Dealing with lousy internet speed is the worst nightmare one can go throughtoday. A wonky internet connection won’t let you conduct Zoom meetings, stream online, download files, or even browse the internet for typical tasks, such as sending emails or listening to music. Everything today relies on the internet, which means that lousy internet speed won’t help.
Subscribing to phone and internet bundles has never been easier, but the problems and issues that arise later don’t help at all.None of us wants to be in a position where it becomes impossible to tolerate a slow internet connection. However, if you are dealing with terrible internet speeds, going through this article will help. We have researched and rounded up the best ways to resolve such issues within no time.
Give this article a read till the end and quickly boost your internet speed. Without any further ado, let us walk you through the best steps that will help fix your lousy internet connection right away.
Test Your Current Internet Speed
It’s not part of the five steps, but we recommend it before you proceed. It is crucial to know what your current internet speeds are. They will help you understand how much internet speed you should get to indulge in various online activities flawlessly. Additionally, an online internet speed test also comes in handy to help you compare your current speeds with the speeds that your internet plan offers.
If your current speeds are less than your internet plan offers, you should contact your internet service provider and take it up with them. Moreover, the speed test results will be your baseline, which means that after every step we mentioned below, you can repeat the test and see if your speeds are increased.
However, if your current internet speeds match with what your internet plan offers, you may have connected multiple devices to your router. Each internet plan is capable of serving only a particular number of devices. For instance, if your current internet connection can only cater to 5-6 devices, connecting more devices than these will make the internet quite sluggish.
5 Ways to Boost Your Internet Speed
Let us put our tech hats on and boost the internet speed.
Reboot Your Router and Place It in the Center
Start things off with the oldest trick in every IT handbook, the on-and-off technique. Are you experiencing slow internet speed? Try switching your router off and on, as it usually works. You can turn it off by long pressing the power button, which is generally located at the back. After it is turned off, unplug it from the power source and then plug it in again after a good 30 seconds wait.
Long press the power button again and see if it helps. Doing this clears the cache in the router, which subsequently boosts its performance. Ensure you don’t end up resetting your router, as we are not after that. However, if rebooting the router does not help, see where it is placed in your house.
A router sends signals in all directions, so keeping it in the corner of your house won’t help much. The ideal place for the router is to be at the center of your home, somewhere at a high place. Ensure there is plentyof free space around it with minimum or no obstruction to receive top-edge internet signals all over the home.
Check Your Internet Cable
Accidentally stepping on a cable and getting it mangled has taught us that those things are not so durable. Similarly, it is no exception with internet cables. For consistent online performance, it is imperative that the cable integrity is top-notch. This is why, if you experience a drop in your speeds, check your internet cables for any bends, tears, and punctures.
You should be extra careful if you have small kids and pets at home. The best thing to do is to keep internet cables out of their reach. Also, you must check your internet cables if they are outside your house, as wild animals can make things worse.
Contact your internet service provider and ask to have your cables replaced if they are damaged for any reason. However, if you have underground internet cables, getting them fixed will be out of your hands. Such cables are at the mercy of sharks and other fish, and if they are on dry land, construction, and heavy rain can cause them damage.
Get an Ethernet Cable
Wi-Fi is all fun and games unless you live in a big house which can cause the signals to distort. A Wi-Fi router can only send signals within a particular range, and if any of the rooms in the house is just at the edge or outside of the said range, the signals will be lousy.
You can deal with it by using Ethernet cables. If you have devices like computers, smart TVs, and laptops in your home, you can connect them to the internet through Ethernet cables. This way, you will use the internet with flawless speed and minimum to no interruptions.
Unlike Wi-Fi, Ethernet cables have zero over-the-air resistance, which causes it to provide a smooth online experience. You can connect all devices with an Ethernet cable port with cable wires and rest with Wi-Fi to balance things. However, if you want devices with no Ethernet jack to be connected with Ethernet wires, we recommend you find adapters compatible with USB-C and simple USB ports.
You will feel an evident boost in your internet speed, making online browsing relatively smooth for you. Be it Zoom meetings, video streaming, online games, or anything; you will be unstoppable. Check out these Metronet packages and get started with the one that suits you the best.
Get Wi-Fi Extenders
Have you heard of Wi-Fi extenders? These nifty devices help youincrease your Wi-Fi range so you receive strong signals all over the home. Mostly, such devices are used in big houses since people living there often complain of lousy signals, especially in the rooms on the first story.
Unless you plan to pile up all your devices in the room next to the Wi-Fi router and use them, get Wi-Fi extenders to boost your online performance. Such devices will enable you to have fast internet speed in all the poor-coverage rooms. You may even get double the speed of what you were previously getting.
It is important to buy Wi-Fi extenders that are compatible with your router specifications. Note that Wi-Fi extenders do not increase the speed of your router or help you bypass ISP throttling. It creates another network in areas with poor coverage or signals.
Wi-Fi extenders work by adding another network. This way, you can connect to such a network as simply as you connect to any other Wi-Fi network. You can even set them to connect automatically if reconnecting and connecting seem to take a lot of time.
Block ISP Throttling
Sometimes the lousy internet speed you get is due to ISP throttling. What is ISP throttling? Throttling occurs when your internet service provider minimizes your bandwidth to deal with network congestion. This makes you experience slow internet speed, and it becomes hard to even indulge in basic online activities.
Internet throttling occurs mostly during rush hours. You start feeling that even the most basic online activities get hard to perform. There are various other reasons why your ISP throttles your internet speed. For instance, paid prioritization is one of the major reasons why you experience ISP throttling.
This is when a specific party pays the ISP to make its content available on the fastest lane. This way, people trying to visit that website will face no delay at all. However, if people try visiting the website, which is a competitor of the website that paid ISP for prioritization, they will notice slow speeds.
How can you know if your internet service provider is throttling your connection? The best way is to do an online speed test with and without a VPN. In total, you would have to perform two online speed tests that will help you know whether you are facing internet throttling or not.
It is recommended to perform the first test without a VPN and see if the speeds are the same that you had subscribed for. Now repeat the test, but this time usea VPN. Once you have your results, compare them and see which result shows more internet speed.
If you get more speed in a test with a VPN, your ISP is throttling your connection. A VPN hides your online activities from your ISP; this is why they can’t throttle your connection as they access what you do online.
Wrapping Up!
That’s all, folks. Now you know how to instantly boost your internet speed by the most straightforward methods. There is no need for you to be a tech giant to take things into your hand if the internet speed is slow. The aforementioned methods will help you get things sorted if you experienceslow internet speeds with ease.
Lastly, you must know that a reliable internet service provider plays a vital role in your internet speed. This is why subscribing to an ISP with credible services is a smart option. We recommend Kinetic Metronet as it has got the best customer reviews, which will help you make up your mind. Thanks to its fiber-backed internet, you won’t experience any buffering or lousy internet speeds.
