Factors Affecting WiFi Signal Strength

Presenter: Tim Ghiorso

Co-Presenter(s):
JT Depriest, Ian Moore

Presenter Status: Undergraduate student

Department: Biology

Screenshot URL: https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1egLo1OwcGUPCMFwLZemtKrrZiAUG4MFd

Abstract:
As wifi technology improves, people are becoming more dependent on it to function on a daily basis. 87% of all households across the US have access to wifi, including over 290 million users. Society has a great demand for wifi to be as stable and reliable as possible. However, wifi signal speed is significantly impacted by several environmental factors, such as distance, weather, and physical barriers. We conducted a study of wifi speed by measuring set distances from wifi routers within three individual houses. Our results indicate that distance is not as great of a factor on wifi speed indoors, as it is outdoors. Router strength and objects surrounding the router had a great impact on wifi speed. The latency of the networks were varying, but there was a direct correlation between higher upload/download speeds and lower latency. Our results shed light on where a wifi router should be set up, and identify materials we can use in the construction of buildings to improve the wifi speed.