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STAY CONNECTED WHEN IT MATTERS MOST WITH AVIDIA’S NETWORKING SOLUTIONS

The modern world is a connected world. If you’re like nearly half of the country, you interact with at least one smart device every month, but that number is likely much higher if your Glencoe, IL, home is a smart home. A recent Plume IQ study reports that the average house has over 20 connected devices! 

How can a homeowner manage to keep all of those devices up and running as intended? And how is it possible to prepare your home for additional devices as they’re inevitably added in the future? With a professionally designed and installed network and advanced networking solutions, your highly-connected home will have robust and reliable wired and wireless connections in every room. 

If you’re wondering if it’s time to consider a new or upgraded home network, keep reading below for three tell-tale home networking issues you can rectify with help from your friends at Avidia!

Curb Roaming Woes with Professional-Grade Access Points

Wi-Fi calling is an excellent alternative to making voice and video calls at home when the cellular signal is bad. When you enable this feature on your smartphone, your phone carrier routes calls over your whole-home Wi-Fi network instead so that your calls stay clear and connected.

While Wi-Fi calling should save the day when cellular service is weak, many homeowners in Lake Forest, IL still suffer from dropped calls. You might not care if you’re chatting with a friend about weekend plans, but it’s detrimental when you’re on a sales call or talking to the authorities about an incident.

So, what’s causing dropped Wi-Fi calls? Let’s dissect the problem—and the solution—below.

SEE ALSO: 3 Signs You Might Need a Home Network Upgrade

It’s a Wireless World

We all depend on wireless devices in our daily lives. The smartphone is the main one, always by our sides. But modern homes have so many more. Your laptop, wireless router, home wireless phones, smart lights, thermostats, TVs, sensors, and more often use some wireless frequencies. We are exposed to more low-level EMR than ever from the plethora of devices around us.

If you are concerned about radiation or feel that you may have a sensitivity to it, there is a partial solution – go back to wires.

SEE ALSO: Hate Dealing with Comcast? Avidia Can Help

Professional Monitoring

You may have professional monitoring for your home security system, but did you know you can have your network monitored too? Your network can be just as critical to your home as security. If you can't connect when you need to work on something important from home, or a part of your home’s automation doesn’t work reliably, it can be a serious issue.

The professional-grade networking equipment we install can be remotely monitored. What does that mean? Here are a few examples. We can check that your router and wired and wireless network are all operating normally. We can ensure that no extraneous devices that should not be connected have hacked into your system. We can monitor your firewall to see that it's keeping intrusions out and if any hacks have been attempted. In short, we are like your professional IT support that you might have in your workplace, ensuring the network is always operating safely.

SEE ALSO: Internet Down? We’ll Handle It with 24/7 Comcast Xfinity Monitoring

Design and Installation

It’s easy enough to purchase a broadband modem and router and install them in a centralized location of your home. But how can you be sure the hardware you choose will support your needs? Especially now, more families are working and learning from home, which requires robust internet support for video conferencing. What if you experience weak spots and connectivity issues down the line? Should you install a second router, and if so, where should you place it?

When you work with a professional, you can put these questions behind you. After discussing your connectivity needs, our team will conduct a site survey using Wi-Fi visualization tools that allow us to identify potential dead zones and locate optimal locations for your access points. Your network will be custom-designed to provide exceptional performance and reliability in every corner of your home. 

Coverage and Speed

Dependable network performance shouldn’t be a luxury—especially for growing smart homes. Just like you rely on your car to start in the morning, you should be able to rely on your network to support your virtual work meetings, and your kids’ online learning, and all your internet-connected devices. It’s one thing to be faced with buffering video and slow download speeds, but it’s even worse when vital home devices, like your security system, lose connectivity. 

The ideal home network uses both wireless and wired networking methods for optimal coverage and speed. Our team installs CAT6 and fiber wiring to serve as a strong backbone for your home. Additionally, we use high-performance access points that extend reliable coverage to all corners of your home, including your outdoor living spaces.

SEE ALSO: Wondering If a Professional Home Network Is Worth it?

The Problem with Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless mesh networks are over-advertised as the Holy Grail for improving internet connections in the home. While they can be a passing solution for entry-level applications where wi-fi connection isn’t critical, homeowners who rely on an internet connection for their business need a solution they can trust around the clock.

In a mesh network, every hop between access points around the home decreases the bandwidth by half. The more hops, the worse the bandwidth becomes. Several hops also increase network latency, which results in buffering and dropouts in certain applications, such as streaming audio and video.

Plugging in mesh repeaters around the home simply won’t offer the same guarantee for reliability as professional solutions, and that matters when a few minutes of downtime while working from home means thousands of dollars lost.

SEE ALSO: Wondering If a Professional Home Network Is Worth It?

The Difference of Gigabit Internet Service

Gigabit internet, also known as ultra-high-speed internet or gig-speed internet, transmits data up to 1 gigabit per second (Gbps). This means that you are downloading 1,000,000,000 bits per second or 1,000 megabits per second. That rate of speed is 100 times faster than the average internet speed in the country!

Gigabit internet runs on fiber-optic cable, which transports data using light signals instead of electrical currents. Because light is faster than electrical pulses, fiber can transmit more data per second than copper cable and offers higher bandwidth. Plus, while signals over copper lines worsen as you travel farther from the source, distance knows no bounds with fiber.

Popular internet service providers like Xfinity and AT&T have made gigabit internet available for homeowners from coast to coast as a reliable connection in the home is becoming more of a necessity than ever before. So, what can you expect if you decide to make the switch to gigabit internet?

What to Expect When You Upgrade

First, you can expect work-worthy internet. If you’re conducting business in the home office, you can’t be bothered with slow upload speeds that cause lagging video meetings and dropped wi-fi calls. In fact, poor internet could make the difference between winning or losing a sale. Gigabit offers matching upload and download speeds for unwavering video conferencing and online work collaboration.