Hiding a Wi-Fi router in a cabinet or placing it at one end of the house can weaken coverage, because walls, distance, and nearby electronics can reduce or interfere with the signal before it reaches your devices

You're mid-Zoom call, or one round away from finally winning the game, and there it is again: the spinning wheel of doom. If your video call is freezing but your Wi-Fi bars look full, the problem is probably not your internet plan. It's where you've stashed the router. According to the Federal Communications Commission's home network guide, where you place your router can affect how much of the speed you’re paying for actually reaches your laptop, phone, or smart TV. For millions of Americans who have built their work-from-home routine, remote schooling, and streaming habits around Wi-Fi, that little box tucked behind the couch may be the real culprit, not your provider or your data plan.

Why hiding your router in a cabinet backfires
It's tempting to tuck the router away into a cabinet, closet, or corner out of your living room décor. But routers send signals in all directions, and enclosing them changes how well that signal propagates through the house. The Wi-Fi guidance from Ofcom, the UK's communications regulator, says routers should be positioned in a central and open position, not on the floor, for example, on a shelf, so the signal is not lost by being broadcast out into a wall or downwards into the ground.

What your walls are actually doing to your signal
Not all obstacles are the same. A 1997 report by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology measured how much Wi-Fi-range signal various building materials absorbed. The researchers tested brick, masonry block, eight concrete mixes, glass, plywood, lumber, drywall, reinforced concrete, and steel reinforcing-bar grids, along with water-soaked wood and composite specimens. They mounted each sample in a 2-metre spread-spectrum test range with an RF isolation barrier and measured power loss at 2 MHz intervals from 0.5 to 2 GHz and from 3 to 8 GHz.


So a router sitting in a simple wooden cabinet is usually fine, but one tucked away near concrete, brick, or buried in a basement has a much bigger uphill battle before the signal even gets to your room.

Why the far end of the house is basically a dead zone
In a typical American house, distances add up quickly, particularly when you consider the framing, insulation, and multiple interior walls between rooms. That same FCC guide suggests positioning your router in a central area of the home to maximize Wi-Fi coverage to every room. This way, the signal has less distance to travel through and fewer walls to pass through in any one direction. That’s why a router located at one end of a long house or apartment often leaves the bedroom at the other end suffering, even if the living room right next door works like a charm.

Your microwave and baby monitor might be part of the problem
It's not just walls. The same Ofcom guidance also says that everyday devices such as microwave ovens, baby monitors and cordless phones can interfere with a router's signal, so it's worth keeping the router away from these. That’s consistent with the FCC’s own statement that most routers broadcast on the 2.4 GHz band, which is the same frequency many household devices use, creating more competition for your Wi-Fi signal, according to the FCC guide.

Simple fixes before you blame your internet provider
The good news is that most of this can be fixed without having to spend money on a new plan or new equipment. A wired connection completely avoids the interference problem, so a direct Ethernet cable between your router and a device like a desktop or gaming console will give you the highest speeds and reduce Wi-Fi congestion, according to the FCC guide. The same guide says that for larger houses, a Wi-Fi range extender or mesh network can improve the signal strength around the house; this is also a point supported by Ofcom's guidance, which notes that mesh systems improve coverage but do not reduce the performance of the broadband connection itself.

The bottom line for your next Zoom call
Before you call your internet provider to complain about slow speeds, take a look at where your router is actually located. Maybe the difference between a frozen screen and a smooth video call is moving it to a central, elevated spot, away from concrete walls and the microwave.

It’s a small change, but it adds up in a household where everyone is streaming or gaming or logging into work calls at the same time. Sometimes the biggest upgrade to your home Wi-Fi isn't a new router or a more expensive plan at all; it's just giving the one you've got a better seat in the house.