Mom is Zooming for a work meeting. Dad's on Netflix. And Junior is gunning down bad guys on one screen while streaming his biology class on another. As the COVID era drags on, can there possibly be enough bandwidth for all?
In the interest of household harmony, we present a low-stress, plain-English guide to getting the most out of your Internet connection.
Yes, you can upgrade your service plan or your equipment, but that can be pricey.
First try these low- or no-cost tips, which we assembled with the help of wireless communications expert Kapil Dandekar, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Drexel University.
He explained how to tell if you're really getting the speeds that Verizon or Comcast promises, why that wavy little WiFi icon may not mean what it seems, and above all, where to place that nifty little box with the blinking lights: the router. (Short version: beware of metal filing cabinets.)
Let us pause to acknowledge that this is a problem of privilege. Plenty of people cannot work from home. And many do not have high-end broadband connections. All the more reason to make the most of what you've got.
Internet speed is typically measured in Mbps — megabits per second. It includes two numbers: download speed (the rate at which data can enter your house) and upload speed (how fast you can transmit). Some service plans are asymmetrical, with higher speeds for download than upload, which is fine for most applications.
But in the videoconferencing era, with users receiving and transmitting video at the same time, a good upload speed becomes more important, Dandekar said.