My WIFI connection drops or it's too slow!

When it comes to WIFI there are a variety of different factors to think about. However, it could be the simplest thing that can throw you off. Let's do some common troubleshooting tips and tricks in order to get you back on track. 

Downtown Works strives to create the best possible work environment and does it's best effort to maintain all systems up and running 24/7/365. Members must acknowledge that speed and performance are impacted by multiple factors, including but not limited to: network congestion, device type, device specifications, VPNs, wireless interference, and physical obstacles (such as walls, windows, doors).

• First things first, let's run a Speedtest and click here. This will directly connect your WIFI connection with our system and provide us great information. 
  • Some key things to note here.
    • Ping: this should be anywhere from 0-30ms.
    • Jitter: should be a low number.
    • Download: depending on the WIFI chip your device has speeds could reach up to 200mbps.
    • Upload: depending on the WIFI chip your device has speeds could reach up to 200mbps.
  • Upload and Download speeds should be very similar. Standard internet connections (like you receive in your home) are cable DSL. Downtown Works has a dedicated fiber line that provides internet access to upwards of 200+ users a day. A symmetrical connection means you are downloading as much as you are uploading. Speeds are almost 10x faster with Fiber internet.
  • Once you run the Speedtest please click on the COPY LINK button and submit a support ticket. If there is not link, we will not be able to help and troubleshoot. If you are seeing that all of the items in green above are accurate, it may be a device issue. We will outline the common troubleshooting steps below. 

My device works perfectly at home, but doesn't want to work here. What's the deal?

• This is a great question that we get asked often. To keep all of the technical stuff for another conversation, the modem/router and connection you have at your home is an entirely different structure to enterprise grade networking systems. We have some of the most advanced features and protections in place in order to provide our customers with the best and smoothest internet experience possible. 
• That being said, this should not have an effect on how your computer runs on our network. Although you may need to authenticate a different way then you do with your home network, your device will connect automatically once fully registered with our network. 
• Please be aware that we cannot necessarily troubleshoot individual computers as every computer is different and each has its own configuration. If there is not a network wide outage with various people having issues connecting to the network, it is most likely being caused by a faulty device. As much as you may not want to hear it, this could be the issue. Some devices are known to have extremely faulty WIFI chips and cards which cause connections for larger bandwidth allocations to not be able to be recognized, and some just completely give out. For example, Lenovo's are known for having bad WIFI cards. Downtown Works itself had a horrible experience when we had Lenovo's during the first year of operation. We swapped out the computers and have not had any issues since. 
• If you want to check out your WIFI card and what it can handle there are various ways to do this.
  • For MAC users: 
    • All Macbook Pro, Macbook Air, iMac computers (after 2010) are made with gigabit wifi cards. No need to worry, normally MAC users have no issues authenticating with the network. MAC users just need to accept the security certificate once when connecting. 
  • Chromebook Users:
    • Depending on the model of your Chromebook and the specifications of the hardware inside, you may experience slow speeds when running multiple programs as the GPU/CPU is not powerful enough to multitask. When submitting a support ticket, please include your model number and chromebook specifications to our support team.
    • For more tips and tricks to troubleshooting your WIFI connection please see this Google article and this article. You can check the status of our network here.
    • To ensure that it’s not a network issue causing the problem, try to run a speedtest on another device. If a second device shows a good internet speed while the opposite is happening on your Chromebook, the issue is with the Chromebook.
    • You can also run a more detailed test to check deeper problems in your network by using a Google extension called Chrome Connectivity Diagnostics. When used, this extension can provide a detailed breakdown of things that might be slowing your Chromebook down.