If you live on a farm, us telling you that internet quality out there isn’t the most consistent isn’t exactly news. The further you live from civilization, the worse it’ll get. However, that doesn’t mean you have to simply deal with it. There are plenty of options for improving the internet connection on your farm, and we’re here to go over those with you.

Increase the Distance of Your Connection Strength

When you live on a farm, not only are you far away from the source of your internet connection, but you’re likely pretty far from the connection point as well. Even if you have fiber optics going past your property, the copper wire bringing the internet the rest of the way to your house will lose strength the further it goes.

Obviously, installing fiber optics for this connection will work well, but it’s also really expensive. A much cheaper option is installing an Ethernet extender. One example of this would be the G.fast. This device has a few pros and cons for your broadband network, but the most prominent benefit is the fact that it’ll help your internet strength hold out for longer than a standard copper wire.

Upgrade Your Current Hardware

However, no matter how strong your incoming connection is, if you own low-quality transmitters, you’ll throttle your own internet. If you only have trouble with your Wi-Fi, you’ll need a new router. If the problem is more severe than that, it could be from a faulty modem. Either way, purchasing upgraded hardware should improve internet speeds significantly.

Use Wired Connections Whenever Possible

Even though the internet has come a long way in recent years, Wi-Fi will never compare to a wired connection. Receiving your link through a physical medium will always be faster and more consistent than waves traveling through the air.

Even if you just bought a top-of-the-line router, you should still use wired connections for gaming consoles and devices through which you stream high-quality video content. Save the Wi-Fi for your smartphones and laptops that don’t require as demanding of a connection in order to function properly.

Limit Internet Usage Where You Can

Finally, one thing that will significantly improve the network connection you receive on your farm is limiting internet usage on devices that don’t need it. Even if you have the best internet connection speeds possible, the more devices you have connected to your system, the slower it will run. All these items are actively fighting each other for a piece of the connection, and unless you’re actually using all of them, they don’t need to be.

Many internet providers allow their users to control the devices connected to their service through an app, so that’s an easy way to ensure you don’t have too many things competing for resources. On top of that, if you make sure that your devices shut down all the way when not in use, you’ll be able to cut down on the number of devices trying to use the internet simultaneously.