Fortunately, the availability of fiber optic Internet connection means less and less expense. In the sense that the ISP offers increasingly cheaper plans and with higher speeds. However, certain actions need to be taken to get the most out of high Internet speeds, especially when they are over 300Mbps symmetric. If we have a good equipment, all the clients that are connected to the network will navigate and download data much faster, and they will have a great user experience.
ONT
ONT stands for Optical Network Terminal . It is the device that will allow you to enjoy Internet connectivity through FTTH , that is, fiber optics directly to the house. In many cases, a Wi-Fi router with built-in ONT functionality is offered, or a separate ONT and Wi-Fi router are offered. In Spain, most operators provide a router with integrated ONT, but there are some specific cases where ONT + router is provided separately, as in the case of Pepephone when the network is Movistar.
Internet needs can vary depending on the needs of each client, because it depends not only on the people in the house consuming bandwidth, but also on the number of devices connected to the wireless and wired network. In addition, most of these devices connect via Wi-Fi, so that smartphones, tablets, IoT devices and others can connect.
If you opt for Wi-Fi , the most practical option is to opt for a provider with a plan that includes a router with the integrated PON port, which is the one that will allow the fiber to connect directly to the router. However, if your priority is to obtain the highest connection quality, the best move is to be offered a separate ONT and a Wi-Fi router, in order to buy a high-performance router yourself and make the most of the fiber network. .
Improve your home Wi-Fi coverage and performance
Not always the people who are in the house are together, or in locations of the house very close to each other. In this situation, it can happen that more than one has coverage problems of the Wi-Fi network. This can be solved by changing the location of the router to one that has the least amount of interference possible. A very effective help to improve coverage at home is to use an application that helps you build a Wi-Fi heat map .
What is this? Well, it is a map that will give you an overview of the areas of the house that have more or less coverage with the Wi-Fi router that you are currently using. In this article, we have a complete guide on the possibilities through these maps. However, the most practical recommendation is to download an application on our mobile. If you use Android, we recommend WiFi Heatmap . It is free and in a matter of minutes you will have a fairly complete heat map with easy to understand data.
If you use iOS, you have one of the most recommended options called WiFi SweetSpots . Above all, this application will help you determine in a very practical way the best location for your router.
Once you have an application, then you can choose to improve your home network with the following.
High-performance Wi-Fi routers
The router is the core of the network, both wired and wireless, it passes all the data and is responsible for managing all the connections. Having a good router is essential to be able to get the most out of the FTTH speed that our operator provides us. To choose a good router, we have to take into account several very important aspects, such as the router’s processor and RAM, the number of Ethernet ports and at what speed each one of them works (at least it must be Gigabit Ethernet, that is, at 1Gbps).
In the case of Wi-Fi, it is important that we know which version of Wi-Fi we have in our router, Wi-Fi 5 or Wi-Fi 6 is always what we must choose, in addition, it is also essential to buy a high-end router with simultaneous dual band or simultaneous triple band, to provide the best possible wireless performance even if we connect multiple devices. If you are going to share files on the local network and the Internet, you should check if they have USB 3.0 ports, and also, the CPU of the router must be powerful to avoid a bottleneck.
Finally, the firmware of the routers is one of the aspects that we do not usually take into account, the firmware is something fundamental , both for the wired and wireless performance, and for the advanced configuration options that it incorporates. A Wi-Fi router with a very complete firmware, will give us greater possibilities for management and administration.
Wi-Fi amplifiers
In the event that you do not have full coverage in your home with the Wi-Fi router, you can choose a Wi-Fi amplifier or also known as a Wi-Fi repeater. Fortunately, these devices exist to make life easier for us and avoid constantly moving our router from location. Many times, the possible locations where we would place it could vary depending on whether there are many clients connected, or it is simply a transit area to later expand coverage in a nearby place. Wi-Fi amplifiers today have a variety of options that will allow us to effectively expand Wi-Fi coverage in our homes. There are even amplifiers that are as compact as a mobile or a remote control.
Not sure which one to choose? We recommend choosing one of the best Wi-Fi repeaters with the best value for money, we refer to the AVM FRITZ! Repeater 3000 amplifier. Currently, you can find it at a very good price on Amazon and do not hesitate to take a look at the analysis and comparison with other models.
Wi-Fi Mesh Systems
Wi-Fi Mesh systems are the allies of users who need to have Wi-Fi coverage throughout their home, and also have a high wireless speed on any device. Thanks to these devices, not only will we have a main router in our home, and some nodes that act as Wi-Fi repeaters, but we will have two fundamental characteristics:
- Roaming Wi-Fi: we can go from the router to the node and vice versa, without cutting the wireless connection. We can continue to have a video call or a VoIP call without Wi-Fi cuts.
- Band steering: the Wi-Fi Mesh system will place us in the best available Wi-Fi frequency band, depending on the signal received, the speed we can achieve and other advanced parameters.
Wi-Fi Mesh systems allow us to have high-speed coverage with a single SSID, so that we do not have to worry about anything. Some of the best Wi-Fi Mesh systems are ASUS ZenWiFi, NETGEAR Orbi, D-Link COVR and even AVM FRITZ! Mesh WiFi, which have an operating system that is capable of integrating Wi-Fi repeaters into Mesh WiFi. Fi and PLC Wi-Fi.
Use good quality network cables
One aspect that is customary to ignore is the network cable used to make the link between the ONT to our router. It can also occur between the router and our computer, console, etc. Whatever the case, we must have good quality network cables. One of the direct advantages is a higher quality of data transmission through the network that we have in our house. Despite the fact that today, neither tomorrow, nor in the coming weeks and even in the coming months, we do not perceive any problem, at some point we will notice a degradation in the quality of our connection. This is especially the case with fairly low quality network cables.
The best practice is to buy network cables paying attention to the following:
- The category of the cable (always Category 6 or higher)
- The cable coating , if it is UTP we do not have too much coating, if it is S / FTP it will be much more robust.
- Shielded and shielded RJ-45 connectors, whenever possible.
If you need more options regarding which cable to choose and good network cable offers, we suggest accessing this guide . We anticipate that it will not be necessary to invest too much money for a new pair of network cables.
EYE! If you have been suggested to build your own network cable , you should use the appropriate materials for the cable category and, of course, have the necessary knowledge and support in case you have problems with the cable. It is good to note that a poorly constructed network cable would leave you with far more connection problems or no connection at all.
A Multigigabit or 10G switch to navigate even faster
Although our house does not have precisely a business network, a switch is one of the great allies to improve our connection quality. Also, we can have more ports if necessary. This is especially useful if there is a NAS server in our home, in addition, we can achieve speeds greater than 1Gbps, currently there are very cheap unmanageable switches that reach speeds of 10Gbps, so it is an aspect to value.
Some of the most recommended switches are ASUS XG-U2008 and QNAP QTS-308-1C , both with 10G Multigigabit ports and also Gigabit Ethernet ports. No additional adjustment is necessary to the device because it has the ability to identify the type of cable being connected, how long it is, and the network card of the computer. These features are typical of unmanageable switches, much more practical when used in the home environment.
Choose the best DNS servers
Generally, when we are connected to the Wi-Fi network, from our computer we have the DNS settings to obtain the IP of the DNS server automatically. How do I check this aspect? In Windows 10, look for the “network adapter” part and it will bring up the Windows Settings options. Then, you select the option Network and Internet> Change adapter options and all the interfaces that we have on our computer will appear.
It is easy to identify which is the wireless network interface, if you notice the word “Wi-Fi” or “Wireless”, then that is the card. Once you find it, right click and choose the Properties> Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) option> select the option and then Edit
As we can see in the screenshot, our Internet connection has essential logical components: IP address ( IP address ), subnet mask ( subnet mask ), default gateway ( DNS ) and DNS servers ( DNS servers ). In this case, since we are connected to the wireless network on our computer, it is not necessary to configure specific IP addresses.
However, our Wi-Fi router does have these configuration data. If it is not configured, we can connect to the network but we cannot go to the Internet. Therefore, it is advisable to have knowledge of the IP data of our link in the event that our router is factory reset and we can configure it again without turns. Now, how could we do to navigate faster with DNS?
Best free DNS servers
The DNS servers offered by our provider are not always the fastest. So a safe way out is to go for one of the alternative servers. Today, we have several options. However, not all offer the highest speed, mainly due to the capacity of the servers. In this article, we have a complete guide to choosing the fastest DNS with very easy-to-use programs that will help us identify in real time which are the best DNS that we can configure on our router.