in the hotel room into wifi

 

Remember what dad used to say.  “There’s no such thing as free wifi”.  Something like that.