I always thought that having wireless would be the end of all our networking issues. I mean we have no cords to run so it’s gotta be better. Right?! Sadly no.

Now that we’re in a new house I’ve been struggling as to where to put the router to get the best signal. I’ve been trying it in a bunch of places and haven’t yet settled on one. Turns out, it’s not just the placement of the router that matters either.

The networking cable between the modem and router matters. I’ve learned that some cables are better than others.

It’s the channel your wireless router is set up to use too. There are 11 to choose from, but supposedly we’re only supposed to use 1, 6 and 11. If I choose channel 1, my internet is horrific. If I choose 6, it’s fast! However, it took me quite a while to figure that out. There’s also an auto setting for this and I’m not yet sure if that’s a good idea or not.

Then there are the security and WPA mode settings. Again, some of these settings can slow down or speed up your network. Supposedly if I disable SPI and QOS and my router will go faster too. Who knew?!

I don’t even know about the 20/40 MHz option. It’s set to auto so I hope that’s good. Actually I switched to 20 MHz and things seem to be going faster yet!

I’ve also got a fun issue were Yosemite and AirPlay take down my internet. There’s a whole number of “fixes” for it out there, but this one from TUAW worked for me. Nope. That didn’t work either. Swear it did the first day. Maybe the problem comes back on restart.

Now I think I have everything setup well, but then again I’ve been thinking that every time I change things. Maybe I’ve finally found the sweet spot!

One thing I know for sure, I really wish each room had ethernet jacks in them. That way I could worry less about the wifi and just get things done.

I’m pretty sure a power line adapter starter kit is in my future though. I understand how they’re supposed to work, but it seems too good to be true to me.  Just plug some things in and you magically get ethernet without running cables? Amazing!

Of course my other option would be upgrading to an AirPort Extreme, or any 5 GHz router, but that doesn’t look like it’ll happen anytime soon. I already have a good router if I can just get it in the right spot and configured correctly.

Once that’s done, it’s time to hide it in plain sight.