Older Devices Affecting Internet Speed:
It’s Time For an Upgrade So you’ve just upgraded to a faster Wifi plan, but are still experiencing slow connections with your computer or smartphone device. You’re thinking, did I just pay all this money for absolutely nothing to change. One thing that many people are unaware of is the device that you are using while connected to the Wifi. A low-quality device can affect internet speeds drastically. An old computer isn’t going to run as efficiently and smoothly as a brand new one. It’s like using public transportation vs. driving your own car; both are going to get you to the same destination, but riding the bus will take you twice as long due to the all the stops and pickups. Computer programs and browsers can take up a lot of memory, computing power, and disk space. Having an older hard drive with less space and memory can make it more difficult to support faster internet speeds. Older computers or devices can carry lower wifi variants, such as 802.11b/g which can slow down connection speed. If your computer is sporting an 802.11b/g network card, the transfer rate is only 10Mbps, which means that the overall speed will be slower. Your older devices are programmed to connect to 2.4 GHz speeds and may not be capable of 5 GHz speeds. We decided to experiment with our own devices in our office. We have implemented 5Ghz throughout the entire office, so we were expecting rapid speeds. We used a speed test on 4 devices: an older desktop, a newer desktop, an iPhone 8 and an iPhone X. There was a significant difference in the desktop speed tests. The newer mac desktop was bumping impressive download speeds of up to 900 Mbps and the older desktop could barely make it to 200 Mbps. These devices were less than 10 feet apart from each other. We wanted to see if there was a superior difference in our smartphone devices so we compared an iPhone 8 to the latest iPhone X. Again, we were surprised with the results. The iPhone X delivered download speeds at a whopping 411 Mbps; about twice as much as the iPhone 8 Model. I was even more surprised without the outcome of the two iPhones, due to the fact that they were only maybe just a year or two apart in age. With the desktops, the older one was a few years back. This doesn’t mean we have to constantly upgrade our devices every year, but having quality devices does affect the quality of your wifi. If you’re wondering why those speeds are transferring to your device, it may be time to get rid of that old chunk of a desktop or laptop that’s been sitting in your office for years. For more information on the different types of WIFI and network systems visit the following page.
https://hiltonheadhometheater.com/services/networking-solutions/wifi-solutions/
Bt Wendy Wang.
