There are several reasons as to why you might experience slow internet. First of which is the infamous low bandwidth connection. If you have signed up with an internet plan that supplies less bandwidth than what you require, you would suffer from slow internet. As such, your first step to counter slow speed should be to evaluate your bandwidth requirements and then sign up with the best-suited plan. Here, what you can do is contact your existing or a preferred internet provider and discuss your online activities to find the relevant plans. Another thing can be to research on your own, which can be more useful as you would be able to explore the internet plans of many companies. A provider that has always been one of our favorites is Spectrum as it offers more than 100 Mbps of internet speeds with unlimited data allowance in all of its plans; what’s more, is that it provides customers with a complimentary modem and security suite as well. You can click here to find out more about its internet plans. Likewise, you can search about other providers as well.
Once you have high-speed internet, there might still be times when you will experience slow internet. This happens due to various reasons and there are ways to combat the causes as well. In this article, we will explore the reasons why your superfast internet can be sluggish sometimes and what can be done in order to reorder it.
Factors that can slow down your high-speed internet connection
Some of the reasons that can affect your internet speed are discussed in this section:
- Your router might not be up-to-date. Older routers do not have the right functionality for the high-speed internet of today and so they cannot supply superfast speeds. If you have been using the same old router for years now, this might just be the time to buy a new and advanced one.
- For people using a DSL connection, the internet may get slowed down when they are far from the internet provider’s hub. The more closer you are, the better your signals get.
- People living in large households often experience poor speeds due to the fact that all members of the family use the internet while the bandwidth capacity is not up to par.
- Network congestion is another reason. During peak hours when most people in your area are using the internet, your ISP might throttle your internet speed to provide everyone some bandwidth.
Things you can do to fix the problem
1. Take a speed test
Go to any speed test website and find out the amount of internet speed that you are getting. Make sure to test your connection through a laptop or desktop computer plugged directly into your modem or router. Testing the speed with Wi-Fi might not be the best option as Wi-Fi is the reason for latency in most cases.
Furthermore, you need to make sure that no one is using the connection for streaming, gaming, file sharing, or downloading at the time of the speed test. These activities eat up a major chunk of your bandwidth and to get definite results, you do not want these to mess around.
2. Check your Data Cap
Does your internet plan come with a data cap? To find out, you can check your service contract or monthly bill. If yes, then that might be the reason for the slow internet.
Some internet providers charge overages for all the data used after reaching the set cap, however, some providers throttle your internet when you are going to reach the limit and that goes on till the month-end. On such an account, you experience poor connection.
If you have been crossing your data cap or only experience slow internet by the month-end, it is time for you to reevaluate your internet requirements and upgrade your package.
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Retune your Router
Your router might be performing poorly because of being exhausted. It is normal and all you need to do is reset it. This resetting will be able to improve the performance and capability of the router in just thirty seconds.
Make sure to reboot your router at least once every month.
The last word
If nothing else works, you should contact your internet provider and discuss your issue. The ISP will be able to point the problem in a better way – if it troubleshoots and the issue gets solved, it was a backend problem. However, if the issue persists, your hardware might be the reason for sluggish speeds. In any case, it is vital to recognize the issue because only then you will be able to get to the solution part.
