This page is here to help you diagnose speed issues.
WiFi speed has many factors.
Weather, our equipment, your computer, aerials, operating systems (Vista, Windows 7, Apple OSX), barriers (walls etc)
With so many factors to consider it can be very hard to diagnose issues over the phone.
Assuming you are seeing this page, then you have some sort of connection to the internet, but speed is an issue.
Understanding Signal Strength
There are two parts to the signal strength.
- How well your computer can “hear” our signal (This is that you see on the signal bars on your computer). Often you will see a good signal here because we use good quality equipment and transmit a strong signal.
- How well we can “hear” your computer, this level is not displayed by your computer, because it can only be known by our equipment, as we’re the ones listening. As different computers have different quality aerials we see a lot of variation in the ability of your signal to get back to us.
So you may see a 5 bar 100% signal from us, but we only get a 5% signal from you due to the power of quality of your laptop aerial.
Here are the things to try.
1. Run a speed test now. To use the internet you really need to see more than 1M download speed (to your computer), and .3Mbps upload speed (to the internet).
The speed test site we recommend is : http://www.speedtest.net/
2. Location – If you are inside try moving outside, this will determine if the speed you are getting is being degraded by walls. Some walls like steel or brick can degrade the signal more than wood or glass.
Check the speed test again in your new position.
If the speed is better, then the issue is likely to be that there is some sort of barrier to the signal.
3. Barriers – Is there any barrier between your computer and our aerial. WiFi signals are at a very high frequency (2.5 – 5 Ghz), at this frequency they behave more like light, so the best signal will be line-of-sight to our aerial. If there is an object directly between you and our aerial, then the signal will be heavily degraded. Your laptop may then be trying to receive a signal that is reflected around that object.
Examples of barriers are:
- Buildings (try moving 50 meters from your current location and see if speed improves)
- Boats (tides can also affect this, i.e. at low tide your line of sight is a better angle, and at high tide there is a boat in the way)
- Walls (the material walls are made of will determine how well signal can get through them)
- People (people look like water to a radio signal, we have had people who got a better signal by sitting on the other side of the table, as their body was a “wall” between their laptop and our aerial)
4. Access Points – At a number of our locations we run more than one access point (aerial), you may find that connecting to a different access point (even if it looks like a lower strength) may actually enable us to receive your signal better.
These will often look like @Netstop WiFi 1, @ Netstop WiFi 2 etc.
5. External aerials
Most laptops are meant for home use, their WiFi aerials usually connect to a home wifi signal 10-20 meters away. In public WiFi situations the best idea is often to get an external WiFi adaptor and plug it into a USB extension cable.
You can then move the WiFi adaptor to a location that gets the signal better than your laptop aerial.
A lot of laptops also only support 802.11 b/g standard, netstop supports these laptops but also supports the newer 802.11N standard.
You can purchase an 802.11N WiFi adaptor and USB cable from these retailers : (Search for Wireless USB Aadaptor)
Noel Leeming http://www.noelleeming.co.nz/
PB Tech http://www.pbtech.co.nz/ (online shopping by credit card)
Good brands are Cisco, Linksys, and Netgear.
If you want a full outdoor setup we recommend calling Go Wifi, they can sort you out with a unit to mount on your home or boat.
6. If you are still having no luck, please contact us via our Support Page