March Madness has here, and seamless streaming is essential whether you’re watching every buzzer-beater or closely monitoring your bracket. A buffering screen during a game-winning shot is the last thing you want when there are hundreds of games taking place during the NCAA Men’s and Women’s championships. Check out our comprehensive tips on how to stream March Madness, how to watch the men’s tournament, and how to stream every women’s bracket game if you’re still unsure about how to watch without cable.

Of course, if your internet is slow, none of it matters. In addition to streaming basketball, a robust connection is essential for gaming, video conferencing, and maintaining the functionality of your smart home. You may maintain your streams clean to the final buzzer by making some easy and fast adjustments if your Wi-Fi has been slow.

Read on to find out where your router should be placed in your house and other simple tips for quicker Wi-Fi, whether you’re spending time with friends or watching movies with your family. Whatever you’re doing will go more smoothly if you have a dependable connection.

Read More: I’m Now Leading My Pool After Letting AI Choose My March Madness Bracket

Select the appropriate router for your area.

First things first: a lot of connection problems may be traced back to your equipment. Selecting the appropriate router is the first step. The size and design of your house often affect how fast your wifi connections are, and not all routers are created equal.

Most apartments and smaller households (less than 1,500 square feet) should be able to get by with only one wireless access point. Upgrade to a newer model or Wi-Fi 6 if your router is a few years old. Although Wi-Fi 7 is the newest and best version of Wi-Fi technology, it is still more recent than what most people have in their houses and should provide you with greater coverage and quicker wireless rates.

To provide reliable coverage throughout the house, larger, multi-story residences would want to upgrade to a mesh network. Simply add another node to the distant section of your house if you install the primary access point and discover that it lacks reliable wifi coverage. The issue has been resolved.

See our list of the top mesh routers to find out more. Refer to our router purchasing guide if you want more assistance.

It is important to remember that whether you have a mesh network or a single access point, the location of the main access point still matters.

Locate the ideal location for your router.
A blue backdrop with a TP Link router
Examine the many types of routers that are at your disposal, including mesh networks and Wi-Fi routers.

The modem is often mounted along the wall in one of the far corners of the house when you initially move into a new house or apartment. This is only because the technician’s duty is to set up the connection, not to optimize your network, and that’s where the line enters the home. You are in charge of it.

It’s tempting to leave everything in the same location as the technician, particularly if you’re unsure of where a router should be placed. The initial placement is probably not the best spot for your router.

Select a core area.
The signal is sent out in all directions via routers. Your neighbors may easily access your network if they can figure out your Wi-Fi password, and you will lose wireless coverage if you maintain your router on the left corner of the home. The easiest way to ensure steady speeds (and network security) is to move the router to a central place.

It might be difficult to install a router across the home from the modem. A very lengthy Ethernet cable may need to be physically laid beneath the floor or along the bottom of your walls. Alternatively, power line network adapters, which utilize the electrical wiring in your house to transmit an internet signal from one location to another, may be needed. It will be worth it for the better wireless coverage. Hallie Seltzer of CNET tested both Ethernet and Wi-Fi connections at her home to see which performed better in case you’re wondering how they vary.

Lift the router.
In order to enhance coverage, it is advisable to install the router as high as possible since routers have a tendency to disseminate their strongest signals downward. Consider installing it on the wall or putting it high on a bookcase.

Many bespoke wall mounts made for certain routers, such as this stick-up mount for the Eero Pro 6 mesh router, can be found online. If you’re having trouble finding a raised location for your router without a jumble of wires, a router mount is a simple fix.

Stay away from other electronics.
Choose a spot away from big metal items and other gadgets. The likelihood that anything may interfere with your signal strength increases with the number of walls, huge barriers, and gadgets close to your router.

The microwave is a particular kind of electrical gadget that should be avoided since it transmits a powerful signal in the 2.4GHz band, which is also the wireless band that your router uses. Avoid placing your router behind a big TV as this might physically obstruct or interfere with the transmission and also create electrical interference.

In addition to gadgets, be aware of large furniture and other items that may be obstructing the signal’s path. For example, if you have an aquarium in your house, try to keep it out of the way of your router and the device that needs to connect since Wi-Fi doesn’t work well over water.

Play the Video
Properly configure your Wi-Fi antennae.
Some routers contain up to eight antennae, while others have none at all. These antennas aid with signal direction. Avoid placing all of your router’s antennae in the same direction if it has more than one.

Instead, place one horizontally and the other vertically so that they are perpendicular to each other. Alternately, to cover a broad variety of angles, move all the antennas slightly. It may be necessary to conduct speed tests in order to determine the optimal arrangement.

While a horizontal or angled antenna will emit a signal that travels upward, which may be more useful in a multistory home, a vertical antenna will be more helpful in single-story homes because the signal from each of those antennas will emerge as a wave that travels in all directions and is perpendicular to the antenna itself.

You may more easily fix weak areas in your network by seeing its strengths with the use of Wi-Fi mapping tools such as NetSpot.

Locate your Wi-Fi signal.
In the worst situation, you may need to map out your home’s Wi-Fi signal in order to identify dead zones and assess coverage range. We mapped out the signal strength across the CNET Smart Home a few years ago using the NetSpot program. In the end, we were able to see where our Wi-Fi network was weak, which allowed us to strengthen it by relocating our gear to better positions.