When I am home, I hardly use Wi-Fi for my MacBook Pro. This is because I believe wired connection is faster and safer.

However, my new MacBook Air (11") has no port for the internet cable! I tried to download the Office 365, and failed again and again. Finally, I used speedtest to test the Wi-Fi speeds, and found they were horrible! The downloading speed was only about 4 Mbps! I pay for 20 Mbps downloading speed monthly, and I felt I was ripped off by Hawaiian Tel.! So, I called.

Monday was not a good day to call for service. I waited and waited; finally a human voice came online. He was very friendly, and patiently guided me through some tests. I learned that I need to pick a server to do speedtest on my cell, which I didn't know. Since I am a Hawaiian Tel. user, I should use its server for the test. (The software would pick any server for speedtest.)

I was also told to turn off all other devices, to get a more accurate read of the test results. Finally, he told me to turn off the router, wait for 10 seconds, and turn it on again. He explained to me that many users may be sharing the same channel at the same time. By turning the router off and on, it will try to pick a better channel! That was very nice of him explaining this to me. (My son used to turn the router off and on, when he felt it was too slow. So, I passed on the "theory" behind what he did.)

I felt that the service person was really smart by walking me through this process. This way, I may not need to call again when I see slow Wi-Fi speed, and would save me 29 mins as well.