Wifi on a college campus. How to get faster internet?

Wifi on a college campus. How to get faster internet?

When I'm in my dorm I can plug into an ethernet cable but are there ways to get faster internet/faster wifi when just walking around the campus?

 

No.

10 characters

 

Pretty much. You are usually limited by the network infrastructure and the number of students using wireless devices (really, that is the problem and there is nothing you can do about it). A university is a nightmare in terms of wireless interference. It became enough of a problem at my uni that the IT department issues an e-mail to the student community explaining that wireless mice, keyboards, etc. did have an effect on interferences and that it could degrade their network connection.

It is literally impossible to attain the maximum throughput on 2.4 GHz because of said interferences while I can on the 5 GHz band and I'm already lucky that there are 5 GHz capable access points in the network infrastructure.

If you have a craptastic wireless adapter, then changing it would have an effect, but that is about it.

 

The less people using the Wifi at my campus, the faster the Internet is. Hence why i would avoid the Library, Student Center or Computer Science lab

 

Like the others said, you're pretty much limited to the speed of your campus network, no ifs-ands-buts.

Your best (hypothetical) hope is that literally everyone else is disconnected from the network and that you're the only one using it.

 

if your connection is too horribly bad ... tether up to a good LTE phone? its a trick my daughter is using at uni.

 

>>craptastic wireless adapter

What is this?

Why do I hear about people talking about dual band wifi vs single band all those things if the internet speed is always determined by your location?

Does wifi beat 4g/LTE in speed in most cases?

Laptops with 4g/LTE- so they can go on the internet anywhere theoretically right? But on a college campus it shouldn't matter should it since you would have wifi nearby always?

 

snyde way of referring to wireless adaptors that are of low quality, range and bandwidth

your wifi adaptor and router ( access poiont) affect your speed between themselves which can be much slower than your total internet connection availability. for example if I run a wireless G router and wifi card it can only move about 2/3 of the total data my internection could pump out to them your connection will be as fast as your weakest link and in many devices that is their built in wifi card or the cards drivers.
as for single band all devices are forced onto a single frequency range, dual band ones can hop between two to try to run the fastest connection they can.

almost, except in heavily shared areas, places with bad coverage and where user pools have no more internal IP addresses to allocate.

correct, but many palces still do not have the coverage ( large campuses or multiple sites ) and there are many advantages to having a combination connection. my daughter finds that if she is in one of the main parks at lunchtime ( summertime ) the wifi is saturated and her LTE is about 350% faster. it all depends on network infrastructure and how many are using it at once

 

I had instances where my 5GHz is a smooth sail wherer my neighbor 2.4GHz struggle to load google. It is all about interference, and multiply it by every device around you. (the phones, tablets counts as well)

It is the weakest link that counts.

I guess if you be friend with the admin may helps, special treatment for your mac address.~~

 

Yeah 5GHz would usually be far better than 2.4GHz for one reason only - it's much less popular so interference is not a problem.
The only downside is that 5GHz offers less range opposed to 2.4GHz (or technically speaking is worse at penetrating obstacles this fades faster).

Still it doesn't change anything that my fellow posters had written - which can be summed up with - not much you can do.

 

If WiFi connectivity becomes such an issue where using a 3G/4G connection would be faster, that's probably a good indicator that you need something else to do besides surf the 'net wirelessly .