Working from home. Streaming TV shows and movies. Remote schooling. Zooming with friends, family, and coworkers. The Internet is certainly playing a large role in helping us stay connected while we stay home. So you’ll want your Internet to work fast.
Given the demands you and everyone else is placing on connectivity, speed may become an issue. Here are some tips to help you pin down and solve any connectivity and speed issues.
- Know how fast your Internet should be. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) most likely also your cable provider such as Comcast or AT&T, can tell you how fast the Internet should be coming into your house. That speed may also be on your bill. Please note that the speed may be “up to” and heavy use of the Internet in your immediate area could be slowing things down for everybody.
- Check the speed through a site like Speedtest.net. Before you perform the test, stop any downloads, uploads, streaming or other heavy Internet activity. If the speed matches what you are supposed to get, and you are unhappy with it, you may need to upgrade to a plan that provides faster speeds. Or if your plan provides the fastest speed available, you may need to live with it or consider switching providers.
- Contact your ISP to make sure the problem is not on its end.
- Check the speed on all your devices. If loading times on all devices but one are fine, the problem may be with the device.
- Reboot your modem or router, or your combined modem/router. Just unplug each of them, wait a few minutes, and plug them back again. Sounds simplistic, but it could solve the problem.
- Try limiting the number of devices accessing the Internet at one time. If multiple devices are accessing the Internet – particularly streaming or downloading – that could be compromising speed.
- Move your device closer to the modem/router. Distance does play a role. Sometimes moving closer to the modem/router will improve connectivity and speed.
- Try hard wiring to the modem or router instead of using Wi-Fi. This should improve times. If you cannot do it yourself, contact an electrician.
- As a last resort, if you are still unhappy, contact an electrician or other knowledgeable person to assess what you can do to increase speed and improve connectivity. It could be an equipment issue, but it could also be how all your devices (including your TVs) are configured with your ISP.
