Connected devices have exploded in popularity in recent years. With the rise of the Internet of Things, devices communicate with each other throughout your Southlake, Texas home, from your refrigerator to your speakers. Many times when these products malfunction, it's not because of faulty manufacturing but rather a bad network. As people upgrade their technology, they fail to improve what matters most: the home network that serves as its foundation. In this blog, we guide you through some of the questions you need to ask to make sure your network is up to the task.

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How Do You Plan to Use Your Network?

The first step is knowing what you want out of your network. The hardware offered by your internet service providers works fine for basic functions: checking emails, browsing the web, watching videos on your computer, etc. However, if you are planning on using it as part of a connected home, you’re going to need an upgrade.

Sometimes, it may be enough to add a couple of routers and invest in a more expensive internet package to bolster your signal. Sometimes you need to upgrade to a router that can handle bigger bandwidths (if you expect to do a lot of media streaming, for example). In the case of a connected home, you may even need subnetworks called VLANS to divide up your traffic.