Wi-Fi is ubiquitous – you have it at home, probably at work, and you wouldn’t settle down on a coffee shop without it. But people know surprisingly little about Wi-Fi – most don’t even know what the name means.

The truth is that Wi-Fi doesn’t actually stand for anything. The term Hi-Fi has been used for decades, which is short for high-fidelity (basically, high quality acoustics). Wi-Fi followed in Hi-Fi’s footsteps and wanted to capitalise on the positive connotations, but it doesn’t actually mean anything – the term has gone the same way as Hoover and Google by becoming ‘a thing’ despite having no initial meaning at all. The term was coined by Interbrand Corporation, who thought of the term because it was a bit more memorable than ‘IEEE 802.11b Direct Sequence’. Most of us are probably pretty glad that they thought of Wi-Fi, since asking for your friend’s IEEE 802.11b password seems a little long-winded.

How to Make the Most of Your Wi-Fi

Businesses without Wi-Fi are becoming incredibly rare. Even if you don’t have regular client footfall at your premises, it’s useful to have Wi-Fi for visitors, hot-desks, laptop users, and areas that restrict a structured cabling installation.

The problem with standard Wi-Fi is that it gets incredibly congested; if you want to know how much, you can download a Wi-Fi analyser on your smartphone to see how many access points are broadcasting within range. Or just check how many Wi-Fi options come up on your smartphone right now – the more businesses and residential apartments around you, the more wireless transmitters there will be. All of those access points are competing for the same air space, much like commuters on the Tube in July. Every signal in the same air space (and frequency) impacts the effectiveness of your own Wi-Fi signal; even technology that we consider completely separate – Bluetooth, cordless phones, microwave ovens and microwave transmitters all have an impact on your Wi-Fi. They all operate on a Wi-Fi frequency.

Even if you manage to get into a space with very few Wi-Fi access points; metal and water (remember people are around 55% water) will absorb your signal. That’s why microwaves heat water and can’t accept metal; the water and metal absorb the microwave, whilst plastics let it pass through. The very same happens with wireless signal.

So, What Can You Do?

1. Have multiple access points to improve your wireless signal where walls, structures or crowds can affect it
2. Change access point locations to a more optimal location – higher, with fewer obstructions
3. Analyse your competing wireless signals to find out which channel is least congested
4. Consider changing wireless frequency – 2.4GHz is far more congested than 5Ghz
5. Invest in business grade access points that use multiple data streams to improve information quality, and newer protocols for faster transmission speed
6. Improve your receiving devices – newer laptops and mobile phones have more recent wireless hardware built in

Effective wireless signal is important. It meets visitor expectations, improves ease of connectivity, increases footfall, attracts new customers, and allows tracking. Get it wrong, and you have frustrated visitors choosing 3G/4G instead. We are in the age of technology, and technology needs connectivity.

UK broadband is internationally famous for being slow – in 2015 we lagged behind South Korea, Latvia, and the Czech Republic for internet speeds. Even our peak speeds are 24^th in the world and with more and more people relying on 4G for their browsing, it’s essential that the government make a concerted effort to bring us all up to speed before it has a detrimental effect on our economy.

Despite millions already put into improving British broadband, we still have cities like Hull where average speeds are just 12.45Mbps, which is fast enough for single user HD streaming but for a multiple occupancy household this remains one step behind the demand.

So it comes as no surprise that the Queen addressed this growing concern in her recent speech. The Digital Economy Bill promises:

• Every household a legal right to a fast broadband connection
• New laws to help telecoms companies to build the necessary infrastructure for fast broadband and better mobile networks
• A way for consumers to be automatically compensated when things go wrong with their broadband service

A publicly-funded Superfast Broadband Programme has already provided coverage to an additional 4 million homes, with a Universal Service Obligation set at 10Mbps that could benefit up to 1 million UK households.

What Does That Mean for UK Businesses?

There are a lot of quotes online about the implications for UK businesses and ‘a clear commitment to the digital economy’, but there are a number of immediate changes that businesses – large and small – may need to consider.

Home Working and VoIP

Better broadband speeds and more consistent access mean that more people have the option of working from home on a regular basis. There are already 4.2 million people in the UK working from home, and this number is set to rise as the digital economy makes the workplace more flexible.

This flexibility needs technology to support it, both in terms of the broadband itself and how businesses use it. VoIP is not a new offering, in fact it first developed in 1995, but a huge number of businesses still haven’t embraced the lower cost structure, scalable systems, and plug-and-play handset options. Better broadband means that your employees’ homes can become an extension to the office without disproportionate expense and effort.

VoIP is by far the simplest way to maintain office functionality in the home – it doesn’t even require handsets, since softphones allow users to turn their computer, smartphone, or tablet into an extension of the business telephone system. Every VoIP user requires an estimated 0.5Mbps, including allowance for speed fluctuations and basic internet browsing, so improving broadband speeds allows employees to take calls while maintaining reasonable internet speeds so that they can work on dedicated apps or respond to the calls they receive.

In short, collaborative working will become more cohesive with businesses reducing reliance on personal mobile numbers and completely removing homeworker telephone expense claims.

A Better Online Presence

A larger broadband offering means a larger online market – businesses will need to offer similar Wi-Fi speeds on their premises to match what people expect at home, as well as having a better online infrastructure to manage online stock or orders, cloud based customer management systems, or any other web based tool businesses have come to rely on. When consumers are accustomed to a higher standard of online experience, it’s on businesses to meet those standards or face being pushed out.