“Why is my office Wi-Fi slow when internet speed tests are fine?”
As an IT Manager or Director, you’d probably expect a Wi-Fi failure to look catastrophically obvious. Like sirens wailing and offline-related casualties strewn throughout the office.
But most Wi-Fi failures don’t look like failures. Office Wi-Fi problems in London can really fly under the radar.
- Access points? Online
- Internet connection – Fast
- No major outages on monitoring tools
And yet, your Teams calls drop, Zoom freezes and perhaps most importantly – Staff are complaining about slow Wi-Fi on a daily basis. What is going on?
It’s at this point most of our clients contact us for help. Persistent Wi-Fi problems when the obvious vital signs look okay are one of the most common reasons organisations in London contact Geekabit for a Wi-Fi survey or investigation into the cause of the problem.
“What is wrong with my office Wi-Fi? Everything Looks Fine!”
When your colleagues or staff members are constantly complaining about the office Wi-Fi it’s no fun for IT Managers at all. Especially when the IT Team are seeing:
- Strong signal strength
- Healthy internet bandwidth
- No hardware faults
- No ISP issues
On the surface, everything looks like the Wi-Fi should be performing well. But in reality, you’ve got users experiencing:
- Poor Microsoft Teams calls
- Random disconnects
- Slow Wi-Fi roaming between areas
- Applications pausing unexpectedly
- Complaints concentrated in specific locations
So what is actually going on in these woeful Wi-Fi scenarios?
Five Hidden Causes of Poor Office Wi-Fi
1. Too Many Devices Sharing Airtime
Modern London offices tend to have:
- Users with multiple devices all connected to the office Wi-Fi including Laptops, Smartphones and Tablets
- Meeting room systems
- Wireless displays
- IoT devices
Imagine all of these devices and systems all trying to connect to the office Wi-Fi at the same time. The problem is often contention rather than coverage. Hence why the Wi-Fi monitoring systems and the user experience can differ so much.
2. Co-Channel Interference
Many busy London offices and modern office buildings accidentally create their own interference.
Typical causes of Wi-Fi interference in office environments include:
- Too many access points
- Poor channel planning
- Legacy configurations
- Neighbouring office networks
3. Office Roaming
In many office environments, users can be constantly on the move. Replying to emails whilst making a coffee. Checking files on the network from meetings. Roaming from floor to floor meeting with colleagues. Connecting to a Teams meeting on your way back to your desk.
Wi-Fi problems like Teams calls dropping whilst roaming can be due to:
- Devices sticking to distant APs instead of moving with the user and connecting to the nearest
- Poor handoffs between floors
4. Meeting Room Wi-Fi Congestion
One meeting room can generate more demand than an entire office area. Now imagine multiple meeting rooms all trying to function at the same time.
Common symptoms of meeting room Wi-Fi congestion can be:
- Teams issues
- Wireless presentation failures
- Slow guest access
5. The Building Itself
Many of our clients are London-based. Offices in the capital often have specific challenges to overcome when it comes to identifying hidden causes of Wi-Fi problems at work.
London offices tend to consist of many potential network disruptors, including:
- Multi-floor buildings
- Dense neighbouring Wi-Fi networks
- Glass partitions
- Concrete cores
- Users who hot-desk (and flexible working)
- High user density in relatively small spaces
The signal bars on your monitoring systems aren’t telling IT Managers the whole story.
Why Speed Tests Often Mislead
As an IT Manager, you might look at a speed test and see that internet speeds are good, so assume all must be well with the Wi-Fi. Unfortunately, internet speed tests can often mislead people into thinking there isn’t a problem. Here are a few reasons why Wi-Fi speed tests don’t show the whole picture.
Internet speed ≠ Wi-Fi Performance
You might also be asking why is my internet speed, but my Wi-Fi still slow? It’s because the internet speed shown in a speed test is only the capacity of the wired connection – That is the speed of the internet coming into your office via fibre or cable. The Wi-Fi performance depends on what happens to the internet after it enters your office and goes through your router – How the Wi-Fi performs depends on the local, wireless distribution of that initial speed.
So the speed might look fine, but how the wireless signal is distributed could be affected by:
- Physical interference (e.g. building materials)
- The distance the signal is travelling (are there enough AP’s and are they deployed in the right places?)
- Hardware limitations (is the hardware up to date and still in good working order?)
- Having to share with lots of other devices (which might be older and slower)
These things can all degrade the speed that is delivered to your devices. Your network is only as fast as your slowest link, regardless of the speed coming into your building.
“Why am I not getting the 1Gb connection I pay for?”
You may be paying for 1Gb internet, but that may not be translating into user experience.
This goes back to what we said above – Your network is only as fast as your slowest link. So you might well be getting 1Gb internet speeds into your building, but what is happening after the wireless signal is distributed by your router?
There is little point in paying for 1Gb internet speeds if you don’t have the hardware capabilities to match it. It’s important that your router and AP’s have the capabilities to effectively transmit that Wi-Fi signal and speed. Older phones, laptops, tablets and other devices that use older wireless standards are also going to cap your maximum speed lower than what you’re paying for.
What matters more than raw bandwidth when it comes to internet speeds?
Whilst bandwidth is important, there are other factors at play when it comes to how fast an internet connection feels.
Bandwidth is the capacity to move a high volume of data. How fast and responsively that data is delivered is influenced by:
- Latency
- Airtime
- Roaming
There are many interactive applications that only need a little bandwidth, but demand instant, unhindered transmission in order to feel fast.
How Can Wi-Fi Speed Problems Be Investigated?
Here at Geekabit, our expert Wi-Fi engineers have a number of tools at their disposal in order to help investigate Wi-Fi problems and identify solutions.
Spectrum Analysis for Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi spectrum analysis is the process of scanning and visualizing the invisible radio frequencies (RF) used by your wireless network. It helps network administrators, IT Managers and our expert Wi-Fi engineers to identify, locate, and mitigate interference from both Wi-Fi and non-Wi-Fi devices. This allows us to optimize network channels and improve speeds.
Why might spectrum analysis be necessary? The frequency bands used by Wi-Fi (2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and 6 GHz) are unlicensed, meaning anyone can transmit signals there. While standard network scanners only see other routers, a spectrum analyzer sees all the energy in the air. This can then help inform decisions about Wi-Fi deployment in order to minimise interference.
Wi-Fi Client Behaviour Analysis
Wi-Fi client behaviour analysis evaluates how connected devices (clients) interact with a wireless network or how people move through a physical space using their devices.
It can be split into two main categories: Business Analytics (consumer tracking, i.e. seeing how a customer moves through a retail space) and Network Troubleshooting (looking at the technical performance in a workspace).
Network troubleshooting is going to be most helpful in an office environment, enabling Network Administrators and IT Managers to understand device performance throughout the office, identify problem areas and thus improve network health and performance.
Client Behaviour Analysis in Network Troubleshooting would likely look at:
- Roaming behaviour – How are devices transitioning between Access Points? Are there any ‘sticky’ clients that refuse to disconnect from weak, distant AP’s? Are there any dead spots?
- Device capabilities – Are there any legacy devices that are slowing things down? Which clients support modern protocols (which Wi-Fi standard or frequency band are they utilising?)
Professional Wi-Fi Site Surveys
Wi-Fi Site Surveys are a key tool in analysing the performance of your network, helping to diagnose your Wi-Fi problems as well as measure our success fixing your Wi-Fi issues.
A Wi-Fi site survey is the most effective way to design, troubleshoot, or optimise a wireless network for homes, offices, warehouses, schools, and commercial environments.
Our expert Wi-Fi engineers work out of London, Hampshire and Cardiff. An on-site survey always provides the most accurate results, however for circumstances where this is not possible, we also offer predictive Wi-Fi site surveys using industry-standard modelling software.
You can find out more about our Wi-Fi Site Surveys here.
Wi-Fi Capacity Planning
Analysing the Wi-Fi Site Survey, spectrum and client behaviour mean that our expert Wi-Fi engineers can effectively plan for your Wi-Fi capacity, making sure your wireless network fits your bespoke office needs.
Wi-Fi capacity planning is the process of designing a wireless network to support the concurrent demands of users, devices, and applications, rather than just ensuring basic signal reach. It calculates the network’s ability to handle traffic without congestion, ensuring seamless performance even during peak usage.
A robust capacity plan goes beyond simple coverage and translates real-world traffic demands into specific hardware and configuration requirements.
“Why does my office Wi-Fi look fine but still feel slow?”
In conclusion, the biggest Wi-Fi problems are often invisible.
If users in your office or workspace are complaining about slow Wi-Fi despite healthy-looking dashboards, the issue may not be with your internet connection, access points or ISP.
As we’ve outlined above, it may be the way the wireless environment behaves in the real world. And this can be affected by various factors.
If you have tried everything you can think of to improve your slow office Wi-Fi but things still aren’t improving, then call in the experts. Geekabit helps organisations across Central London, Canary Wharf and the City identify and solve complex Wi-Fi problems through professional site surveys, troubleshooting and wireless network optimisation. Get in touch with our friendly team today.
