Where should I put my router?
Put it as central and as high as you can, out in the open — not in a closet, a cabinet, or the basement.
Put your router as central to your home as you can, up high, and out in the open. Wi-Fi radiates outward in all directions, so a router in a corner sends half its signal to your neighbor.
- Central, not at one end of the apartment.
- High — a shelf or the top of a bookcase beats the floor. Signal spreads down more easily than up.
- Out in the open. Not in a media cabinet, not behind the TV, not in a closet, not in the basement.
- Away from metal and water. Filing cabinets, refrigerators, radiators, cast-iron tubs, mirrors, and aquariums all block Wi-Fi. Water absorbs 2.4 GHz especially well, which is why a fish tank is a genuinely bad neighbor.
- A few feet from the microwave and from cordless phone bases. Microwaves splash noise right across the 2.4 GHz band while running.
Older Boston buildings are hard on Wi-Fi, and no router placement fully fixes it.
- Plaster-and-lath walls in brownstones and older triple-deckers often have metal lath behind the plaster. That's effectively a screen that reflects Wi-Fi. Two or three of those walls will flatten a strong signal to nothing.
- Triple-deckers are tall and narrow. One router on the middle floor of a three-floor unit usually works; one router in a first-floor front room trying to reach a third-floor back bedroom usually doesn't.
- Brick, tile, and old chimney stacks in the middle of the floor plan block signal the same way.
- Density. In a packed block, dozens of nearby networks compete for the same channels. The 2.4 GHz band in particular can be genuinely crowded.
Your wall port also constrains you, since your router has to reach it.
If placement alone isn't enough, that's normal in these buildings — see Wi-Fi doesn't reach my whole home.
If that didn’t work
Call (617) 693-9434 and describe your layout; we've seen a lot of these floor plans.
More in Manage Services & Equipment
- How do I find my Wi-Fi password?
- How do I change my Wi-Fi name or password?
- Can I use my own router?
- Why doesn't my Wi-Fi reach my whole home?
- How do I connect a device with an Ethernet cable?
- What router does Boston Broadband provide?
Talk to us
Call (617) 693-9434, Monday to Friday 8am–6pm ET, or email [email protected]. We answer within 24 hours, and usually within an hour.
Boston Broadband is a service-area business serving Boston, Brookline and Cambridge, Massachusetts. There is no counter to walk up to — phone, email and your account at myaccount.bostonbroadband.com are the ways in.