When To Use Wi-Fi vs. Cellular Networks

Using a cell phone network as an alternative to Wi-Fi home networks or hotspots works well in some situations. In particular, cell networks reach many places that Wi-Fi does not. When cellular is the only available option, the choice is clear. But what about situations when both are available?

• which service is cheaper? Wi-Fi hotspots sometimes charge hourly or daily fees, but if a person exceeds their bandwidth quota, added costs apply to cell services too
• which service is more reliable? While Wi-Fi might seem more reliable overall, if a person is near the edge of a hotspot's signal range, frequent disconnects can result. The reliability of cellular services can also depend greatly on provider on location
• which service is faster? Although Wi-Fi offers greater bandwidth, a heavily loaded hotspot may perform worse than a cellular link having less traffic contention
• all other things being equal, choosing Wi-Fi over cellular makes sense given the superior network bandwidth of Wi-Fi

Troubleshoot Network Games

Be prepared to encounter some technical glitches when setting up and playing online games.

1. Cannot connect to other players locally - PC games utilize a variety of port numbers to establish LAN connections. You may need to modify or temporarily disable network firewallsrunning on the PCs to unblock these connections. Additionally, check for loose cables, failed routers, and other home network problems not specific to games.

2. Cannot sign into the Internet gaming service - Online gaming services often require setting up an Internet subscription and sometimes paying a fee. Carefully follow the directions for setting up your online account and contact their technical support if necessary. Some routers are incompatible with online gaming services; you may need to adjust the router's configuration or replace it with a different model. Finally, if suddenly or occasionally you are unable to connect to the service provider, the service itself could be at fault rather than any problem with your network and Internet setup.

3. Game crashes - Sometimes while playing a network game, the screen will freeze and the PC or console will stop responding to controls. Reasons for this include

• overheating of the PC or console - move the system to a better ventilated location
• PC driver problems - ensure both graphics and audio device drivers for the PC are up to date, and try workarounds such as disabling sound or turning off advanced graphics options in the game settings
• game glitches - the game itself may suffer from technical issues ("bugs") - look on the game developer's Web site for official game patches to install, or search for unofficial workarounds published by other players online

4. Lag while playing - The term lag refers to sluggish response in game controls due to network issues. When lagging, your view of the game action falls behind that of other players, and the game may also occasionally freeze for short periods. Several different factors can contribute to this frustrating problem including

• high latency of your Internet connection - consider changing service providers
• excessive network traffic being generated by other on the home network (or on the Internet) - upgrade home network and/or Internet links to higher bandwidth
• slow PC - for PC gaming, consider upgrading components of your system including processors and memory (RAM) to match the recommended configurations for games you play
• slow game servers - for both PC and console gaming, the other systems beside yours being used to share or host games may be suffering from performance problems - these are generally outside your control
• unscrupulous players on the Internet using lag switches - avoid playing with these people

To determine whether your game is suffering from lag, use tools like ping on the PC or look for similar graphical indicators provided on game consoles.