
A router is a gateway to the internet for all your devices. It receives data from us through the fibre network provider and sends it to your devices, such as your phone, tablet, or computer. Think of it as a traffic cop directing data to where it needs to go.
A better router can improve your internet experience. It can give you faster speeds, more reliable connections, and better coverage.
Here are some extra advise for your home setup.
1. Move Your Router
That router in the closet? Not a good idea. Walls, cupboards, and even bookshelves can potentially dampen your Wi-Fi signal. Physically moving the router can make a real difference to the speeds you get and how far its wireless transmissions can reach. The perfect spot will depend on your home, but try not to hide your router in a corner, under a cupboard, or inside a drawer—the more central and prominent it is, the better.
You might need to apply some creative cabling to get your router in a better place, but it’s going to be worth the effort. The goal is to get your main devices—consoles, laptops, and so on—as close as possible to your router. Devices that don’t need quite so much bandwidth, like smart thermostats, don’t have to be a priority in terms of physical proximity.
For this reason, it’s worth considering the look of your router when purchasing. If you buy a router you consider hideous, you’re much more likely to put it in a closet. Figure out the best spot given the location of your high-priority devices, then consider what’s going to look good to you in that spot. If you don’t have a flat surface near the best spot, you can mount your router halfway up a wall. If possible, keep it away from other devices that use electromagnetic waves; that includes baby monitors, wireless keyboards, and microwaves.
2. Use an Ethernet Cable

Ethernet. It still works and is the best option.
It’s easy to forget that wires still exist! We don’t, it’s in our name, but it needs to be said: You don’t need Wi-Fi. A wired connection to your router is faster and more stable than Wi-Fi, and it can’t be affected by other devices or large fish tanks. The downside is that it limits where your devices can be, and it’s less convenient.
Still, for hardware that needs the fastest internet possible—a gaming console, desktop PC, or streaming box, for example—it’s often well worth the effort to run a wire. The router will have a handful of Ethernet ports to spare, so all you need is a cable.
To do a tidy job and avoid having wires trailing across your floor, you’ll need to deploy some cable management. Small brackets keep the Ethernet cable fixed to the walls. If you have several cables running in the same direction, wall mounts also work well. For one or two gadgets, it can be worth the extra setup.
2. Change the Channel or Band
Wi-Fi signal is divided into channels. Your router uses a particular Wi-Fi channel to communicate with the devices around your home. If you have close neighbors who have routers using the same Wi-Fi channel, then everything can get congested quickly. Switching channels can solve this problem.
Every router will handle this differently. Check its documentation or look up the instructions online if you’re not sure, but you should be able to find the option somewhere in the device settings. Channels 1, 6, and 11 are the ones to try, as they’ll have the least interference when multiple devices get hooked up.
Most routers now use dual-band technology, broadcasting at the 2.4-GHz and 5-GHz frequencies. If your router settings allow you, you might be able to prioritize one or the other for certain devices—the 5-GHz band will get you a faster connection to the internet, though it has a shorter range than 2.4 GHz. We suggest leaving both frequencies enabled since older devices will often work only on 2.4 GHz.
3. Upgrade Your Router

Routers vary significantly in functionality and price. If you have dead or slow zones in your house, you probably need to change where and how far your Wi-Fi is broadcast. If you have a large home, you’re likely better off with a router that can pair with “repeaters” that broadcast signals into the farthest reaches of your space. Smaller homes and apartments can generally get by with a simpler system. If you still have a 2.4Ghz only router it will be well worth the money to upgrade to a router that can do gigabit on the LAN ports and 5G on the wifi. Most fibre network operators in South Africa, like Vumatel, Openserve, Evotel, Frogfoot, Octotel and more have upgraded their speeds and the min speeds in some cases exceeds what the old generation routers can do or handle.
4. Cut Off Unused Devices
Having dozens of things tapping into the Wi-Fi at once can be problematic. Plug anything you can into Ethernet, and unplug anything you have connected but don’t need (like that “smart” tea kettle you never once got to work). Make sure only the things that need internet get internet.
Good routers (all of the routers listed above, for example) offer controls to prioritize a particular device or service. It’s a handy way to make sure your games never get interrupted by someone else streaming videos on Facebook. If you have a 100mbps speed coming in and have 3 devices each using 20mbps, means that your speedtest will only be 60mbps. Disconnecting unused devices when not used is a good idea.
5. Check Your PC
This tip is specific to computers: If the internet on your PC or laptop is perpetually slow but other devices seem fine, open your Task Manager or Activity Monitor and see which programs are running in the background. Certain programs could be set to auto-update that don’t need to be. If they’re always updating in the background, that could be the cause of your slow internet. Check it out and adjust the settings. A slow computer also means slow internet. If you PC cannot process the info quick enough it will be slow.
6. Restart Your Router?
We’ve read this tip many times on the web, but we were skeptical. Restarting your router regularly sounds like an extension of the age-old pseudo-solution to everything digital: Reboot it. Yes, we know restarting your router can sometimes fix dead internet, but we asked router maker Netgear: Does regularly rebooting your router help speed things up? The short answer is, probably not.
Sandeep Harpalani, vice president of product management at Netgear, says the company does not recommend rebooting its routers “unless you actually encounter issues with connectivity or slowdowns due to radio frequency interference.” He adds that if you’re still using 2.4-GHz Wi-Fi and you’re having speed troubles, rebooting might help, since it will force the router to choose the best channel with the least interference during boot-up. If you’ve made the jump to 5 GHz, it will automatically switch to the channel with the least amount of interference.
Either way, there’s no reason to reboot regularly. If you are having persistent problems, then it may be worth restarting your router, but for the most part, stick with our other tips.
7. Call Your ISP
If you’ve tried it all and still have problems, you can always contact your internet service provider. Most ISP’s will liase with you over the phone, email or whatsapp. They will ask many questions and try and help to get to the bottom of the problem. Some ISP’s will even (at a cost) send a technician out to you and try and resolve the issue onsite. To contact Intense Fibre please either send an email to support@intensefibre.co.za or whatsapp us on 0829215839 and our staff will gladly assist.
Buy a new router from Intense Fibre
Our new Routers are R950 delivered through The Courier Guy at a nominal fee of R100. We will configure the router for your specific network settings and deliver to you. For a new router, please email sales@intensefibre.co.za and they will assist.
Router info: dual-band 802.11ac (WiFi 5) wireless router featuring 5x Gigabit Ethernet ports and an aggregate data rate of up to 1167Mbps. The router supports Cudy’s whole home mesh system, DNS over TLS (DoT), and various VPN server or client protocols as well as TR-069. It also supports OpenWRT, a popular open-sourced firmware, which allows access to more features and customisation.
