Lockdown has raised many challenges as we move our work from our offices into our new reality — our home based offices. We connect our laptops or devices as we always have but then find we have dropouts as we attend zoom meetings while the kids are trying to do there school work connecting remotely to their classrooms. Suddenly we have multiple devices fighting like our kids do while stuck inside.

Our home routers optimally work with up to four wireless connections at once browsing the internet, however once we start uploading large files or attending video meetings as we do with working or studying from home our connection can start to suffer and dropouts become more frequent.

A family of four each with a laptop and a cellphone means eight simultaneous connections on the WiFi network, throw in a tablet or two, a gaming console, a connection to the TV and our internet connection starts to struggle as the devices compete.

One way around this is to limit the number of wireless devices by connecting the heavy use devices to the router with an Ethernet cable, even if it is only while on video calls or transferring larger files.

Your dropouts will be less, and you may find you prefer the stability that the Ethernet cable offers. You don’t need to worry about the signal not reaching certain parts of your house or dropouts from interference with telephones or other devices.

An Ethernet cable can reach 100 metres. It offers greater stability for gaming, consoles, transferring files and streaming video and might be worth considering if you find yourself getting frustrated by frequent dropouts and unreliable video meetings.