How to really improve Wi-Fi signal strength on your smartphone

Before we can carry out any tweaks, we first have to know a bit more about the Wi-Fi router that's giving us headaches. Usually, you can access your router's interface through a browser, by typing in 192.168.0.1 in the address bar on top. Some workplaces have a more sophisticated system in place, so the address (or the default gateway) may look slightly different — say, 192.168.1.1 or 192.168.2.1. 

The easiest way to find out, provided that your Windows computer is connected to the same network, is to run a short command in the command prompt. To do so, click on the Start button on the bottom left, and type in cmd. Launch cmd.exe.

Once cmd loads, you'll be met with a small, rectangular window. This step is easy enough — just type in ipconfig and watch the window populate. What you're looking for is your default gateway address, as highlighted on the image. Write it down or don't close the window for now.

For the next steps, you can switch to your smartphone. Start by entering the default gateway address from the last step into your phone browser's address bar, and wait for it to load. You should be met with a pop-up window, prompting you to enter a username and password combination in order to access the router's settings. Unless those have been changed on purpose, they're usually quite generic — admin for username and password for password. In case that doesn't work for you, you'll need to check the brand of your Wi-Fi router, and then do a quick Google search for the manufacturer's default combination. This may sound complicated, but it's usually information you can get within a minute or two.

In our case, we've got a TP-Link router, and the combo was admin/admin. We suggest you consider changing it to something non-generic, just in case.

Once you get beyond the log-in screen, you'll be met with a web interface that will differ depending on your router brand. With TP-Link, it should look something like what you're seeing on your left. If your router make is different, don't fret — you should still be able to find the option we're digging for relatively easy. In our case, we had to go to Wireless > Wireless settings.

The option you're looking for is Channel. This tells your router the frequency at which to transmit the Wi-Fi signal. As you can imagine, the further away you are from the channel other people are using, the less interference there will be, and the better the throughput. The next step will have you analyze your surrounding networks to pinpoint which channel is optimal.

To do said analysis, you'll need specialized software — an app for your smartphone. For Android, an app like Wi-Fi Analyzer has what we need. Now comes the slightly tricky part — picking the right channel.

In general, most of us are still using older, 2.4GHz routers, so we'll assume that that's what you have. If you have a 5GHz router, you likely won't be reading this guide. With a 2.4GHz router, you have up to 14 channels available, depending on your region. The problem is that each channel is separated from the others by just 5MHz of spectrum, and your network will typically occupy 20MHz. This means that unless you live in a remote area, your network will likely overlap with others in the vicinity. Our job here is to pick the sweet spot, where there's least interference. Only channels 1, 6, and 11 can work together without any interference at all. In the example image to your left, it's obvious that channel 1 is the most suitable, as it only houses one other network. Unfortunately, someone could have easily occupied channels 2, 3, 4, and 5, interfering with your signal.

Since most routers ship with a pre-set channel already programmed into the firmware, your area may look a lot like this image, though — a ton of networks all bunched up on a single channel. Even if all three interference-free channels are filled, you might still observe gains in signal strength when switching to another channel outside of 1, 6, and 11. This will require some testing on your end, but rest assured that if yours is a busy region and you're sitting on an overcrowded channel, you'll likely be able to get some returns on your time investment by picking another.

Experiment, and find the sweet spot!