I’ve already written an article about how to get the best internet service, but the quality of your online experience isn’t only dependent on the connection between your router and the outside world: The connection between the router and your device, e.g., laptop, matters too. The surefire way to get a fast connection is via an Ethernet cable, but many devices connect through Wi-Fi exclusively, such as smartphones.

I’m sure I don’t need to labour the point about how important high-quality Wi-Fi is, so let’s begin our journey towards an optimal setup so that we can bathe ourselves in these glorious electromagnetic waves.

Disclaimer: I have no affiliations or kick-backs arranged with any of the organisations or products mentioned here. What follows is an impartial recommendation based on what I’ve found to be the best Wi-Fi.

About Wi-Fi standards

You may not think of it this way, but there are different types of Wi-Fi. New standards are periodically adopted, and introduce new protocols to improve connections. This is mainly done to increase speed, but also to address other aspects of wireless technology such as interference.

IEEE standard Generation Year adopted Maximum transfer rate (Mbps)
802.11 Wi-Fi 0* 1997 2
802.11b Wi-Fi 1* 1999 11
802.11a Wi-Fi 2* 1999 54
802.11g Wi-Fi 3* 2003 54
802.11n Wi-Fi 4 2008 600
802.11ac Wi-Fi 5 2014 6,933
802.11ax Wi-Fi 6 2021 9,608
Wi-Fi 6E
802.11be Wi-Fi 7 Due in 2024 46,120
802.11bn Wi-Fi 8 Due in 2028 100,000

* Commonly used retroactively to refer to standards released before this naming scheme was introduced.

The transfer rate here refers to the maximum theoretical speed when moving data between the router and your device, not its internet speed. However, your Wi-Fi’s transfer rate needs to meet or exceed your internet speed for you to get the fastest possible connection to the outside world. Also, the later the Wi-Fi standard being used, the better it’ll be at maintaining a stable connection.

Wi-Fi standards are all backwards compatible, which is why you don’t need to change your router when you buy a new laptop and vice versa. However, to get perfect Wi-Fi, your router and device should both support the same and latest standard available.

The battle of the bands Hertz a bit

Whilst Wi-Fi standards remain backwards compatible, later generations have introduced higher frequency bands with greater speed and stability.

Wi-Fi 4 added the 5 GHz band to the existing 2.4 GHz one, and then Wi-Fi 6E introduced the 6 GHz band. Higher frequencies provide greater transfer rates. For example, typical speeds are 100 Mbps for the 2.4 GHz band, 1,000 Mbps for the 5 GHz one, and 2,000 Mbps for the 6 GHz one. However, this comes at the expense of worse coverage, since the shorter the wavelength, the less the signal is able to move through walls and other solid objects.

Each frequency band shows up as a separate Wi-Fi network broadcasting from your router. This means you’ll either need to choose one when you connect your device, or connect the device to all of them and let it decide between them dynamically, based on the relative strength of the signals at its current location.

This switching process isn’t perfect, though, and can sometimes lead to a less stable connection. For example, if your smartphone is hanging onto the 5 GHz band when you move into a room where its signal strength is low, then it might be better to use the 2.4 GHz band.

Also, certain features, such as Wi-Fi calling or sharing files over a network, rely on devices being on the same network. So, if you rely on these, it’s best to keep everything on a single network.

Ideally you don’t want to compromise speed at all. So if the highest frequency band can’t permeate every nook of your building, it’s time to get more access points.

The optimal solution: Wired access points

What should you do if the Wi-Fi doesn’t reach a particular spot in your home or office? Ideally, you’d add a wired access point at the dead zone.

An ‘access point’ is simply a device that projects a Wi-Fi signal into its surrounding area, hence why your router includes one. However, to add a wried access point, an ethernet cable needs to be laid from your router to the intended location. It’s best to use an access point that supports PoE (Power over Ethernet) so that it can draw electricity as well as data from the ethernet cable. Otherwise it’ll also require a separate lead to the mains power.

Installing wired access points naturally involves a little construction work and possibly drilling through walls. So, if you or the building owner suffer from isoprenearmouredfilamentphobia (a fear of cables) or oikodomophobia (a fear of tradesmen), you could try other types of access points that don’t require running cords.

Suboptimal solution #1: Wi-Fi extenders

A Wi-Fi extender (AKA a wireless repeater) takes the existing Wi-Fi signal from a router and rebroadcasts it towards an area with a stronger signal, allowing devices that are farther away to connect. This can be a simple and cheap solution, but it has its drawbacks.

When your device is connected to a Wi-Fi repeater, the repeater needs to receive a signal, process it, and then rebroadcast it to both your device and the router. This means the transfer rate will be reduced by at least half compared with a direct Wi-Fi connection. They’re also not very effective at penetrating walls, so definitely don’t count as “perfect Wi-Fi”.

Suboptimal solution #2: Powerline adapters

Powerline adapters are pairs of devices that use the electrical wiring inside a building to transmit data, and can be used to cross walls into rooms where there’s no Wi-Fi reach at all.

One device is connected to the router with an Ethernet cable and inserted into a nearby mains socket. Then the other device is inserted into a mains socket at the intended location, identifies the data signal, and begins broadcasting Wi-Fi there.

Powerline adapters have a maximum reach of 300 m, with the top-end models having a theoretical maximum transfer rate of 2.4 Gbps, but their speed will decrease as the distance required increases, due to signal degradation.

Powerline adapters are another cheap and easy solution to bring Wi-Fi to a dead zone, and can incur much less signal loss compared with Wi-Fi extenders. However, their performance also depends on the nature of the building’s electrical wiring.

Most buildings have different ring circuits, such as one to control the downstairs mains sockets and another to control the upstairs ones. Since these rings are largely separated from one another, placing one powerline adapter on one circuit, and the other adapter on another, means the pair’s connection will either be nonexistent or weakened, resulting in a zero or low transfer rate. Therefore, you should ideally place powerline adapters on the same ring circuit. Another potential issue is that older buildings might have less efficient wiring, which can also degrade the transfer rate.

Avoid plugging powerline adapters into devices like extension leads, power surge protectors or UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) systems. These devices are typically designed to filter out electrical noise, and can do this to the electrical frequencies being used for data transmission, which again results in the transfer rate being either zero or greatly reduced.

Assuming you don’t face a wiring issue, powerline adapters will work just fine. However, the only way to know the speeds you’ll get is to try them out, so make sure you’re able to return them to the store. When shopping for powerline adapters, it’s best to get a set with passthrough, meaning they have mains sockets on the outside. This means that you can still use the sockets they occupy to power other things.

If you do face a wiring issue, then there is another option…

Suboptimal solution #3: Mesh Wi-Fi

Rather than leave network management solely to the router, mesh Wi-Fi consists of a decentralised set of nodes that cooperate wirelessly to distribute data in the most effective way.

They’re essentially a group of Wi-Fi repeaters working together to optimise wireless data transfer around the area of a building. Moreover, mesh solutions provide redundancy because if one node has a problem, the network can use the remaining nodes to adapt and re-complete the mesh (a bit like the Borg).

This sounds marvellous, so you might be wondering why you’d ever need to run cables at all. Well, there’s one major thing to consider before joining the collective – mesh nodes are wireless and indirect, whereas wired access points are hardwired and directly connected to the router.

When data hops wirelessly between nodes, there’s going to be some cost to latency and speed, not to mention potential trouble penetrating walls. Despite this article being about setting up wireless connectivity, the fact is that an ethernet connection will always be capable of greater speeds than a wireless one, and a direct connection will always have less delay than an indirect one.

Therefore, the greater the proportion of network traffic travelling directly by ethernet, the faster and more responsive the network’s connections will be. Whilst performance depends on the particular setup, one tester found speed was 66% lower for mesh when compared with a wired access point using the same equipment.

Mesh solutions are generally better than Wi-Fi extenders, but perform worse than wired access points, and can’t pass Wi-Fi through walls like powerline adapters can. However, if you can’t run cables, and the building’s wiring isn’t suitable for data transfer, then mesh Wi-Fi is probably your best option.

Stop your neighbours from interfering

Each Wi-Fi band is divided into channels so that nearby networks, e.g., your neighbour’s, can use different frequencies and avoid interfering with one another. By default, most Wi-Fi equipment is set to automatically switch to the least crowded channel dynamically. If there are a lot of Wi-Fi networks in close proximity, however, the algorithm might not achieve this effectively, leaving you with choppy Wi-Fi connections despite the device showing a strong signal.

You can use Wi-Fi analysis software to check the surrounding channel usage, then log in to your router and other access points to set them to use quieter channels. Here are some suggested apps:

If possible, set each access point to use a different channel so that they don’t conflict with each other. It’s bad enough getting interference from the neighbourhood, but it’s worse getting it from your own home.

The NetSpot channel analyser. The left half shows the before image: a brown-, yellow-, and green-outlined hills, representing other 5 GHz Wi-Fi networks, occupying the same channel as a blue-outlined and blue-shaded hill, representing my 5 GHz network. The right half shows the after image: the blue-outlined and blue-shaded hill occupying a different channel.

Simplexity is the ultimate sophistication

As you can see, getting the best out of Wi-Fi technology is a whole bag of complicated. But, if each component is configured correctly and integrates with the rest, then the difference can be night and day. And once your setup is done, it rarely needs to maintained.

Imagine a highly complex technology stack, working invisibly behind a simple ping-and-play interface to provide perfect Wi-Fi. Hence ‘simplexity’.

In my article about getting a perfect internet connection, I likened it to your home’s water pressure. A better analogy for Wi-Fi is electric lighting (another electromagnetic wave). When you enter a dark room, do you manage by fumbling around in dim light, or do you flick a switch to illuminate the place?

I think Wi-Fi should be able to illuminate every room in which you need it. Just like we invest in quality wiring for electric lights, we should also invest in good access points for fast and reliable Wi-Fi.