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.
Author - Rebecca Lee Armstrong. Rebecca Lee Armstrong has more than six years of experience writing about tech and the internet, with a specialty in hands-on testing. She started writing tech product and service reviews while finishing her BFA in creative writing at the University of Evansville and has found her niche writing about home networking, routers, and internet access at HighSpeedInternet. Cara Haynes has been editing and writing in the digital space for seven years, and she's edited all things internet for HighSpeedInternet.
When she's not editing, she makes tech accessible through her freelance writing for brands like Pluralsight. She believes no one should feel lost in internet land and that a good internet connection significantly extends your life span. Other factors that affect speed How to troubleshoot a slow connection Quick fixes Jump to : Why is your internet so slow? Why is your internet so slow? Pro tip : 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.
Use QoS settings Nearly all routers have a quality of service or QoS component that allows you to control how your network prioritizes certain types of data. Prune your internet connections There may be some devices connected to your network that you rarely use—if at all. Pro tip: Our guide on how to set up guest Wi-Fi covers a few different ways to establish a second network.
Problem: You exceeded your data cap Many internet providers have data caps, and some slow your speeds to a crawl after you hit that cap. Problem: You have high latency Latency is the time data takes to make a round trip from your device to the destination and back. Problem: You have slow or outdated devices The problem might not be with your internet connection—it might be with the device you use.
Problem: Your provider is throttling your connection Internet providers can throttle your speeds, causing a slow connection. Other factors that affect your speed. Your internet connection type There are a few different technologies internet providers use to deliver your connection, like cable, fiber, satellite, or DSL. How to troubleshoot a slow connection. Next, run a speed test and compare Running a series of speed tests while connected to different points in your network can help you figure out where your speeds are slowing down.
Check for Wi-Fi dead zones Wi-Fi problems can stem from multiple factors. Quick fixes for slow internet speeds and why they work. Fix 1: Power cycle your modem and router or wireless gateway Your modem and router work hard , and sometimes they need to refresh with a quick power cycle. Fix 2: Move your router to another location Many people hide their routers or wireless gateways in closets, behind furniture , or down in basement s.
Fix 4: Upgrade your internet plan 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.
Best Modems for Gigabit Internet Ethernet vs. Author - Rebecca Lee Armstrong Rebecca Lee Armstrong has more than six years of experience writing about tech and the internet, with a specialty in hands-on testing. We recommend running these tests on a PC or a laptop , connected to your router using a LAN cable too. Compare the results with your opted internet plan. If the speeds are lower than your internet plan, ask your ISP to rectify the issue. If your internet connection is faster over the LAN than over Wi-Fi, your router could be the problem.
Here are some fixes to solve your problem. Most of us place our routers in the corner of our room to avoid wire management. Ideally, a Wi-Fi router should be placed in the centre of your home, so signals can travel throughout your house.
Wi-Fi routers have a hard time penetrating signals through thick or tiled walls so placing them away from them should significantly improve the signal strength.
You can check the signal levels in different rooms and place your router accordingly for the best wireless network coverage. You have a well-placed Wi-Fi router and a faster internet connection, but are you still facing connection slowdowns? There are quite a few reasons you may have a bad Wi-Fi signal. This is a particularly common problem in denser urban areas—for example, if you live in an apartment complex with neighbors who have a bunch of wireless routers and other devices.
You could also just have a dead zone, something interfering with your Wi-Fi signal, or poor converage throughout your home. Consult our guide to speeding up your Wi-Fi and getting a better signal for more tips.
If you have a larger home or yard and need better Wi-FI coverage, consider getting a mesh Wi-Fi system that provides multiple base stations you can place around your home or property. Your Internet connection is shared by all the devices in your home, so other devices on your network could be saturating your Internet connection, slowing things down for everyone else. Stop or slow down some of those other downloads to speed things up.
If this is a particularly frequent problem, you may have to upgrade your internet package. However, you can also see if your router has a Quality of Service QoS feature , which will allow your router to automatically manage and assign how much bandwidth different devices and services receive. For example, it can automatically throttle BitTorrent bandwidth to avoid slowing down Netflix streams. If you have cable Internet and you have coaxial cable splitters on the line going to your cable modem, these could be degrading your signal strength and leading to slower Internet connection.
Splitters vary in quality, and a bad, cheap one could lower your signal strength much more than a higher quality one would. A large number of splitters could cause a problem, too. If you do have splitters on your cable line, try disconnecting them to troubleshoot your Internet connection. See how your Internet connection performs without any splitters on the line.
In some cases, switching DNS servers can help speed up your apparent connection speed if your default Internet service provider DNS servers are slow. Typically, your DNS servers are provided by your Internet service provider. For example, there may be a problem with the cable line running from your house to your ISP, or with some other equipment they have. In this case, you should call your Internet service provider and report the problem.
Browse All iPhone Articles Browse All Mac Articles Do I need one? Browse All Android Articles Browse All Smart Home Articles Customize the Taskbar in Windows The best Wi-Fi router Traditional routers act as a central hub to link you to your ISP service.
These routers manage traffic through one access point. Also: Mesh networking vs. In comparison, mesh networks are a more modern entrant on the market that create a web of nodes for internet access. Instead of every home device connecting to one router, these products include a hub and nodes that can be dotted around different areas of your home -- and devices will connect to the closest node to access the web.
If you are using traditional hardware, such as a default router provided by your ISP, you need to keep in mind that the further away you are, the higher the risk of connection problems, slow speeds, and dropouts. A simple solution is to move your router -- perhaps, closer to your home office -- or invest in a Wi-Fi extender to boost signal strength.
Objects, too, can impede connections between your devices and a router. If possible, try to keep clutter around your router to a minimum. Larger properties or home offices located in a garden or yard, however, may simply not be serviceable by one centralized internet hub. If this is the case, moving your router won't be enough, and it may be time to consider a mesh network instead.
On this note, both categories can provide reasonable speeds -- but mesh networks do tend to sacrifice some speed for improved connectivity. If you require direct, high-speed connections for streaming, gaming, and power-hungry work applications, an upgrade to your standard router is a worthwhile investment and will likely perform better than a mesh setup. The default router usually provided by an ISP simply might not cut increased bandwidth demand in today's homes.
There is also no point in signing up a high-speed internet plan if your old hardware cannot support it. So you also need to consider the age of your router if you are having trouble with slow speeds. Something that may be overlooked but could cause connectivity or speed issues is the wiring linking your router to a switch, phone jack, or PC. If you are suffering slow speeds, this may be because someone else is hijacking your internet subscription.
Routers usually come with a randomized password set as default and printed on a sticker on your router, but if you have changed your password to something weak, are using an insecure protocol, or have a Wi-Fi hotspot open, this could indicate that others are using your network without your consent. To lock your connection or change your password, head over to your router's configuration page in a browser. You will need to check your vendor's specific router address use -- which is usually something comparable to Wi-Fi channels facilitate the sending and receipt of data.
When you have too many connections, this may cause a bottleneck that slows down your broadband.
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