Which Wifi Channels Should I Use for My Wireless Network?

Clearly, a bunch of Lifehacker readers have issues getting wireless networking to work–whether you’re trying to connect from a long distance away, you’re getting crappy speeds on your devices, or you’re frustrated because there are 300 different wireless networks irradiating your apartment.

Clearly, a bunch of Lifehacker readers have issues getting wireless networking to work–whether you’re trying to connect from a long distance away, you’re getting crappy speeds on your devices, or you’re frustrated because there are 300 different wireless networks irradiating your apartment.

A number of you wrote in with comments, concerns, and follow-up questions from last week’s Tech 911 post: Which Wifi Band Should I Use for My Devices? And I’m happy to tackle everything that’s now flying out of this Pandora’s Box of wireless networking. It’s a confusing topic if you want the best range and fastest speeds for your devices, and I wager that most people simply do whatever their routers tell them to do during the setup process, connect to whatever network gets created, and call it a day (for better or worse).

Instead of answering a question this week, however, I wanted to highlight a specific aspect of wireless networking that Lifehacker reader Lee brought up in an email he sent after reading last week’s column:

“As a follow up article you may want to address the WiFi channels. Many owners never change their WAP from the default channel and are using the same one as their neighbors.

For your issue about not getting 5GHz to other parts of the house due to range, you can add a second WAP wired to the first. Just turn off DHCP and DNS on the second one so your primary WAP does it for both.”