Our home networks are responsible for linking our devices together and providing us with a reliable internet connection. If you’re looking to improve your network’s speed or just its reliability, you don’t need all new equipment to do so. If you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and put in a bit of work, you can improve your connection without needing to spend a ton of money.

4 Wi-Fi extenders

Wi-Fi is great for getting a network connection to every room of the house without running wires, but its quality is greatly impacted by signal strength and congestion. If you’ve got multiple walls between your router and the device you’re trying to get online, your speeds can suffer, and you may even experience dropped connections.

While many of the best Wi-Fi extenders aren’t all that cheap, they can be used to extend coverage to more rooms of the house while costing less than a mesh system and being simpler than running wires. Most people can get away with an affordable model, like an AC750 or AC1200, for light usage such as streaming and browsing if there are only a few devices using it at once. Wi-Fi extenders work by receiving and transmitting a Wi-Fi connection, so they’re best placed directly between the area with low signal and the router, so the extender gets a good connection to the router.

3 A VPN

Even if you choose one of the best paid VPN services over a free VPN, you can still find a good deal. A VPN adds a layer of protection to your internet connection by routing your data through the VPN server before sending it off to its destination. While this can add a few milliseconds of ping and may be a bit slower than your base connection, a VPN has several benefits. For one, streaming services sometimes offer different shows in other countries which you can't access through your local internet alone. Some VPNs also offer ad-blocking which can speed up load times and reduce data usage.

A VPN can be installed on each device individually, or directly on some routers. If you have a router with VPN Client support, you can add a VPN service to it so that all devices connected to your router will run over the VPN connection. Some higher-end routers also let you specify which specific devices should use the VPN.

2 Wi-Fi card upgrade

A lot of PCs, including laptops, allow users to upgrade their Wi-Fi cards. While you’ll want to refer to your specific laptop or motherboard manual before attempting such an upgrade, it’s typically a quick process with only a single screw and a couple of antenna connections once you're inside your machine with power disconnected. If you’ve got a desktop, you can simply slot a new Wi-Fi card into a PCI Express slot for an upgrade.

Even brand-name Wi-Fi 6E cards can be found for under $50, so if your PC’s Wi-FI connection just isn’t keeping up, an upgrade could be a cheap way to improve your performance. You could also get better signal quality if the card you get comes with an external antenna, like the Asus PCE-AXE59BT.

If you’ve got a decent Wi-Fi card already, there’s a good chance you could get an antenna upgrade separately. Desktop PCs are often large metal boxes that can block your Wi-Fi signal, so using small antennas hidden behind the PC could mean poor signal quality.

1 Ethernet

One of the best upgrades you can make to your home network is also one of the cheapest: classic cable connectivity. While running Ethernet to all of your devices simply isn’t realistic, you can also improve your signal quality by moving your router to a better location. Routers broadcast their signal 360 degrees, so the best place for your router is as close to the middle of your house as possible. If you do get a premium Ethernet cable that’s a few feet longer, you may be able to find a more central location for your router, and connecting via cable may not be too inconvenient. Even with optimal positioning, your Wi-Fi may still struggle with other congestion and interference.

If you’ve got a gaming PC, or just a device that needs a lot of speed and consistent low latency, running an Ethernet cable across your house isn’t all that expensive if you can do the work yourself. You can get a 50-foot Cat 6 Ethernet cable for around $10 that’s ready to go. The difficulty of running a wire in your ceiling or under the floor will vary by house, but if you’ve got access and have a drill, it can be a great way to get a fast connection to the other side of the house.

Once you’ve got your Ethernet run, you can use a switch to use it on multiple devices, connect it to a Wi-Fi Extender, or simply plug it directly into the device that needs the speed. If you’re a serious gamer, Ethernet is the best bet for reliable and fast speeds.

You don’t always need a new router

If your Wi-Fi isn’t meeting your needs, it can be tempting to replace your router, but if you set it up with the right configuration, you may be able to extend its life. For one thing, make sure you’ve enabled the full width of your 5GHz band, either 80MHz or 160MHz can help improve speeds. Some routers default to narrower bands to improve coverage and compatibility, but for most people, a wider 80MHz or 160MHz connection will result in better overall performance.

That being said, if you’re still making excuses for an old 802.11n (Wi-Fi 4) or an early 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5), it’s time for an upgrade. Wave 2 Wi-Fi 5 routers and newer should be able to keep up with modern needs such as 4K streaming and large downloads. That being said, if you’ve got a gigabit connection, Wi-Fi 6 and newer could offer some real improvements, especially if you’ve got a lot of congestion from your neighbors.