In May we thought, “whew, now we won’t have to juggle so many of us trying to use the internet at the same time for really important things…#remotework, school, lessons...welcome summer break.” Well, here we go again. August is upon us and it appears most of us are still working from home, have parents living with us, and kids attending virtual school. My husband and I recently had the interesting experience of helping our son launch his first semester in college which is, of course, virtual. As a musical theatre major, this means he has video intensive classes including vocal lessons, dance, acting and more. There continue to be virtual meetings happening from our home as well. This has put a heavy demand on our home internet connection. Are you in the same boat? What can be done to improve the situation and keep harmony in the house? Here are four tips which have improved our home internet experience. Perhaps they will help you too.
Tip 1 - Shared family calendar
As I have mentioned in the past, the weekly review is your friend. What I did not mention is the family week review that we complete as well. Especially during Covid-19, a shared electronic calendar, where everyone can see the appointments family members have really helps ensure there are not 3+ video intensive things going on at one time. Our family has used the free Google calendar system for years. There are many systems out there. The platform does not matter. The key is to make a calendar where everyone can see:
Who has important video meetings
Who needs “private” space
Provide up-to-date information
We created an individual account for our son when he was quite young and then managed it for him. This way he could slowly take more control over it. He continues to use the account today.
Tip 2 - Know and test your internet service
This section is a little geeky but please stay with me. Someone in the household needs to actually understand the internet connection for which you have paid and be able to do some basic troubleshooting.
Check your plan
Log in to your internet provider website and confirm the speed you are supposed to be getting. If you are in a major city, on a major provider, you probably are fine. Rural areas though could have challenges. Ideally the provider is adjusting the download speed based on device and it is 10MG or above per device. If you are not sure, call. Before you complain about the speed, make sure you have paid for the bandwidth.
Test your speed
Most major carriers offer a speed test website or app for your phone. Take the time to learn to use this and use it every few weeks to ensure things are running normally. Learn what normal is for your home. From our home, we sit around 450MG or better. I run the test three times in a row about twice a month to know nothing has changed. If things are off, reboot the router.
In-home connectivity
I won’t geek out on you too hard here but if you are not super comfortable with your wifi network, get some help from a friend. There are settings as outlined by the FCC home network tips that can help improve performance. Changing the wifi settings though should not be done by a novice. You will want to ensure you understand the pros and cons and be able to undo the changes if you find they are not working for your family.
Tip 3 - Update your devices
One of the challenges with friends and families I help is their devices are really out of date. They forget to update the software on their youngest child’s iPad or something and it drags everyone down. Wireless can be a little weird in that it will slow everyone way down if one device is slow. I won’t bother with the technical reasons, just know this is the case. The easy solution is to patch all connected devices every couple of months including:
Mobile phones
Tablets
Computers
Smart TVs
Gaming systems
Network connected DVD players anyone? - and all those other things you connected to your network and forgot about
Put it as a recurring item on your to do list. Make a checklist of devices once and you will not need to remember them all again.
Tip 4 - Become bandwidth aware
There are a lot of things that we leave open and on that use our internet bandwidth. We have become numb to them. There are fancy and cool software applications and apps you can use to measure who is using how much bandwidth. You know what it is going to tell you though, right? Let’s start with the obvious:
Close inactive apps - This should be on your mobile devices and computers. These are constantly checking the internet using little bits of your bandwidth.
Exit gracefully out of streaming apps - We have all done it, turned off the TV at the very end of a Netflix episode. Bet you didn’t think about the fact that the next episode might have kept going depending on your setup. Take a few seconds to gracefully exit from these streaming apps.
Quit out of online games - How many times have you or your kids left games in “pause” for hours? Stop that. Take 60 seconds to save and edit the game.
If you all will think about it, you know these things. Like I said, you can download fancy apps to show you where the bandwidth is going, but you probably already know. Lastly, turn off unused devices and reboot phones once a week. You will be pleasantly surprised with the improvement.
Remember for critical meetings and classes, always have a backup plan. The other day, a major rain storm came through. The lights flickered and you could hear the rain and thunder as our son had his vocal lesson. This had nothing to do with the bandwidth. It is just life during Covid-19. Be sure to exchange telephone numbers and confirm how you will reconnect if you get disconnected. Be gentle with one another and give each other grace during this time. The dog really may have eaten a cable and caused a problem during the meeting. Laugh together and reconnect.
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