The Internet has become such an important part of our lives that we now cannot imagine spending even a day without it. In fact, we are so engrossed in our virtual lives that can’t even stand longer loading times for our content. But if you have been facing slow internet even when you have the best home phone and internet bundles, it can be because of two things.
- Your provider is facing some technical issues at the back end, or
- Your bandwidth is being stolen through unauthorized access to your Wi-Fi
In the case of the former, you can only complain and wait for it to be resolved, you’ll have to take some safety measures for the latter to stop occurring.
Do not worry if you aren’t too tech-savvy. We have tried to make this as easy and friendly as possible. Here’s a step by step guide on how you can ensure nobody can piggyback on your network.
Step-by-Step Procedure to Secure Your Wi-Fi?
- Connect your computer to your router through an Ethernet cable, open up your preferred browser and type 192.168.1.1 in the address bar. You should now be at a login screen. Check the manual of your router for credentials and log in. While this whole process can also be performed wirelessly, connecting through an Ethernet cable eliminates any possibility of the login details being intercepted.
- Once you have accessed the router settings, go to Administration tab and immediately change the login credentials of your router as the default username and password can easily be gained by running a small search on the internet.
- The next step is to change the SSID of your router. SSID is the name that comes up when searching for networks on wireless devices. Routers mostly come with a predefined name from the manufacturer that usually carries the brand name and the model of the router. Keeping the default name of your router only makes things easier for someone wanting to gain access to your network.
- Now you should add encryption to your network. Adding encryption hinders unwanted access from any neighboring Wi-Fi enabled devices. Open up the Wireless Security tab from the router settings to enable encryption on your network. There are several options available for encryption but the best one is WPA2. Enter a password that is a bit hard for anyone to guess except you should easily remember it.
- An added security feature would be to Filter Mac Addresses of all the devices being used in your home, on your router. Mac addresses are linked to networking hardware of the device and are unique. The problem here is that even your guests will not be able to use your network without the MAC addresses of their devices being first entered into the router
- If you live in a rather confined space, you should decrease the signal range of your router by changing its mode from 802.11b or 802.11n to 802.11g.
- You also need to make sure the firmware of your router is always up-to-date. You can easily make sure of it by checking the Dashboard of your router. We hope you find these steps useful and are able to kick out any unwanted users from your network and regain your bandwidth speed.
So, follow the above procedure and make your SIM only plans Australia fun to use.
