How to speed up your Wi-Fi – getting the most out of your router and connection

Your Wi-Fi has three bottlenecks, and you can only influence two of them at home. The first is the internet connection itself: what your provider delivers is the ceiling – no router in the world turns a slow connection into fast Wi-Fi. The second is the wireless link between router and device, that is band, channel, distance and obstacles. The third is the device: an old laptop or a cheap smart-home gadget transmits more slowly than a current smartphone, however good the router is. How to find your router's address in order to open its settings is shown in (→ How to find your IP address – and what it reveals about you).

In Switzerland, Wi-Fi operates in three ranges that OFCOM (the Swiss Federal Office of Communications) releases licence-free (OFCOM page as of 3 May 2022): the 2.4 GHz band (2.4 to 2.4835 GHz, maximum 100 mW), the 5 GHz band (the lower part from 5.15 to 5.35 GHz indoors only, the upper part from 5.47 to 5.725 GHz outdoors too, each with the mandatory dynamic frequency selection «DFS») and the 6 GHz band (5.945 to 6.425 GHz, as «Low Power Indoor» with a maximum of 200 mW, indoors only). In practice this means, as Sunrise and Salt agree: 2.4 GHz reaches far but is slower and more crowded; 5 GHz is faster but reaches less far. The 6 GHz band, according to Swisscom, is low in interference because there are not yet many devices in that range. Wi-Fi 6E is the standard that opens up the 6 GHz band; Wi-Fi 7 (introduced by the Wi-Fi Alliance in January 2024 as «Wi-Fi CERTIFIED 7») adds 320 MHz channels and «Multi-Link Operation», in which a device sends and receives over several links at the same time.

How a router should be set up is summarised in Apple's router recommendations of 14 July 2026 – and they largely agree with FRITZ!: a single network name for all bands, network not hidden, channel on «Auto», channel width 20 MHz in the 2.4 GHz band and «Auto» on 5 and 6 GHz, all bands and all radio modes enabled, WMM left on, firmware updated automatically. Opinions differ on MAC address filtering: Apple advises switching it off and not relying on it for security, because MAC addresses are easy to copy and Apple devices use changing addresses per network anyway; Germany's BSI recommends it as an extra hurdle. For speed it makes no difference – what matters is strong encryption with WPA3 or at least WPA2.

Every optimisation starts with a baseline measurement, otherwise you will not know afterwards whether it achieved anything. Measure with the same device and the same speed test four times: by network cable at the router, on Wi-Fi right next to the router, on Wi-Fi at the spot with the worst reception – and the whole thing again at a different time of day, because in the evening more neighbours are transmitting and streaming. The cabled result is your reference: it shows what the connection delivers. The result next to the router shows the maximum your device can do on Wi-Fi. The result at the far spot shows how much location, walls and interference cost you.

Wi-Fi results below your plan's speed are normal and not a fault: radio transmission has overhead, the device shares the band with all the other devices in the household and the neighbourhood, and the speed test's server sets limits too. In its home networking brochure, Swisscom names simultaneous access by several devices as one of the most common causes of network problems. It only becomes worrying when the result next to the router is already far below the cabled result – then something is wrong with the router or the device – or when the far spot only reaches a fraction.

Two built-in tools help with measuring: on a Mac, Apple says «Wireless Diagnostics» delivers a list of detected problems with suggested solutions after the analysis, without changing anything. With Google Nest Wifi and Google Wifi, the Google Home app shows network data and, according to Google, tells you for example whether the Ethernet connection is limiting, the internet provider is slow or the network is overloaded. With Swisscom, you find the Wi-Fi test in the My Swisscom app, which detects dead spots and suggests the best location for a WLAN-Box.

Anyone adjusting their router should take the opportunity to secure it as well – and not open anything that does not need to be open. In its weekly review of 3 November 2026, Switzerland's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) reported several reports of malware in private home networks. The way in was devices reachable from the internet with security vulnerabilities: routers with port forwarding to network-attached storage (NAS), cameras or the Plex media server. According to the NCSC, the consequences ranged from ransomware, data theft and covert cryptomining to the connection being misused as a «residential proxy». One warning sign is directly related to the subject of this guide: the NCSC names a device that has suddenly become slower, with an unusually loud or constantly running fan, as a possible sign of infection.

The NCSC's recommendations: keep all devices on the home network up to date, do not expose services to the outside unless necessary, use a VPN on the router rather than open port forwarding for access when away from home, and protect exposed services with a second factor. For the Wi-Fi itself, the NCSC recommends WPA3 (at least WPA2), a changed router password, a separate guest Wi-Fi for visitors and insecure smart-home devices, and a Wi-Fi password of at least 20 characters. How to build such a password is shown in (→ Create a strong password – and what is actually secure in 2026); what a VPN does and does not do is explained in (→ What is a VPN? How the virtual private network works).

Germany's BSI adds: replace the preset network name if it gives away the manufacturer or model, disable remote access to the router interface, switch off functions you do not need and use the option for automatic firmware updates. One measure that often circulates as a security tip is one FRITZ! and Apple advise against: hiding the network name. According to Apple, it protects neither against discovery nor against unauthorised access, according to FRITZ! it can cause connection errors, and it prevents Mesh Steering. Security comes from encryption and a long password, not from hiding. Whether you additionally need a VPN on your devices at home is settled in (→ Do you really need a VPN in 2026? The honest guide) – for speed, in any case, it brings nothing.

Only when location, settings and device software are exhausted does the question of new hardware arise. In its home networking brochure, Swisscom names outdated devices such as routers, phones and PCs as one of the most common causes of network problems and recommends always using a current router model – with the providers, you often get the new router as part of your plan. Current are Wi-Fi 7 models: Swisscom supplies the Internet-Box 5 Pro, a tri-band router with a 6 GHz band, and FRITZ! offers the FRITZ!Box 5690 Pro, a Wi-Fi 7 model for fibre and DSL. What matters most here is less the peak figure than the additional, still little-used 6 GHz band.

An honest caveat: only devices that support the 6 GHz band benefit from it. For Apple, according to the compatibility list, that is for example iPhone 15 Pro and later Pro models and Macs from 2023; an iPhone 15 or 16e keeps using 2.4 and 5 GHz. If you mainly have older devices, a Wi-Fi 7 router gains you little speed – but it does gain stability, because the new devices move to the free 6 GHz band and the old ones get more room in the other bands.

For range problems the answer is not a stronger router but a second access point in the right place. The order that follows from the manufacturers' recommendations: first cable, wherever sockets exist; then a mesh system with a shared network name (FRITZ! Mesh, Swisscom WLAN-Box, Sunrise Connect Pods), ideally connected by cable; a single repeater with its own network name only if nothing else is possible. You will find all our other guides on networks and devices under (→ How-tos) and in the topic (→ Internet & Wi-Fi).