The Importance of Upgrading Network Equipment and Infrastructure for Optimal Performance

When it comes to staying connected online, having the right equipment and infrastructure is crucial. As technology advances at a rapid pace, it's easy to get left behind if we don't stay on top of our network's capabilities. In this article, we'll explore some key strategies for upgrading our network equipment and infrastructure to ensure optimal performance.

One of the first things I do when considering a new device is to ask myself if it's still necessary for me to use it every day. If not, I consider unplugging it from the network to free up bandwidth and resources. This might seem like a small thing, but it can make a big difference in terms of overall performance. I mean, think about it - when you're not actively using something, it's just taking up space on your network. By unplug and storing that device, you're freeing up bandwidth for more important things.

In addition to unplugging devices that are no longer needed, another strategy I use is to upgrade my equipment regularly. This might include things like handling better Wi-Fi standards (Wireless standards), wireless encryption methods, or even something as simple as upgrading a router or a switch on the network. Upgrading our equipment can make a big difference in terms of performance and security.

For example, when it comes to Wi-Fi standards, I've recently upgraded my media box to Wi-Fi 6 because it's this is kind of where you are even with custom building a PC like what's your bottleneck? If you upgrade your CPU but your GPU is still down here yeah things might work more efficiently in certain ways but you want to try to be in parallel as much as possible without overspending. I've thought about going Wi-Fi 6E, which makes sense because it uses the latest spectrum, but most of our devices are still using Wi-Fi 5, so going for Wi-Fi 7 might not be worth it just yet.

Another thing I do is pay attention to firmware updates and security patches. This is especially important if you're running older equipment or appliances on your network. Firmware updates can often improve performance and add new features, while security patches can help protect against hacking attempts. However, sometimes these updates can also introduce new issues or compatibility problems.

Cable quality is another thing that I pay close attention to. For example, when it comes to wired networking, I've recently upgraded my cables from Cat 5e to Cat 6 because it's an older house and I'm glad to have that. However, even newer cables like Cat 6A can make a difference in terms of performance. If you're experiencing issues with dropped packets or slow speeds, upgrading your cable might be just what you need.

Finally, I always try to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to new technologies and standards. This means keeping an eye on upcoming Wi-Fi 7 devices, which are expected to come out in another year or so. While Wi-Fi 7 is still largely theoretical at this point, it's clear that it's going to be a major improvement over current technology.

In conclusion, taking care of your network equipment and infrastructure is crucial for optimal performance. By regularly upgrading our equipment, staying on top of firmware updates and security patches, paying attention to cable quality, and staying ahead of the curve when it comes to new technologies, we can ensure that our networks are running smoothly and securely.

In a future article, I plan to dive deeper into network cabling and explore some common mistakes that people make when it comes to choosing and installing cables. If you're interested in learning more about this topic, be sure to tune in for the next episode of my live stream!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhere here I am thinking how can I make Google Chrome faster and y'all are gaming and all the 1080P and I'm like I mean I do have you know things that I do on the desktop I do crunch video I do so having a faster processor makes sense for me less on the gaming front because I mean how fast can you run Tetris but uh the web browsing and and there is an impact there it was shown years ago that getting you know faster memory or faster CPU actually can impact your web browsing because it it does render faster whether you're talking Javas script or just page loading in general like things happen faster so as as as silly as that might sound my killer app is basically the web browser I know that's crazy the desktop for me is is is the killer app and I know I'm I'm I'm I don't fit in with all you Gamers but at least you fps to the desktop I'm more than that D I'm pushing like 144 but all the more reason that we we did what we did or decided to do uh with the the live stream on on Twitch the 24/7 stream anybody can join much like this podcast anybody can join and stream them playing video games or doing something like 3D printing or just hang out in general it's a it's it's a 247 geek out on Twitch but yeah you could right now actually I mean because we're just recording the podcast separately but we've got queso playing he's still doing his Star Wars Galaxies Mike's doing some retro game infas sword is playing a VR Farming Simulator people are playing video games together on the screen at the same time it's it's a thing so I'm not passing Judgment at all but yeah thank you uh uh Glendon for for laying that out in a a very cohesive uh capacity sure thank you uh so that that leaves me and you know I I realize that timing may be a bit off for everybody I certainly I'm I'm grateful that we've had so much to share in just one broadcast uh we'll work our way through refining I'm not sure if we're going to go much Beyond uh the tips I'm going to lay out you may have some ideas of of what what else you might want to talk about unless it's bedtime for everybody not for me I'm I'm West Coast the best coast but I thought I'd break down how to boost internet speeds which is you know much like everything else you're always looking to optimize there's always some kind of bottleneck that you just don't realize is happening there is some amount of crossover with how and what toxic laid out and maybe not in as much in in a technical capacity but I I heard him touch upon a couple of the items that I don't think many people consider I'll begin with a very simple thing that you may not think about maybe you do when it comes to my primary computer the system that I'm using a desktop which is a laptop that's basically being used as a desktop right I don't have a billion apps running can I handle a billion apps it's a bit egregious but can I handle more than one app at a time absolutely but everything that I'm running is inevitably well maybe not everything but many of the things that I might run are using the internet they're using the connection on my system and and it's a little bit of data here a little bit of data there and so what I have done to better be able to boost my internet speeds is be very very mindful very careful about what I'm running on my system this would be something that I would apply to any particular uh device that is capable of multitasking on the network maybe less so with smartphones which are a bit more efficient with data if only because of battery life but when you're talking about desktops which are you know plugged in 247 never turned off being mindful of all those things that you got running whether it's you know news feeds fetching constantly in the background social apps that are constantly fetching things in the background you know data that's being pushed up data that's being synchronized data that's being uploaded the more that you're running it's it's it adds up and I'm not saying it's like Bo all you have to do is exit out of this app and suddenly you get half your bandwidth back but you know in some cases you might get a and I don't mean this in a security sense but a bad actor you may get you know something that is sucking up bandwidth that you don't even realize is sucking up bandwidth because it's running some kind of troubleshooting or it's phoning home or it's doing something that you're not monitoring necessarily because that's not that's not your responsibility or someone would argue well it should be you know you got to pay attention to what you put on the system most people won't so I find that when people ask like what are you running on your desktop like uh I got a web browser uh and you know that's it I keep an eye on what's you know what's happening because I'm I'm very mindful not because in the context of what might be siphoning off bandwidth but just mindful of the resources that I happen to be using you think of like electronic devices around your house it's been recommended that if you're not going to use a device over a period of time to unplug it because there's there's something I think the terminology and I'm far from an electrician phantom power like the Phantom draw the electricity that's taken even if you're not actively using it and I'm not saying that there are Phantom apps that exist but certainly the less you run on your system that might be taking up bandwidth or tapping bandwidth in ways that you're not measuring the better off you are because the app that's not not running isn't going to be tapping bandwidth it's not going to be tapping system resources for one and two it's not going to be tapping bandwidth so if you don't need to run it I get it you've got the top end system you've upgraded CPU GPU Etc but you still got to be mindful that your bottleneck potentially being your bandwidth and all it takes is one errand app doing something wacky and and you're effectively a host so I minimize what I'm running on any computer and I use that term not as Loosely computer would be like a laptop a desktop something where you're you're you're multitasking between applications less about the tablet less about a media device connected to your tv less about those smaller things but that leads me into those smaller things that are on on the network I minimize what's connected and when like we've got a guest room that we have and the old TV that was my first HTV that was sponsored by Microsoft at from The Tech conference that I ran Gom deck like so long ago it's a Panasonic Plasma TV 720p uh it it and it works it still works so well and in that room no one no one ever really uses you know entertainment even though it was the entertainment room in the house but we've got a media box that's connected to it like it was an Apple TV but I was having problems with it with the network I ended up swapping out for a Google TV with chomecast which I find to be a far more fluid experience these days and a far better TV experience than what Apple has been providing in their software I don't want to get into that right now that might be another top 10 list at some point in the future but when people aren't staying over that device is unplugged I don't need it on the network don't need it to run updates don't need it to run any don't just don't need it taking any packets away even if someone was to watch something 247 it wouldn't be taking up that much in terms of the bandwidth that I I might have wait a minute that much that much but it's that much more it's that much more of an issue with uh uh taking away something that could be used by or is wanting to be tapped by another device on the network so if it's not something that's actively used on on a very consistent basis it's gone or not eliminated entirely but it's unplug and because I have no problem it's like plug unplug plug it back in not that big of an issue some people would take as a matter of convenience keeping it plugged in but not me I believe I'm going to come back to that point and expand upon it but not quite yet another thing I do is I upgrade my equipment regularly and uh and whether that's the uh uh media boxes for example like handling better wi-fi standards Wireless standards you know for more efficient uh traffic um you know whether it's upgrading a router or an appliance on the networks that basically manages the network access points I'm still running at this stage however uh Wi-Fi 6 because it's this is kind of where you are even with custom building a PC like what's your bottleneck like if you upgrade your CPU but your GPU is still down here yeah things might work more efficiently in certain ways but you want to try to be in in parallel as much as possible without overspending so Wi-Fi 6 made a a bit of sense a year or two ago but most of the devices that we have some of them are still Wi-Fi 4 some Wi-Fi 5 and a lot of the more modern devices are now Wi-Fi 6 so going Wi-Fi 6E I've thought about it I'm like well that kind of makes sense to get into that Spectrum but a lot of our devices are still Wi-Fi 6 moreover Wi-Fi 7 is right around the corner in another maybe Year we're just now beginning to see Wi-Fi 7 devices you know creep out and I don't know when this video is going to get watched maybe Wi-Fi 7 Wi-Fi how can you live with that we're on Wi-Fi 22 trust me you laugh but a lot of the videos I recorded on YouTube are over a decade old like I'm talking about like before the first iPhone was released like that old talking about those Technologies you know I I realized that I would be spending not spending more than it would be worth I I it's on my radar as as as soon as the the appliance that I want is Wi-Fi 7 compatible I'll be upgrading to it it will not be the bottleneck on the network uh so I do uh I do pay attention to upgrades yeah firmware certainly but like Hardware that that might make things run more efficiently I even went down to uh upgrading I had C 6 uh cables uh on devices that were connected in a wired capacity we have wired networking in the house it was cat 5e it's an older house I'm glad to have that I had a problem with one of the cables cat 6 uh cable that I had connected to the access point or one of the access points in the house and this is actually something that I'm hoping to do another top 10 list on with someone who knows Network stuff SEO who hangs out in in the live stream um because we really you know went in deep about network cabling and and things to watch out for so stay tuned for that top 10 list at some point in the future but I decided that if I was going to change out or swap out one 6A or sorry 6 cable there's now 6A and I'm like all right well let me eliminate that as a potential future bottleneck so I'm always looking to upgrade equipment to stay ahead of the bottleneck that is you might say well how is that going to boost internet speed well if that cable is a better cable that drops fewer packets that boosts your internet speed it adds up it's iterative is this something that's going to get you 100 megabits like that no but it's something that you've just you've got to consider the quality of the hardware that you're using on the network uh and and part of that is the network infrastructure so I'm always upgrading the equipment like uh the the infrastructure as well as you know constantly Dev you know Standalone devices or devices that I might happen to use on a regular basis like the the media devices connected to a TV or or you know smartphones or tabletshere here I am thinking how can I make Google Chrome faster and y'all are gaming and all the 1080P and I'm like I mean I do have you know things that I do on the desktop I do crunch video I do so having a faster processor makes sense for me less on the gaming front because I mean how fast can you run Tetris but uh the web browsing and and there is an impact there it was shown years ago that getting you know faster memory or faster CPU actually can impact your web browsing because it it does render faster whether you're talking Javas script or just page loading in general like things happen faster so as as as silly as that might sound my killer app is basically the web browser I know that's crazy the desktop for me is is is the killer app and I know I'm I'm I'm I don't fit in with all you Gamers but at least you fps to the desktop I'm more than that D I'm pushing like 144 but all the more reason that we we did what we did or decided to do uh with the the live stream on on Twitch the 24/7 stream anybody can join much like this podcast anybody can join and stream them playing video games or doing something like 3D printing or just hang out in general it's a it's it's a 247 geek out on Twitch but yeah you could right now actually I mean because we're just recording the podcast separately but we've got queso playing he's still doing his Star Wars Galaxies Mike's doing some retro game infas sword is playing a VR Farming Simulator people are playing video games together on the screen at the same time it's it's a thing so I'm not passing Judgment at all but yeah thank you uh uh Glendon for for laying that out in a a very cohesive uh capacity sure thank you uh so that that leaves me and you know I I realize that timing may be a bit off for everybody I certainly I'm I'm grateful that we've had so much to share in just one broadcast uh we'll work our way through refining I'm not sure if we're going to go much Beyond uh the tips I'm going to lay out you may have some ideas of of what what else you might want to talk about unless it's bedtime for everybody not for me I'm I'm West Coast the best coast but I thought I'd break down how to boost internet speeds which is you know much like everything else you're always looking to optimize there's always some kind of bottleneck that you just don't realize is happening there is some amount of crossover with how and what toxic laid out and maybe not in as much in in a technical capacity but I I heard him touch upon a couple of the items that I don't think many people consider I'll begin with a very simple thing that you may not think about maybe you do when it comes to my primary computer the system that I'm using a desktop which is a laptop that's basically being used as a desktop right I don't have a billion apps running can I handle a billion apps it's a bit egregious but can I handle more than one app at a time absolutely but everything that I'm running is inevitably well maybe not everything but many of the things that I might run are using the internet they're using the connection on my system and and it's a little bit of data here a little bit of data there and so what I have done to better be able to boost my internet speeds is be very very mindful very careful about what I'm running on my system this would be something that I would apply to any particular uh device that is capable of multitasking on the network maybe less so with smartphones which are a bit more efficient with data if only because of battery life but when you're talking about desktops which are you know plugged in 247 never turned off being mindful of all those things that you got running whether it's you know news feeds fetching constantly in the background social apps that are constantly fetching things in the background you know data that's being pushed up data that's being synchronized data that's being uploaded the more that you're running it's it's it adds up and I'm not saying it's like Bo all you have to do is exit out of this app and suddenly you get half your bandwidth back but you know in some cases you might get a and I don't mean this in a security sense but a bad actor you may get you know something that is sucking up bandwidth that you don't even realize is sucking up bandwidth because it's running some kind of troubleshooting or it's phoning home or it's doing something that you're not monitoring necessarily because that's not that's not your responsibility or someone would argue well it should be you know you got to pay attention to what you put on the system most people won't so I find that when people ask like what are you running on your desktop like uh I got a web browser uh and you know that's it I keep an eye on what's you know what's happening because I'm I'm very mindful not because in the context of what might be siphoning off bandwidth but just mindful of the resources that I happen to be using you think of like electronic devices around your house it's been recommended that if you're not going to use a device over a period of time to unplug it because there's there's something I think the terminology and I'm far from an electrician phantom power like the Phantom draw the electricity that's taken even if you're not actively using it and I'm not saying that there are Phantom apps that exist but certainly the less you run on your system that might be taking up bandwidth or tapping bandwidth in ways that you're not measuring the better off you are because the app that's not not running isn't going to be tapping bandwidth it's not going to be tapping system resources for one and two it's not going to be tapping bandwidth so if you don't need to run it I get it you've got the top end system you've upgraded CPU GPU Etc but you still got to be mindful that your bottleneck potentially being your bandwidth and all it takes is one errand app doing something wacky and and you're effectively a host so I minimize what I'm running on any computer and I use that term not as Loosely computer would be like a laptop a desktop something where you're you're you're multitasking between applications less about the tablet less about a media device connected to your tv less about those smaller things but that leads me into those smaller things that are on on the network I minimize what's connected and when like we've got a guest room that we have and the old TV that was my first HTV that was sponsored by Microsoft at from The Tech conference that I ran Gom deck like so long ago it's a Panasonic Plasma TV 720p uh it it and it works it still works so well and in that room no one no one ever really uses you know entertainment even though it was the entertainment room in the house but we've got a media box that's connected to it like it was an Apple TV but I was having problems with it with the network I ended up swapping out for a Google TV with chomecast which I find to be a far more fluid experience these days and a far better TV experience than what Apple has been providing in their software I don't want to get into that right now that might be another top 10 list at some point in the future but when people aren't staying over that device is unplugged I don't need it on the network don't need it to run updates don't need it to run any don't just don't need it taking any packets away even if someone was to watch something 247 it wouldn't be taking up that much in terms of the bandwidth that I I might have wait a minute that much that much but it's that much more it's that much more of an issue with uh uh taking away something that could be used by or is wanting to be tapped by another device on the network so if it's not something that's actively used on on a very consistent basis it's gone or not eliminated entirely but it's unplug and because I have no problem it's like plug unplug plug it back in not that big of an issue some people would take as a matter of convenience keeping it plugged in but not me I believe I'm going to come back to that point and expand upon it but not quite yet another thing I do is I upgrade my equipment regularly and uh and whether that's the uh uh media boxes for example like handling better wi-fi standards Wireless standards you know for more efficient uh traffic um you know whether it's upgrading a router or an appliance on the networks that basically manages the network access points I'm still running at this stage however uh Wi-Fi 6 because it's this is kind of where you are even with custom building a PC like what's your bottleneck like if you upgrade your CPU but your GPU is still down here yeah things might work more efficiently in certain ways but you want to try to be in in parallel as much as possible without overspending so Wi-Fi 6 made a a bit of sense a year or two ago but most of the devices that we have some of them are still Wi-Fi 4 some Wi-Fi 5 and a lot of the more modern devices are now Wi-Fi 6 so going Wi-Fi 6E I've thought about it I'm like well that kind of makes sense to get into that Spectrum but a lot of our devices are still Wi-Fi 6 moreover Wi-Fi 7 is right around the corner in another maybe Year we're just now beginning to see Wi-Fi 7 devices you know creep out and I don't know when this video is going to get watched maybe Wi-Fi 7 Wi-Fi how can you live with that we're on Wi-Fi 22 trust me you laugh but a lot of the videos I recorded on YouTube are over a decade old like I'm talking about like before the first iPhone was released like that old talking about those Technologies you know I I realized that I would be spending not spending more than it would be worth I I it's on my radar as as as soon as the the appliance that I want is Wi-Fi 7 compatible I'll be upgrading to it it will not be the bottleneck on the network uh so I do uh I do pay attention to upgrades yeah firmware certainly but like Hardware that that might make things run more efficiently I even went down to uh upgrading I had C 6 uh cables uh on devices that were connected in a wired capacity we have wired networking in the house it was cat 5e it's an older house I'm glad to have that I had a problem with one of the cables cat 6 uh cable that I had connected to the access point or one of the access points in the house and this is actually something that I'm hoping to do another top 10 list on with someone who knows Network stuff SEO who hangs out in in the live stream um because we really you know went in deep about network cabling and and things to watch out for so stay tuned for that top 10 list at some point in the future but I decided that if I was going to change out or swap out one 6A or sorry 6 cable there's now 6A and I'm like all right well let me eliminate that as a potential future bottleneck so I'm always looking to upgrade equipment to stay ahead of the bottleneck that is you might say well how is that going to boost internet speed well if that cable is a better cable that drops fewer packets that boosts your internet speed it adds up it's iterative is this something that's going to get you 100 megabits like that no but it's something that you've just you've got to consider the quality of the hardware that you're using on the network uh and and part of that is the network infrastructure so I'm always upgrading the equipment like uh the the infrastructure as well as you know constantly Dev you know Standalone devices or devices that I might happen to use on a regular basis like the the media devices connected to a TV or or you know smartphones or tablets\n"