Why is broadband so slow in my area

If at all possible, you should avoid playing video games over Wi Fi. Even if you have a fairly good connection to your router, you can still experience a lot more lag than you would if you used a wired Ethernet connection.

Game consoles and PC applications such as Steam and Origin love to do background updates of games. Be sure to disable them if updates are causing issues. Why is my broadband slow? Measuring your internet speed and knowing how it compares to the speeds you pay for is an important part of diagnosing a slow connection. Run the Speed Test. Your modem and router work hard , and sometimes they need to refresh with a quick power cycle. Simply pull the plug on both units, wait 30 seconds, and then plug the modem back into the wall outlet.

Once it properly boots, do the same with the router. In the case of a wireless gateway, pull the plug, wait, and plug it back in. Draining both units of power allows them to cool down, clear the system memory, clear up any local communication issues, and reestablish fresh connections.

Overall, a power cycle can really give your internet speeds a boost on your side of the modem. Many people hide their routers or wireless gateways in closets, behind furniture , or down in basement s. Instead , put as few physical barriers between your router and your devices as possible.

Walls, floors, ceilings , doors, large furniture, and similar obstructions can barricade your Wi-Fi signals and reduce connection speeds , especially over longer distances.

Certain signals from other devices can also interfere with your wireless speeds. These include microwaves, Bluetooth speakers, baby monitors, and cordless phones.

For the best Wi-Fi coverage, place your router in a central location, or at a location where you use Wi-Fi the most, like in a home office. For instance, if the antennas are positioned vertically, the Wi-Fi signals broadcast horizontally in all directions. That said, if you live in a one-story house, keep the antennas vertical. If you live in a multistory house, positional at least one antenna horizontally so the Wi-Fi signals reach the additional floors. The early morning hours are ideal when everyone is asleep and no other downloads currently hog your bandwidth.

Game updates, meanwhile, typically require you to manually start the download. You may need a faster plan if more people live with you now, if you transitioned to working from home, or if you generally use the internet more than you did before.

Generally, home networks consist of the modem, router, computers, tablets, smartphones, and all other devices that connect to the internet. No one network is the same , but they all share some common problems that can reduce your speeds. Think of your internet connection like a road directly to your house. If there are three cars trying to get there, they have to line up to get to your house. And if more cars arrive as the others are waiting to reach your house, the line and the delays get longer.

The easiest way to get more bandwidth is by upgrading to a faster internet plan that can keep up with your household. We recommend checking out one of the fastest internet providers in the US. If you need help figuring out how much bandwidth you need to prevent traffic jams, check out our How Much Speed Do You Need tool. Nearly all routers have a quality of service or QoS component that allows you to control how your network prioritizes certain types of data.

That way, you can make sure your streaming data always gets first access to available bandwidth for smooth playback. There may be some devices connected to your network that you rarely use—if at all. For example, you bought a new laptop, but the old one still idles and connects to the network. Another method is to change the Wi-Fi password, but that only applies to wireless devices.

Once you do , you must manually reconnect every device that accesses your wireless network. Some routers or wireless gateways also have a handy companion app that lets you see everything on your network without loading a browser. That way you can identify and remove devices that no longer need access to your network. A guest network allows you to limit how much bandwidth guests can use, and what services and websites they can access.

Our guide on how to set up guest Wi-Fi covers a few different ways to establish a second network. There are two types of external network congestion that can reduce your internet speeds. First, you may experience slowdowns from general internet traffic jams that can form around the hops between you and the destination.

Moreover, a website may be under a DDoS attack which essentially floods its host server with fake traffic, slowing access to a crawl. Second, cable internet subscribers may suffer slowdowns during peak times when they and everyone else in the neighborhood are active online at the same time. In this instance, you and all your neighbors compete for the same bandwidth.

If the congestion gets particularly bad, your internet provider may throttle internet speeds in your area to reduce traffic for the network. But there are a few tricks to circumventing the issue. Try to schedule game and media downloads during off-peak hours, like in the middle of the night. The bandwidth you're paying for is actually a measure of capacity. More bandwidth won't necessarily make websites load faster or make streaming videos look better.

The reason to have more bandwidth is actually so you can access more content at one time - like adding another lane on the interstate. There are still the same number of cars but the roads are much less congested and that means everyone can get where they need to go more quickly. So are you getting all the bandwidth you're paying for?

Maybe yes, maybe no. Even if you haven't noticed a slowdown, a lot of what you'll read below can still be useful. There are so many reasons you may be noticing latency in your connection. As noted above, advertised speeds are optimistic and the fault may indeed lie with your Internet service provider. That said, your broadband internet provider may be delivering the advertised bandwidth but there's something happening to the signal before it reaches your home or your device that's slowing things down.

Here are some factors that can cause a broadband slowdown:. Your hardware isn't up to date. An older router can slow your signal down, and so can a badly configured WIFi connection. If you've been waiting to upgrade your hardware, you may be surprised at how much faster your connection is after you do.

You are far from your ISP's hub. If you use DSL, the speed of your connection will decrease the further you are from your broadband provider hardware. That means city dwellers typically get more bandwidth than folks in the country by default.

Your household has too many people using too little bandwidth. Maybe you purchased your plan back when you didn't have kids with access to Netflix. If you live in a multi-person household, you need all the bandwidth you can get.

There's congestion in the network. Like it or not, you share your bandwidth with the other customers who use your ISP and during peak hours, you're competing for the available bandwidth. There's background throttling going on. Some broadband internet providers slow down certain types of traffic e.

There are server issues between you and the connection. Your download speeds will also depend on the condition of servers you're downloading from, along with performance of the routers in between them. Every webpage you view is first downloaded to memory and then saved to temporary disk files. Running another program that's using lots of memory and computing power can compete with Internet Explorer and cause delays.

If you find your Internet connection running slowly and you have other programs running, try closing them. If you want to run several programs, consider increasing the memory you have on your computer. Low disk space can also cause performance problems. You can increase your disk space by deleting Internet Explorer's temporary files. Occasionally, settings get changed in Internet Explorer that could possibly affect how Internet Explorer works. You can reset Internet Explorer to its default settings.

Resetting Internet Explorer isn't reversible, so you should read the list of settings that are affected before resetting. Unfortunately, there are events and conditions that are outside your control. Even with a fast connection, external factors, such as busy websites or spreading computer viruses, can slow the entire web. Popular websites can become overwhelmed with users. For example, when a television commercial mentions a website, many people might try to visit the site at the same time.

If the website isn't prepared to handle the traffic, you might encounter delays. During times of heavy computer virus outbreaks, the Internet can slow down. Many viruses spread by causing computers to send out hundreds or thousands of copies of the virus. This can slow the Internet by sheer volume. You can see what major outbreaks are currently happening by visiting your antivirus vendor's website, or the Security at Home website.

Local Internet congestion can also result in slower-than-normal connection speeds. These slowdowns occur when many people try to connect to the Internet at the same time, and they occur most often at peak activity times, such as after school hours when students get home and connect to the web. If you're on a corporate network, general network and proxy server use can affect your Internet performance. Most network administrators monitor Internet use, and will try to keep people from doing things like downloading large files during peak hours.

If you find that your Internet access is slow at times, you might discuss it with your network administrator.